Happy Father’s Day!
Mark Batterson nears the top of my list of favourite Christian authors. Best known for his best-selling book, The Circle Maker, Batterson wrote another legendary book where he calls guys everywhere to step up and Play The Man. By this, Batterson isn’t calling men to become chauvinistic toward women or brutes toward everyone else. Rather, he challenges us guys to live like men of God in a world becoming increasingly devoid of Godly manliness (Yes, there is such a thing. Just look at Jesus!).
If we are discerning viewers and not gullible consumers of everything the media sells us, we will agree, not all men today are emotionally-stunted, bumbling, disengaged boys; nor are they overbearing, brutish, abusive bullies. Just look around CLA. Rising up around us is an army of Godly men, faithful husbands, engaged fathers, and upright workers.
You will spot guys playing the man at Monday Night Men’s Group. There, a band of brothers are both ferocious about their faith and courageous about their friendships. They are laser-focused on learning God’s Word and living God’s way. Simply put, these guys have figured out how to play the man while spurring on other men. These men are heroes – infallible heroes? Who are we kidding? No, they heroes albeit with faults. But one thing they cannot be faulted in is their determination to play the man.
Men of CLA, God is calling you and me to play the man, but not just any man. God is calling us to play the God-Man, Jesus. When we choose to fully follow Jesus, we follow a Man who loved God mostly and everyone else intensely; we follow a Man who, since childhood and until his final breath, obeyed His parents and cared for His family; we follow a Man who respected the disrespected Samaritan woman and defended the condemned adulteress; we follow a Man who possessing the courage to confront villains and possessed the compassion to comfort victims; and when we choose to fully follow Jesus, we follow a Man who fully walked out His faith with other men. Jesus is in every way imaginable ‘a man’s Man.’ He is a Man worth following; and He is a Man worth emulating.
So, what do you say, guys? Will you play games with your faith and life, or will you too play the Man?
Rob Bedard
