Time for another round of macho masculinity! For today’s topic, I am introducing this Twitter post. I was going to write about each point in one blog, but that started turning into a very long post. I am really trying to work on my wordiness so I will be breaking this down into smaller chunks. So, for the rest of this blog, I want to say what I think of this tweet generally.
Men are happiest when they are:
• Making money • Building great things • Lifting weights consistently • Focused entirely on themselves • Surrounded by strong, like-minded men
With that, let us begin. The man who runs Masculine Peak (MP) has a list of things that he believes are the top five ways to make a man happy. As I am sure you can tell by now if you have read any of my blogs, I think that these are five of the worst ideas. These ultra-macho masculine men seem to focus on easily achievable goals that can make them feel good. They never push hard goals for men. They only want showy things that make them look good, feel good, and allow them to push people around.
Another point that I hate about these types of guys, is that they focus solely on themselves. They are some of the most selfish individuals that you will ever meet. They only help themselves, and they treat everyone else, especially women, like their personal objects to be used and then thrown away. They desire stuff, not people. They want power and control, and they will do anything to achieve it. They will also do anything to keep their power. they will hurt people, lie, cheat, and destroy.
To sum up my point quickly, they are children. I have very little, if any, respect for these types of men. In fact, they are not men. They are little boys. This is a point I am trying to make in my upcoming book, Warrior, Poet, Priest. Just because someone has reached the age of adulthood, 18 in America, that does not make them a man. These men are actually just adult children whining, crying, and throwing tantrums when they do not get their way.
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When it comes to work and women, they achieve lots of temporary success. They keep women for short periods until she either get tired of the crap or the abuse. As for work, these types of “men” can find lots of success, but that success is only financial. Financial success fades away quickly and leaves the owner feeling empty. That is why it leaves a bad taste in my mouth when “men” focus on fleeting earthly things as their main goals. Real men, godly men, focus on things that will last beyond them. Again, they focus on family, God, community, and a good reputation that will transcend their bodies.
I want to ensure with the words of Jesus. For some reason He can put thoughts into words much better than I can. Here is a statement that He said during His sermon on the mount.
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust[a] destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“14 Stand firm therefore, having belted your waist with truth.”
— Paul the Apostle (Ephesians 6:14a NASB)
First, we have the belt of truth. This is first because without truth everything else falls down. Just like civilian clothing, armor requires something to wrap it together. A belt is that something. Before we can put on something like righteousness, we have to have the truth. If we are deceived by life, Satan, or ourselves we are useless. A soldier who cannot keep his pants on or his breastplate fastened cannot fight.
As we enter the battlefield raging in our world we must first focus on truth. Truth is our foundation. It keeps us grounded on what is right or wrong. If we cannot decipher what is real or fake, true or false, we cannot protect those who are in need. Warriors are meant to be the shield for the defenseless. But if our eyes are blinded by deception than we will fall for any lie presented to us.
“Boys are being told they are worth nothing because they are male. Girls are being told they are nothing because womanhood is not really a thing.”
Warrior, Poet, Priest
Our modern world is presenting so many cruel lies that are hurting so many people. Boys are being told they are worth nothing because they are male. Girls are being told they are nothing because womanhood is not really a thing. Children are being told that they can twist their bodies into a number of things based on how they “feel.”
Teenagers are being pumped with medication because they are depressed, anxious, angry, frustrated, alone, bullied, and scared. They are surrounded by voices, external and internal, that tell them that their life is doomed and that they really aren’t worth much.
Young adults compound their teenage issues with adult issues. They have to get a job, go to school, fall in love, and find a place to live while still dealing with all of the issues they had before. Many young adults don’t even see the point in most of it because they think the world is burning or that the game is rigged against them. In some cases, they are right. This world is against them. Satan, the prince of this world, has done his best to make sure their lives are as hard as possible.
Young adults compound their teenage issues with adult issues. They have to get a job, go to school, fall in love, and find a place to live while still dealing with all of the issues they had before. Many young adults don’t even see the point in most of it because they think the world is burning or that the game is rigged against them. In some cases, they are right. This world is against them. Satan, the prince of this world, has done his best to make sure their lives are as hard as possible.
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On top of all these issues our world has to deal with racism, sexism, misogyny, misandry, political hatred, religious hate, and church hurt to name a few. If men of God turn from the truth, if we drop the belt, we let all of the pain mentioned above continue.
What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
I was going to say that this is an easy one for me, but I guess anyone who has watched something more than five times can quickly identify that movie/series. Now, I can take this question one of two ways. Either I can mention things that I have just accidentally seen numerous times throughout my life, or I can mention things that I purposefully watch on a constant rotation. I think I will go with the second.
So, here are my top five shows that I have, and always will, return to again and again.
The Office
Gilmore Girls
Parks and Rec.
New Girl
Any Lord of the Rings movie
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The Office will always be my wife’s and my show. We watched it together while dating, and we have binged that bad boy too many times to count. Some people have a song that sums up their relationship and that they heard during a key moment. We do not have a song, (we did joke for a moment that Jeffrey Bezos by Bo Burnham was our song, but while a fantastic song, it was just a joke) instead we have The Office. That is our show. It has been there for key moments of our relationship. It was there when we dated, it was there when we traveled across the country for two(ish) weeks, and it will be there for many more.
The rest of the shows/movies are just entertainment that we highly enjoy. Lord of the Rings will always be my favorite story (Except Ring of Power, that sucked). If I include how many times I have listened, read, and watched it I would probably be around two dozen times. Stories have always been an important part of mankind’s journey. We are story people, and I am glad that we still have good stories to share.
It is so reassuring knowing that I am secure in God’s hand. Nothing I can do will pry His hands open. Nothing I fail to do will cause Him to drop me. Such great news!
God does not need me, nor can I mess up His plans. God wants me even though I am broken and messed up. That is one of the most reassuring things I can ever hear. So often we think that we just messed up God’s plan. We think, “Oh man, I just messed up that interaction.” or we say, “What if I don’t say the right thing? What if that was their one chance at salvation?” I have great news for you. It is not up to us! God uses us in our blunders, our crappy moments, and our mistakes.
Moses, David, Abraham, Jacob, Peter, and Paul were all pretty messed up. They all made mistakes that probably made them think that God no longer wanted them. Moses, David, and Paul all killed people; Abraham and Jacob manipulated people to get their way; and Peter betrayed Jesus. God forgave them all and did amazing things through them.
Next time you are feeling like you are not worthy, or that you are too messed up, just remember that God likes to use the outcasts.
As a guy, I hear a lot of guy talk. I have listened to it my whole life. Some guy talk is childish but not damaging. Some guy talk, on the other hand, is disgusting. I won’t make the generalization and say that men have suddenly started acting misogynistic and that men did not behave this way before. It would be stupid of me to say that. As a historian, I have read enough history to know that men have always acted in “macho” ways since the fall.
What real men need to do is go to the Bible. Men bow before God. boys play with toys, women, and their egos.
Brandon foster
I am also not going to talk about “toxic” masculinity. This term has lost all meaning. It is now a general term inserted into any conversation to mean some ambiguous characteristic of men that the individual does not like. Instead, I want to discuss what I will call “machoism.” Machoism summarizes the traits that men exhibit that are crappy. They include, but are not limited to, extreme individualism, misogyny, laziness, looking down on “weak” men, etc.
To kick things off I found the tweet below which I think starts this conversation well.
This statement is false, misogynistic, and just stupid. These men make me so frustrated. They are so insecure about their masculinity that they have to crush everyone around them. They cannot stand on their own accomplishments, so they push down everyone else until they are standing tall. They are childish, weak, and mean.
Men do inherently care for those around them. Males do not. This is the second point that annoys me. To many males think that once they start growing hair they are “men.” To quote Dwight from the Office , that is “false.” Becoming a man is a process, and an achievement. Not all males are men. In fact, I would argue that most aren’t. They are boys in grown up bodies parading around deceiving as many people as possible into thinking that they are men.
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The man writing this tweet is obviously a boy. He thinks that men are superior to women. This is why he think that males, when they become rich, will automatically take care of their woman. I can’t count how many rich men treat the people around them like trash. The amount of movies depicting this very thing is staggering.
Not all women support their families when they become rich, but not all rich women think that they no longer need a man either. Both statements in this tweet are wrong. The fact that there are dozens, even hundreds of these accounts, makes me very frustrated. How much vile is being spewed by these boys?
What real men need to do is go to the Bible. Men bow before God. boys play with toys, women, and their egos.
The story of Jacob and Esau can be told in multiple different ways. Some might try to make the story about Esau by saying that he was a simple country boy who was manipulated by his mean brother and conniving mother.
Another group of people will focus on Jacob. This group will say that Jacob was only following what God has already decreed to his parents. God had said that Jacob would rule his brother, so wasn’t Jacob just following this by taking the birthright and blessing?
No. Jacob was following his own selfish desires, Rebekah, was following her own desires, and Esau was following his own desires. There are no good characters in this story. But there are two takeaways that we can leave with from this story.
The Jacob
A Jacob is someone who believes in God, but tries to follow God’s commands their way. While the desire might be on the right path, the way of doing it is wrong. God had told Isaac and Rebekah that Jacob would be the ruler of Esau. He did not tell them how He was going to do it. That was not necessary information for them. When we are told by God that He is going to do something, He is not telling us so that we can complete it on our own. He is telling us so that we know when it happens it was done by God. He is essentially calling His shot before He shoots. Jacob and his mother believed what God said, but they thought that they had to fulfill the prophesy on their own.
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This is the takeaway from Jacob: believe in God, and let God work. God does not need our help. When He says something will happen He does not need us to push it along. Every time we try to interpret how God is going to do something we get it wrong. Abraham had Ishmael, Jacob temporarily broke his family, and Israel selected Saul. Each time we force a prophesy we make things worse.
The Esau
Now we turn to the Esaus in life. While Jacob may have tried to push God’s plan along, he still believed and trusted in God. Esau, on the other hand, had little to no respect for God. He spat on his birthright showing that he had no desire to live his life for God. He wanted to live his life his way.
Esau shows us what life is like when we rebel against God. Though Jacob tried to force the blessing and Esau hated it, God was going to do what He wanted to do. He was going to bless Jacob when and how He wanted. Esau would become a nation of his own (the Edomites). But his nation would become lower than his brothers (the Israelites). Esau tried to kill Jacob, and Jacob stole the birthright. But neither action pushed, pulled, or changed God’s plan.
Conclusion
We are all either a Jacob or an Esau. We either believe and love God, but try to anticipate what God’s plans are, or we despise God and anything that He plans. Either way, God’s plans will always happen. We cannot change or stop anything that God says will happen.
For me, this is a reassuring concept. There are so many aspects of my life that I have no control over. Though I am a Jacob myself, God still loves me. I try to push things along because I am impatient and sinful, but Jesus has paid my debt. I am forgiven and loved no matter what. It is calming to know that God has control of those things. I can love, worship, and serve knowing that my savior is in my corner.
Meekness is a virtue that is defined as being humble, modest or having self-control. It also can be defined as having a calm temperament, not getting angry easily, and having self-control. We usually associate meekness in one of two ways. When someone is called meek in a positive way, they are meaning that the person is controlled or can show restraint. A calm person can also be called a meek person. Contrastingly, negative comments mean that a person is submissive or passive. Submissive passive people tend to be overlooked and useless to society.
Temperate people do not challenge the status- quo, they do not hold people accountable, and they do not love correctly.
there are those that believe meekness to be a quality necessary to be virtuous because it shows respect for others and their feelings. The definition of meekness is “the quality or state of being mild.” This means that it has to do with how you treat others and not necessarily how physically strong you are. This is a virtue that all people should have, but unfortunately, not everyone does.
It is fascinating to me that our definitions of meekness can come so close to the point, and yet still miss it. The definition of meekness stated that it is mild. But mildness means “amiably gentle or temperate in feeling or behavior toward others.” The problem with this definition is that it does not match what Christians are called to be. We are not to be temperate toward others.
Temperate people do not challenge the status- quo, they do not hold people accountable, and they do not love correctly.
The world’s definition of love is more akin to kindness. Kindness does its best to not hurt anyone or anything. This is why kind people do not encourage people to grow, because doing so might make a person feel upset, sad, or depressed. Kindness does not speak the truth to a person because speaking the truth to a person can make them angry or frustrated. Temperate people try to keep the status-quo. Christians are not called to be temperate.
I do agree with some parts of the world’s definition of meek though. Being meek does mean being self-controlled, but not passive. Self-control means that I will contain myself in situations that call for it. There are times when a person needs to contain their emotions and reactions, and there are times when a person needs to react at the moment.
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With that said I think it is time to define the true Christian definition of meekness. As I said, I do believe that meekness is self-control, but it is so much more than that. self-control is important for everyone, but it is more important for those that can cause harm. Meekness, in my opinion, is best defined as “strength under control; power restrained.” To me, this encapsulates a better picture of meekness. A usual synonym for meek is tame. People believe that meek individuals are tame and will not, or can not, stand up for themselves or others.
The best analogy is a feline. There are housecats and tigers. One produces fear while the other we want to pet. One has been a terror for centuries while the other sleeps most of the day in sunbeams. I am sure you can tell which is which. Housecats are ferocious beasts…to mice at least. They might have a nasty scratch, but no one fears for their life from a tame housecat. Unless you are deathly allergic, but that is for a different reason.
Tigers, on the other hand, have been the scourge of south-east Asia. They have been the dedication for art, architecture, and myths. Their raw power and ferocity cast them far away from being tame. Housecats are classified as tame, while tigers are called feral.
Even feral housecats are still mostly tame, and tame tigers are still mostly feral. Meekness is closer to a tame tiger than a feral housecat.
We are called to be a tiger. Ferocious, but controlled. We too often try to be housecats. De-clawed and passive. We lay around and fight for nothing. We need to, I need to, reawaken the tiger within and tear down corruption as Christ did. We need to make Satan shake in fear, and we need to burn sin away. We view sin as something sort of bad, not completely detestable. Meekness is what begins this fight. Before we fight, we must first become meek.
Fate, the hand of God guiding us towards the destination He desires, or an unknown impersonal force pushing us towards an unknown goal by something that doesn’t really have feelings.
Hi, I’m Brandon Foster from Foster of Vlog. Today we’re going to look at one video to show the example of what I’m talking about, how our culture views fate.
Like most things, there are really two different sides. Primarily, you have the Christian side, especially the reform side, which views a very, uh, predestine type of fate where God pushes, pulls, and has a direct influence in what we do. His way is the way that goes, whatever he wants, wins. The other side is free will, where there is no God.
God does not really push or pull. Uh, if he does exist, he doesn’t really do much to change anything. Now there is a view in the middle, and this is kind of where I want to talk about, and this middle view kind of meshes both. . It’s kind of the predestine view of the reformed, but it’s also the kind of do what I want, but there’s something pushing and pulling, but it’s not a personal being.
This is what I want to focus on today. And to me, this is really one of those areas where I think that we actually do understand and we truly do. that there is a being that uh, or at least there’s something, maybe not necessarily a being, but there’s something that drives us. There’s something deep down here (heart) and here (mind) that we can tell is pushing us towards something.
Um, again, reformed Christians think that’s God. We believe that God is the pusher and puller of the world. He created it, he authored it. He spoke it into being with one word, and from then he has been continually molding the world. Um, this middle path is trying to keep that molding going, but they want to remove God.
But before we continue too much, let’s watch the clip that I want to show us and then we’ll continue our discussion.
“Kids, I’ve been telling you the story of how I met your mother, and while there’s many things to learn from this story, this may be the biggest. The great moments of your life won’t necessarily be the things you do. They’ll also be the things that happen to you. Now, I’m not saying you can’t take action to affect the outcome of your life.
You have to take action, and you will, but never forget that on any day, you can step out the front door and your whole life can change forever. You see, the universe has a plan, kids, and that plan is always in motion. A butterfly flaps its wings and it starts to rain. It’s a scary thought, but it’s also kind of wonderful.
All these little parts of the machine constantly working, making sure that you end up exactly where you’re supposed to be, exactly when you’re supposed to be there, the right place at the right time.”
So as you can see from that clip, this show, for those who are not aware of the name, this show is called “How I Met Your Mother,” and it is about this character Ted. Now, Ted, throughout the whole show is dictating to his children the story of how he met their mother. Um, hence the title of the show, and a theme he talks about a lot throughout the whole show is this concept of destiny. He’s looking for the one, the one that Destiny has prepared. and he talks about the universe quite a bit. The universe has this plan. The universe did this. What is the universe trying to say to me? And when I first watched it as a, you know, a young adult, I more chuckled at the whole universe concept.
But now as I’ve gotten older, and especially this last run through, that scene struck me. and it struck me not because of the, you know, absurdity of the universe of looking towards a impersonal created, you know, object and thinking that it has a plan for you.
While that is absurd, it’s neither here nor there. What really got me was how close the writers for this show got In dictating or depicting a reformed view of life in Christianity, we believe, as I’ve said, that God is dictating what happens. God, may not control every aspect, but there are key events in every person’s life that, or at least in most people’s life, that God says will happen.
And no matter what we want, God is pushing us towards that. This show shows that that’s not just a reformed belief, that that belief is written, is etched inside of all of us. We all feel the pull towards that type of understanding. We truly believe that there is something out there that is guiding us towards God or towards an event. Um, and I think we all understand. We like to fight it. Um, but we all believe that. This is why our culture, and for most of human history, we have had certain things like tarot cards, we’ve had things like seances, you know, speaking to the dead, and they can tell us what we should do in our lives because somehow the dead have a view into the world that we can’t.
This is why we do Zodiac signs. You know, when you were born dictates who you will be and who you will get along with. And a person with one sign should be friends with another or shouldn’t be friends with others. And we crave this kind of box to put ourselves in. We want to be in the box because the box guides us. It’s the idea of walking either down a corridor with lights and walls, and we feel protected. Or it’s like walking through a deserted jungle, or what you feel is deserted, and you feel vulnerable. That is the difference. We crave the corridor. We still want to choose things, and that free will is still definitely a thing, but we crave that there is something guiding us toward the destination, that it is not just fully up to us, and that every decision is either do or die. We crave that thing to, you know, give us the pushes and the shoves toward what we want. This show shows that Ted, through this whole story, which starts when he’s in his middle twenties, ends when he’s in his middle-late thirties.
So for about 10 years, he is craving what he calls Destiny. And this is a pinnacle scene in that storyline. And I thought it’d be an interesting exercise to take what the writers had written, and tweak a couple of pieces and replace when they say universe or machine or anything abstract and turn it into a reformed thought.
So the universe would be God. And I thought it’d be very interesting to see how reformed this line actually is if we did that. So the rewriting goes like this.
“kids, I’ve been telling you the story of how I met your mother. And while there are many things to learn from this story, this may be the biggest, but the great moments of your life won’t necessarily be the things you do. They’ll also be the things that happen to you. Now, I’m not saying you can’t take action to affect the outcomes of your life. You have to take action and you will, but never forget that on any day you can step out the door and your whole life can change forever. You see, God has a plan kids, and that plan is always in motion. A butterfly flaps its wings and it starts to rain. It’s a scary thought, but it’s also kind of wonderful. All these little parts of God’s plan constantly working, making sure that you end up exactly where you’re supposed to be, exactly when you’re supposed to, the right place at the right time.”
That sounds extremely reformed. and it’s so fascinating that a very liberal show in a very liberal country can be so conservative and so reformed. They were this close, an inch away from hitting reformed Christian theology. And I think this is one of the things that is fascinating about humanity and reality.
We are never that far from God. God is always right there, but that little gap is something that, one, we can’t breach on our own, and two, we will never want to breach. We want to parallel next to God without having Him. And that’s what makes us such an enemy of God. Scripture talks about, or Paul writes in scripture, that we are enemies of God.
Certain Christians want to please God, but they wanna do it on their own terms. The story of Abraham kind of gives that example. But what really makes us so antagonistic to God is we want to take everything he’s done, everything about him, and rewrite him out of the story.
And that is what is kind of crazy. We desire Something. A thread of destiny, of fate, to tie all of us together to tie everything in a tapestry of beauty. But we don’t want the weaver, we want the thread. We want beauty. We want connectivity. We want our destiny, but we don’t want the person weaving it. We want it to weave itself, and yet we complain when things aren’t personal. It’s a big thing Americans complain about. Well, we want it to be personally tailored to me it’s like, one, none of us are that special. Two, we have a personal being, God, who wants to have a personal relationship with you. He wants to be there with them, and yet we want to throw him out because we don’t like the idea of consequences.
This is something I’ll talk about a little bit more in my next video as we continue through this series, but we want the father without the judge. We want the action without the consequence. We want fate without responsibility. And that is what’s fascinating and very interesting about our society and society, I think in a hole across the entire globe, we are this close when we talk about God, our theology is this close at any given day, but we want to write God out of it.
Foster A... 