Growing up, one of the lessons I heard most often from my dad (and my uncles and grandfather on that side of the family) was simple: “be a man.” To any women reading, don’t stop here – this applies to everyone.

When I was younger, that phrase was most often used when I was hurting from a scraped knee or bruise from playing baseball or soccer, as an encouragement to be tough. But growing up, that phrase developed other meanings. To me it means being mature, treating people with respect regardless of the circumstance, and taking responsibility for your actions and how they affect others. It also means growing up to act like Jesus, serving others and treating them as you’d like to be treated, looking out for the lost and the broken, and guarding your heart and mind to set them on things above that are greater than yourself. Though I often don’t do as good a job with that as I’d like, that phrase has influenced my life to the point of being my phone background as a daily reminder to work on improving my mental and spiritual maturity.

I’ve mentioned previously (in The Spiritual Gym) how my goals for this summer have been to grow in the areas of physical, mental and spiritual fitness. Those areas cover a pretty broad spectrum, but among that spectrum is working more on “being a man” by guarding my mind and heart and with consciously working on how I treat people, including myself. I’ve also talked about my struggles with depression and loneliness (see also God, the Storyteller), and this summer definitely hasn’t been an easy one in that regard.

When dealing with things like these, another piece of advice my dad would give me sometimes was to make yourself busy. Make sure you “go to bed exhausted,” he’d say, so that when your mind is so busy during the day doing things you love with people you care about, you don’t have time to worry about those other thoughts. To some extent, that works. But what I’m also noticing is that it can sometimes be a very poor coping mechanism that I have tended to use to ignore my problems, because on those days where I’m not busy, and my mind is allowed to wander, those demons are still there to tear me down again. I’ve been running from my problems rather than turning to face them and to fight back. It’s time to really be a man.

I don’t think it was just coincidence that one of my favorite artists, nobigdyl., came out with an album this summer featuring a song titled “Be a Man” discussing those same topics of mental and spiritual maturity. He talks mostly about his struggles with how he had been treating women, looking at the exterior more than the soul inside. It’s a problem men, including myself, have struggled with for all of recorded history. Think of David, or Samson (more on that later). WHATUPRG, in that same song, compares himself to Peter Pan – “rather be a kid my whole life than act like the man I am.” Growing up is scary. Taking responsibility for your own actions and how they affect people is scary. In another song, “Tree Tops,” nobigdyl. talks about being in an “adolescent daze, all the way to like 23.” When I got past the beat of that song (which works great for a gym playlist, by the way) and heard that line, I stopped when I realized that I turn 23 in just over a month. Just because society says you’re a man, almost done with undergrad, working full time, living on your own… that doesn’t make you a man. The way you act does. And at times, I’ve been in and out of that adolescent daze.

Those thoughts led me this week to studying the life of Samson (see Judges chapters 13-16). Samson was appointed at birth to be a Nazirite, meaning he was set apart to serve God, and specifically in this case to deliver Israel from the Philistines. His Nazirite vows came with several restrictions (described in Numbers 6), notably that Samson was not allowed to cut his hair from birth, leading to the story most church-goers would recognize. God gave Samson incredible strength, enough to slay thousands of Philistines in battle, to literally tear a lion in half with his bare hands (woah) and eventually destroy the Philistine temple. But while Samson had all of that physical strength and power from God, he had very weak moral strength. He slept with prostitutes and sought to marry several different Philistine women including Delilah, who ended up being his downfall. Judges 14 recounts the story of Samson tearing apart the lion, where afterwards the lion’s carcass turned to a swarm of bees with some honey. Once again breaking his Nazirite vows (of not going near a corpse, Numbers 6:6-7), he scooped out the honey with his hands and ate it. With that honey, and with the women he chased, Samson violated his Nazirite vows to “delight himself with something sweet.” He betrayed his morality and his commitments for temporary pleasures that would end up destroying him.

However, in spite of all of Samson’s failings and foolishness in that “adolescent daze,” God still showed up for him. Samson’s immaturity caught up with him when he told Delilah the secret to his strength lied in his hair. She shaved it while he slept, allowing for the Philistines to capture him and gouge out his eyes. He was tied to the Philistine temple and made to perform in front of the Philistine people, shown as a trophy after he had conquered so much of the Philistine army but was now captured by them.

But the story doesn’t end there. Judges 16:22 notes that “the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.” Crying out to God, he asked the Lord to strengthen him one last time. With that last will of strength, he pushed against the pillars supporting the Philistine temple and it came crashing down on top of him and thousands of Philistine citizens and rulers, leading to the beginning of Israel’s deliverance from the Philistines which would be completed later by David.

God was the true source of Samson’s strength, and always was. The imagery of his hair growing back speaks of God’s promise that He had not and would not abandon his flawed people, even someone who had messed up as badly as Samson had.

The pastor of the church I’ve been going to this summer has said a few times that “it’s at the end of ourselves where God meets us.” Samson was at the end of himself. He was tied to the pillars of the Philistine temple with his eyes gouged out and his strength gone. Yet God still met him there and gave him the final bit of strength he needed.

I know that my strength alone will never get me to where I want to be in my struggles to be a man and to serve God with all of my heart. But God’s strength is more than enough. We as humans mess up, we fall short, we sin and make fools of ourselves seeking after false treasures that will always do more harm than good. But thanks be to God for being there to meet us, pick us back up, and give us the strength we need to press on. It’s time to be men and women who seek to be pleasing to God and know that their true strength comes from NOWHERE other than the saving and all-consuming love of our Father God.

 

Related Music:

“Be a Man” – nobigdyl. feat. WHATUPRG

“Tree Tops” – nobigdyl.

“Mountain to Valley” – Housefires