Recently, a friend of mine recommended the book
Point Man, by Steve Farrar, to me, because it was a good read on Christian manhood and male leadership. It focuses mostly on leading in a family setting, but the themes are relevant to those of us who aren't married or even thinking about marriage for some time. With that, I'll dive right into it.
He starts off immediately by saying that war has been declared on the biblical family, and it is seen all over America and the world. In this war on the family, Satan has two very specific goals: to effectively alienate and severe a husbands relationship with his wife, and to effectively alienate and sever a father relationship with his children. All attacks can be described in this regard. This book doesn't have a 3 step process to fix keep your family protected; it takes a lot of time and effort. One of the biggest points I caught early on was the importance of having quantity and quality with your family. It's not possible to have a full personal life and a full and hard-working professional life. One has to sacrifice for the other. Will it be your family or your career that sacrifices?
The point Farrar drives home is that most, if not all of us, are willing to die for their family, but are we willing to live for them, and lead the charge?
In order to perserve the family, we must "save the boys." Farrar claims that the industrial revolution took us out of our normal mode of family, with the family being around their fathers their entire child/teenage years. Now, we are off to school and the dads are off to work, separated for most hours of the day. This leads to the point that less time=less influence. We want to be positively influencing our boys, but time and distance prevents that.
Next he goes into what real men don't do; namely, adultery. He wipes that fake image of adultery out of your mind and explains that it's not just some thing that happens. the term "adultery" has become commonplace, and that can't happen. We have been desensitized to it, and Farrar wipes that from us with a vivid picture of what adultery is. It's a foul thing that must be attacked at all times, because satan is subtle in his actions. He won't throw women at you; he'll slyly get you emotionally hooked to the point where physical action occurs. However, that doesn't mean that adultery is just sex outside of marriage. Emotional attachments can be adultery. Lusting after another woman is adultery. We must constantly be on guard against the enemy. Adultery will never fill your needs, and you'll just make a problem worse and ruin your own family. Finally, he goes into some ways to get yourself out of that situation and what to do if it happened to you. First, bring it into the light, and second, be ready to live with consequences. God and your family may forgive, but there can and probably will be consequences to your actions.
Next topic Farrar covers is commitment. He covers the importance of all commitments, not just the one your wife, and explains why those are necessary. He uses a good example of a racer. If a racer sprints 95 yards of a 100 yard dash and quits, all that running was worthless. Commitment means running the full 100 yards, not just 30, 40, 75, or 99 yards. That being said, there must be ways to protect yourself from stopping short in the race (in regards to lust and adultery). You must make a game plan for every situation you could be in, and stick to that game plan.
Anorexic Men and their Bulimic cousins. What a great title to one of the 2 best parts of this book. He describes anorexic men as men who are not filling their scriptural needs and have an aversion to reading the scriptures. Spiritual bulimia is the act of taking in a lot of scriptural material but not doing anything with it. that includes reading the bible, listening to sermons, and going to conferences but not taking anything away from any of it. It is the aversion to applying the Scripture to life. we need knowledge AND obedience. knowledge alone doesn't cut it. In order to overcome these disorders, you must make yourself a spiritual game plan. He gives 5 ideas: read the bible in a year, listen to the bible, start a scripture memory program, get involved in bible study fellowship, and form an accountability. I find all of those ideas extremely wise. Now you don't need to do all of them, but a few would be fantastic in scriptural strengthening. It's not going to be easy to push through all of these, but as a desire for scriptural meditation becomes habit, it will become much easier.
The other great chapter in this book is title "aerobic kneeling," or prayer. He understands that we all can't devote 4 hours a day to prayer, but rather we must slowly build our strength up. He compares prayer to jogging; 30 minutes, 3 times a week. 90 minutes may not sound like a lot, but are you praying that much currently? I know I wasn't when I read this. It comes out to 78 hours of prayer a year, which is actually pretty awesome. Plus, once you start praying that much, it becomes a lot easier to incorporate prayer into the rest of your day. 30 minutes, 3 times a week. not too bad. Now to get this started it'll be difficult to just start; you need a game plan. Farrar makes 5 suggestions: plan a time, plan a place, make a list, start with scripture, and make yourself accountable to someone. Now I've been working on the last 3 fairly well, but I'm realizing the first 2 are also necessary. I actually made notes on my computer for everyday of the week with specific things to pray for each day. That way I am honest when i tell people I will pray for them and not use the generic, empty promise of "oh, I'll pray for you about____." It really is a huge benefit, and I've had better, more consistent prayer times these last few weeks as a result.
Now it's not going to be easy. You need to form right habits. He gives various "hurdles" to prayer times, including mind wandering, tangents, and boredom. If these occur, pray against them and move on!
The next part of the book is focused even more on the marriage relationship. He discusses the importance of parents being copilots, not just the man having complete control over the woman. There is mutual accountability and mutual submission. Then he describes some moral guidelines for raising children. It says that men should raise their children in fairness, tenderness, with firmness, and in Christ.
The final chapter goes into the dirty work of family raising: how to tell your children about the "hot" topics. You know, the ever famous sex talk. His advice is to tell them early and be completely honest with them, using the right terms even if it feels weird to you. You want your children coming to you for that kind of advice, not their peers. You know a lot more about it than any of their friends do. I really respect Farrar for the way he approached the issue with his children, and I hope to one day imitate what he did with my kids.
With that, I hope you got a good idea of what this book is about. It's a good book that challenges you and gives strong applications. I definitely encourage all men to read it, and I don't think it would hurt if women wanted to read it too. I'm a fan of people reading books designed for the opposite gender so we can try and understand each other better. Yeah, some of the stuff might sound weird or ridiculous to you, but we all just think and act differently.
"For the eyes of the LORD range through the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him." 2 Chronicles 16:9
