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FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript  References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Approaching Adolescence  Guest:                        Dennis RaineyFrom the series:       Stepping Up (day 3 of 5)  Bob:  One of the key steps a young man will take as he progresses toward courageous, authentic, biblical masculinity is the step where he begins to assume more responsibility.  Here's Dennis Rainey. Dennis:  You know what?  As a young man, get used to stepping up.  Get used to taking on more responsibility because it is the stuff of manhood.  It's why God created you.  Back in Genesis, chapter one, you were designed to reign over the creation and make a living by the sweat of your brow and be a part of God's redemptive work on the planet. Bob:  This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, March 9th.  Our host is the President of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  We're going to explore today what has to happen for a young man to move through adolescence and to embrace authentic masculinity.   Welcome to FamilyLife Today.  Thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition.   We're going to have to start with some definition, maybe, or some discussion here at the beginning.  You've just finished a book that you call Stepping Up, a Call to Courageous Manhood.  You're challenging men to step up.   One of the things you address in this book is the idea that men go through a middle phase, from boyhood to manhood, the phase of adolescence.  You know there are people in the culture today who push back on that whole idea of adolescence and say that's an artificial construct.  Back a hundred years ago there was no such thing as an adolescent.  You just went from boyhood to manhood.  So what do you say to that, huh? Dennis:  Well, they're right.  It wasn't even in the dictionary at the turn of the twentieth century.  In the early nineteen hundreds there were two steps, boyhood and manhood.  There wasn't anything in between.  You stepped up from boyhood to manhood and probably did so at a much earlier age back then than we do today. Bob:  So you'd have teenagers, young men, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old getting married, taking jobs…Dennis:  Oh, yeah!  Right. Bob:  …taking responsibilities for families.  The idea that there would be an extended period where you would learn and study and grow and just kind of enjoy life before you got down to the duties and responsibilities of adulthood?  That just didn't exist. Dennis:  It didn't.  In fact there's a guy who wrote a book, Dr. Michael Kimmel, called Guyland.  In it he describes a world where young men live.  He said it's a stage of life, an undefined timespan between adolescence and adulthood that can stretch out for a decade or more.  It's a bunch of places where guys gather to be guys with each other, unhassled by the demands of parents, girlfriends, jobs, kids and other nuisances of adult life.   What he's saying is he actually wants to add another step between adolescence and manhood, one that can go on into the late twenties.  In fact, it's happening! Bob:  Guyhood? Dennis:  Guyland, I guess.  I don't know. Bob:  You get your video game controller and you work a job where you can go home and sit down with the dudes and crack some beers and get out the videogames and have a blast. Dennis:  Yeah.  In fact, listen to this statement that Dr. Kimmel concludes with.  He says, “In this topsy turvy Peter Pan mindset, young men shirk the responsibilities of adulthood and remain fixated on the trappings of boyhood while the boys they still are struggle heroically to prove that they are real men, despite all the evidence to the contrary.” Bob:  Well, he's really just saying that adolescence has been extended in our culture and there's kind of this state of perpetual adolescence.  In fact, again as you've addressed in this book and you've spoken to men, you're calling all of us to step out of what is that inertia that pulls us back into the irresponsibility of adolescence and say “Step up to the responsibility of manhood.” Dennis:  I don't think it's wrong that adolescence ultimately emerged.  I think what has become a trap, however, is when young men are allowed to stay in some in-between world, in between boyhood and manhood for an extended period of time where no one in the culture, no one in their family, no one in their lives, is stepping into their lives and saying, “It's time to grow up.  It's time to assume responsibilities.”   I have to say it's interesting in this culture to watch a bunch of single people, for that matter single men, moving into their thirties delaying marriage with one foot in boyhood, one foot in adolescence.  I think they need some older men in their lives who are on the steps above, looking down at them, and not in an arrogant fashion, but reaching down to them, saying, “Come on up.”   It may be frightening.  It may feel like it is more responsibility, because it is but you need to get out of childhood.  As Paul said in 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 11, “When I was a boy I acted like a boy.  I behaved like a boy.  I spoke like a boy.  But when I grew up I put away childish things.”  We need a generation of young men putting away childish things. Bob:  But you know the messages they're getting in the culture, the messages on TV, from their peer group, the messages in the movies, and even the message of their own flesh, it's not calling them to put away childish things.  It's saying, “This is a time for fun.  Enjoy it!” Dennis: Well, you were a teenage young man one time. Bob:  I was!  I remember! Dennis:  Do you remember it?  I mean, it was totally confusing and life was a lot simpler back then.  But what's happening today I fear, is the older men in the lives of these young men, instead of reaching out with their hand and calling them to step up, they're not challenging them to much of anything.  They've forgotten what it was like. Let me just read to you what I wrote in the book in terms of what teenage boys are facing today.  “A teenage boy's body is changing in strange and foreign ways.”  Think about it!  I mean, hair growing in some unusual places!  What's he supposed to do?  He's starting to think about things he's never thought about before.  All of a sudden, sexual allurement and the mystery of sex becomes powerful.  If you've never been spoken to about this, what's a boy, a young man, going to do with all that? Secondly, he's bombarded with bewildering thoughts and choices about sex and morality.  In other words, when can he have sex?  Now he's thinking about it.  What is appropriate?  If you watch what's on TV, there are no boundaries.   Barbara and I sat at the movies back around Christmas watching previews and there was, and I forget the name of the movie and I'm glad I'm forgetting it here, because I don't want to give it any advertising, but it was all about having sex.  That was the theme of the entire movie.   It was like all these single people were just born for this purpose, to just figure out how to ultimately make out and get in bed with one another.  There was no restraint on passion.  So here are teenage boys coming to a movie like that.  What are they supposed to do with those images? Third, he faces relentless, unbelievable peer pressure, friends encouraging, enticing him to go along with, frankly, barbaric ways.  I mean teenage boys left to go their own route are going to be little barbarians. Next, he battles an emotional upheaval of anger, sometimes rage that he has no idea where it's coming from.  I watched out sons going through this.  Without a strong daddy in their lives, they can be punitive upon a mom. Bob:  They're getting some hormones squirted into their systems that haven't been squirted there before and aggression is a part of what comes with that.  It's got to be directed and it's got to be channeled. Dennis:  Yes.  And in this culture, in addition to all that, he's also has to deal with other people's expectations.  I mean, with all the expectations around the tests they're taking, the college they go to, how well their grades are, it's pressure on pressure on pressure.   The last one is he feels this strong gravitational pull toward independence.  He wants to spin out and away from the family orbit and establish his own authority away from his parent's authority all on his own. Bob:  And that's a good thing, isn't it?   Dennis:  It is. Bob:  …that he wants to do that? Dennis:  It is.  But it is if he's trustworthy, if he's been trained, if he understands how to begin to exercise his own authority. Bob:  If he wants to kind of be in charge of his own universe simply so he can indulge his own fleshy desires then that's a recipe for trouble. Dennis:  It is. Bob:  But if he wants to be out on his own so that he can subdue the earth and fulfill it as the biblical mandate calls him to do, then that's a good thing. Dennis:  Yes.  But just pull back for a second and think as a parent. Here's a young man that you're observing that has this wash of chemicals and hormones surging through his system, all these outside forces impacting him.  He's spinning off to his own orbit and two things can happen with parents.  One, I call the push back and the other is what I call the pull out.   The push back is when a young man begins to push back against his parents, specifically his father, and the father lets him.  He lets him push him back and push him out of his life so that the father is not in there helping him navigate uncharted waters.   The second area is the pull out.  Some parents just get busy and it's a hassle to engage your teenagers.  The easiest thing to do, again, is nothing.  So a dad can pull out of his son's life, in my opinion, at one of the most dangerous, most important times, when a young man needs an older man, in his entire life. Bob:  So ideally, as I hear you describing all of this, I'm thinking to myself ideally you want to get a son from boyhood to manhood kind of as quickly as possible, get him  through the adolescent rapids as quickly as you can? Dennis: Well, you know, you really understand why back at the turn of the twentieth century, why they got married and started their own families.  These young men had to step up and had to assume the responsibilities of a man.  They were given no other choices.  The problem is we've built an entertainment culture appealing to these teenagers, enticing them to stay in this phase well into their twenties. Bob:  A lot of the young men at the turn of the century weren't in school after the seventh or the eighth grade.  Now they're in school to college and beyond and their only responsibility is to study. There's no job.  There's no work.  All of a sudden you've got all this free time.  I mean, I remember when I was a student thinking, “Boy, I've got no free time.”  Well, I'd go back and trade, you know? Dennis:  No doubt. Bob:  …because you've got all kinds of time.  If there's no direct responsibility attached to that, that's a recipe for mischief. Dennis:  You know, Bob, my boys at this point would cringe because they know exactly what I'm about to say.  When they entered that phase I would look at them and I said, “You have the least amount of responsibility you will have for the rest of your life.”  But the idea there is that, you know what, as a young man, get used to stepping up.  Get used to taking on more responsibility because it is the stuff of manhood.   It is why God created you.  Back in Genesis, chapter 1, you were designed by God to rule.  You were designed to reign over the creation and make a living by the sweat of your brow and be a part of God's redemptive work on the planet.   Probably the best illustration I have of what the teenage years look like and the assignment of a father during those years, used to occur as I completed my sixth grade Sunday school class.  Now this was a class I used to teach.  I had seventy, seventy-five young people in that class so it wasn't just to the boys.  But I would always use a boy to illustrate the last principle. Bob:   Now this was seventy twelve year olds? Dennis:  Yes, eleven and twelve year olds. Bob:  Oh my goodness.  Alright… Dennis:  What I did in that class was I used to call it the traps of adolescence.  So I had a bear trap that represented sexual immorality.  I had smaller traps that represented drugs and alcohol and pornography, other traps that represented peer pressure.  I had a dozen traps that were illustrated.   For the last session I had all the traps set on the floor.  It's a miracle, Bob, that in all the years I taught this I never once caught a kid.  They never once stepped in any of those traps!  I was relieved! Bob:  It was a miracle that the Fish and Game people didn't come in and shut down your Sunday school class! Dennis:  No doubt about it. But I had all these traps and kids knew what those traps stood for.  So I took a young man on the other side of the traps, on the other side of the rooms, and he could see the traps in front of him, and I blindfolded him.  Then I said, “I want you to take off your shoes.”   And on the other side of the room, with the traps in between us and the young lad, was his father.  I instructed the father in what they were supposed to do.  I would say to the young man, “On the count of three I want you to come to your father and to me.  It's representing going through adolescence all the way to adulthood.” Bob:  So come barefoot through the traps with blindfolds on? Dennis:  Right!  Exactly!  And I would say, “One.  Two.”  And the father would interrupt me every time and say, “Hold it son.  Don't' take a step!”   He would walk over, around the traps, would go over and whisper to his son, “I want you to stick your hands on the back of my shoulders and I want you to scoot along and follow me very closely because we are going in between these traps.   So the father would begin scooting through those traps, all of this taking place in front of seventy-five young people about to encounter these traps and the parents who were about to raise them.  They were in the room too because this was graduation.   The father and the young man, closely behind him, would make it through to the other side and the class always began to applaud and clap and cheer as they finished it and the young man took his blindfold off and gave his father a hug.   That's a picture of what adolescence was meant to look like--a father in the midst of doing life with his son, in the midst of the traps.  First and foremost, staying out of the traps himself. Bob:  Right. Dennis:  And then calling his son to step up and away from the traps and to step with him toward manhood.   What is missing today are the fathers walking around the traps and then sticking with it all the way through the next five, six, seven years.  It's not a matter of having one birds and bees conversation with a thirteen year old boy.  It's a matter of talking with him as you're watching a football game and a commercial comes on and you tell him to look away.   It's a matter of talking about the movies he goes to and having boundaries in his life.  It's a matter of training him to know how to deal with the opposite sex and honor a young ladies' femininity by keeping his hands off of her body.   Young men today, more than ever, need a daddy, a daddy who is on the manhood step facing upwards, who knows who he is as a man, who's not dabbling in pornography himself, so he can reach down to his son and say, “Let's go.  Come on.  Follow me as I follow Jesus Christ.” Bob:  The dads who are there and who can't reach back because they're got one foot still stuck in adolescence themselves?  How do they get unstuck? Dennis:  As we've talked here Bob, we've created a picture of five steps, a step going upwards from boyhood to adolescence, from adolescence to manhood, manhood to mentor, and, the ultimate step and most noble call for a man, that of being a patriarch.   We also created an image that a man can find himself with one foot on the manhood step and one foot on the lower step of adolescence, standing sideways.  When a man finds himself standing sideways, he has to realize a couple of things.   Number one, his own life is in peril.  Number two, the kind of model he is leaving for his son, and for that matter the rest of his family, is not a good one.  And third, he needs to realize that from time to time all of us make foolish decisions.   All of us step down and we have to turn our back, that's call repentance in the Bible, we have to turn our back on selfishness and on sin and turn away from it and turn upward toward Jesus Christ and the scriptures and being obedient to what God has called him to do.  So I wish it was a simple matter of just turning away from evil one time and stepping up.  But it's never just that.   I mean, it occurs as we walk in the middle of an airport and you look over in the magazine stand.  I don't ask to see those pictures.  I don't ask to have those magazines faced outward to me, thirty feet away, not even going into the book store that's in the airport.  But they're there and they can be a temptation and they can call a man away from what he knows is right to becoming a doorway through which sin can gain entrance, not only to his own life, but also to his son's. There's a warning in scripture that the sin of one generation will be passed down to four generations.  To me that's a frightening thought, that my life would be used to pass on sin rather than righteousness to my descendants. Bob:  If a dad is going to lead his son through the phase of adolescence to manhood, the dad's got to have a pretty secure standing on the manhood step himself. Dennis:  He'd better keep short accounts with God.  All of us make mistakes.  I've shared many of them here on FamilyLife Today.  I run into listeners all around the country who says, “You know what?  We appreciate the no baloney approach to the Christian faith and to real life as we all live it.”   I've shared about cutting down trees in front of my own son.  And I've shared to repenting of cutting down a tree that wasn't on my property and calling the owner of that tree and confessing my sin and offering to pay restitution in front of my son.  Now that's no fun.  But you know what?  It's a part of showing our sons where to find life. Proverbs 4:23 says, “Guard your heart for from it flow the wellsprings of life.”  My heart is a precious thing for life in terms of it beating right now.  It's also a precious thing, if I understand the scriptures, spiritually,  for me to continue to guard my heart so that I might be a source of life, that my life might be a spring that would come from my life to my wife, to my sons, to my daughters, and to those that I impact and influence.  That's a great picture for any man standing on the manhood step.  There needs to be a stream of water influencing all those around him. Bob:  I think it's helpful, and this is one of the things you do so well in the book, men need to see that the essence of authentic manhood involves sacrifice, involves laying down your life, giving your life away for others.  It's not about being a man for yourself.  It's about being a man for others and dying to self. That's what's at the heart of authentic manhood.   I want to encourage listeners to get a copy of this new book.  Again, it's called Stepping Up—A Call to Courageous Manhood.  This week we want to send it to you.  All we're asking you is that you make a donation to help support the ministry.  When you do, we're happy to send you a copy of Dennis's brand new book.   If you're donating on line at FamilyLifeToday.com, when you open up the donation form there's a key code box there.  Just type “STEPUP” in the key code box and we'll know to send you a copy of Dennis's book.   Or call 1-800-FLToday and make a donation over the phone.  Again, just ask for a copy of Dennis' book when you do. Right now the only place the book is available is here at FamilyLife so, if you want to get a copy, go online or call us and make a donation.  If you're interested in multiple copies of the book, those are available for purchase as well.  I know there are a lot of men's groups that are going to look at doing a book like this for a men's study.  So if you want to get multiple copies, contact us, again, online at FamilyLifeToday.com or when you call 1-800-“F” as in family, “L” as in life, and then the word “Today.” Now tomorrow we're going to talk about what authentic, mature masculinity looks like.  What are some of the characteristics of someone who has stepped up to manhood?  We'll talk about that tomorrow. I hope you can be with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.  On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.  We will see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.   FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.  Help for today.  Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider f to help defray the costs?2011 Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com 

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript  References to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Manhood and Spiritual Leadership Guest:                        Dennis RaineyFrom the series:       Stepping Up (day 4 of 5) Bob:  Being a man involves taking some risks: stepping up, being courageous, leading, initiating.  Here is Dennis Rainey: Dennis:  What if I failed every time I've initiated?  Well, the easiest thing to do is nothing and to stop initiating.  The reason we fail to initiate is we may have trained our wives to just jump in and do it for us because we haven't stepped up and taken responsibility for our finances, for the spiritual well-being of our family, for the direction we're headed as a couple.  All of these demand initiative from a man who knows where he's going. Bob:  This is FamilyLife Today for Thursday, March 10th.  Our host is the President of FamilyLife Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  We're going to begin today to unpack some of the essentials that make up biblical manhood.   Welcome to FamilyLife Today; thanks for joining us on the Thursday edition.  Do you think men know what it is they're looking for, they're aiming for?  I mean, do you think they understand what manhood looks like? Dennis:  No.  I don't.  In fact, I think there is so much taking place in our culture today it is like real manhood, as God designed a man to be, is an elusive goal at best.  For most, they have no—they haven't even got the foggiest idea what that looks like. Bob:  Well, I remember—this will date me a little bit, but I remember trying to figure it out myself and thinking, “So, as a real man the tough John Wayne, Rambo, you don't share your feelings; you just go out and get it done.”  Is that a real man? Dennis:  Don't eat quiche.   Bob:  Yes.  Or is a real man a sensitive, caring, kind of person who is tender and who is kind and who pays attention and listens to the heart of his wife?  Is that a real man?  We get such mixed messages in the culture that I think that a lot of guys are looking around going, “I want to be a man.  I'm just not exactly sure what that means.” Dennis:  Well, I don't often quote from advertisers, especially advertisers that advertise jeans, as an authority; but I ran across an advertisement for Dockers jeans where I just felt like they nailed it.  In fact— Bob:  Now hang on.  I'm wearing Dockers right now.Dennis:  Are you? Bob:  Okay.  Yes. Dennis:  Well, this is a good ad for Dockers jeans, but I want you to listen to this because this appeared in an advertisement for their jeans.  You tell me if you don't feel like they nailed it.  Once upon a time, men wore the pants and wore them well.  Women rarely had to open doors, and little old ladies never had to cross the street alone.  Men took charge because that is what they did, but somewhere along the way the world decided it no longer needed men.   Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny; but today, there are questions are genderless society has no answers for. Now, I'm going to finish this, Bob, but can you believe this is for jeans?  Now I know Dockers makes other things too— Bob:  Right. Dennis:  But this is advertising their jeans.  They continue:             The world sets idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave, and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street.  For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes.  We need grown-ups.  We need men to put down the plastic forks, step away from the salad bar, and untie the world from the tracks of complacency.  It is time for you to get your hands dirty. It is time to answer the call of manhood.  It is time to wear the pants. Talk about politically incorrect.   Bob:  They've been reading your book haven't they?    Dennis:  Here's what they are saying, and again, an advertisement is not my authority.  I'm about to go to Scripture, but they are picking up on the theme of Scripture that there is a lot about manhood that is all about a man taking initiative.  Manhood is about initiative. 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 talks about standing firm in the faith, acting like men.  Be a man, it says.  1 Kings 2 David is about to die.  He charges his son, Solomon.  He says, “Show yourself a man and keep the charge of the Lord your God walking in His ways, keeping His statutes, His commandments, His rules, His testimonies.”  I mean, he's calling his son up: be a man; step up, son; don't fritter away your manhood on lesser callings.   Yet, this culture is sending messages to boys that make the waters incredibly murky.  If there is someone that needs to be clarifying what it means to be a real man today, it ought to be followers of Jesus Christ who are tethered to the Scripture. Bob:  So, you would say that the Scriptures give us a clear picture of what mature manhood is? Dennis:  Right. Bob:  Okay.  So, unpack it for us. Dennis:  Well, first of all, let me tell you what it isn't: it's not passivity.  It has been suggested in the Garden in Genesis chapter 3, that when the serpent came to Eve that Adam was standing there.  Adam was present, but he did nothing.  It has been suggested that perhaps the first sin of man was passivity.   If you think about it, if initiative is the essence of manhood, could it be that the sin of arrogance and pride of doing nothing and just standing back watching may be the opposite?   I think there are three reasons—actually I'm going to give you a bonus reason.  Four reasons why men are passive today, they don't take the initiative.   First of all, taking the initiative is hard work, and I'm tired.  It is the end of the day.  I don't feel like leading my family in a devotion at the dinner table.  I don't feel like putting the kids to bed and serving my wife by helping the kids be tucked in and praying with them.  The easiest thing for me to do is to sit in my easy chair and become a giant amoeba and just do nothing. It is hard work to lead.  Being a man calls us out of our passivity, out of doing nothing into engagement, into serving, into helping others and shouldering the burden with them. Bob:  It is not just the end of the day when it is hard work.  I mean the beginning of the day, just heading off to work.  There are a lot of guys who are checked out of manhood at the very beginning of the day because, frankly, as you've said it is taking initiative.  That means you've got to step up, you've got to take some responsibility, you've got to go to work— Dennis:  Right. Bob:  A lot of guys are going, “Who wants to do that?”   Dennis:  If you want to be a man, it is going to include pain because I promise you, to deny yourself and to abandon yourself to serve others will involve self denial and that does involve pain.  No, I don't like pain.  My flesh doesn't like not getting its own way, but that is a part of being a man. Remember Mark 10:35-45, the disciples came to Jesus and asked how to be great.  He basically said, “The Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”  I think that's the essence of manhood: serving others, giving up your life for another.   Another way men fail to take the initiative is they say, “I don't know how.  I don't know what it means to initiate.  I didn't have a father who did.”  The slate is blank, and so, they use that as an excuse.  I would say to a man who didn't have a father, either present or who didn't have a father who demonstrated this, “Find a man who does.”   Go and find a man who'll practically illustrate and coach you in what that looks like, like interviewing your daughter's dates.  You've never perhaps thought about interviewing your daughter's dates.  Well, you know what?  There are men who can train you in how to do that.  There are books that are written in how to do that to show you how to be a man and how to initiate and how to step into a fearful place and be the man. A third reason why men don't take the initiative is it means I might fail.  What if I failed ever time I've initiated or my wife has made me feel like a failure every time I've initiated?  The easiest thing to do is nothing and stop initiating.   That really leads me to the fourth one: our wives can do it for us.  The reason we fail to initiate is we may have trained our wives to just jump in and do it for us because we haven't stepped up and taken responsibility for our finances, for the spiritual well-being of our family, for the direction we're heading as a couple.  All of these demand initiative from a man who knows where he's going. Bob:  We back off.  We don't assume responsibility.  A wife who looks around and says, “The job's not getting done,” and starts to feel fear, she'll step in and do it.  That's what you're saying? Dennis:  That's right.  So, the opposite is also true, Bob.  Instead of being passive, we initiate.  What is one of the things we can initiate as a real man?  Well, we've taken surveys of more than a hundred thousand people in local churches around the country, and one of the top issues women are looking to their husbands to provide is spiritual leadership of their marriages and their families.   One of the ways a man can assume responsibility and take initiative for leading his wife spiritually is to begin to pray with her every day.   We've talked about this on FamilyLife Today numerous times.  I feel like it's one of my life messages.   Barbara and I prayed together last night.  It was a short pray.  We were both exhausted because of travel.  In our case, we have seventeen grandchildren now.  We just had the birth of a new little one, Alice Pearl.  So, Barbara and I prayed for her last night as we went to bed.   This morning I read in John 4 about Jesus' interaction with the woman at the well.  He made a phenomenal claim.  He said I want to give you water, that's living water.  If you take a drink from me, out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water— Bob:  You'll never thirst again. Dennis:  Never thirst again.  The woman was astounded by this man who told her about her past and seemed to love her and speak genuinely kind to her.  At one point, she talked about the Messiah; and he said, “I, who speak to you, am He.”  Well, you know what?  Praying together is all about coming to the Messiah, Jesus Christ, coming to Him over and over and over again to get a drink of the living water.   If you drink from Jesus Christ, out of your life will flow rivers, it says, of living water.  If you picture a husband leading his wife spiritually, that means that stream can be rich and deep and crystal clear and pure.  It means a man can truly love his wife in a whole new level.  Bob, I think a lot of men don't love and lead their wives spiritually because they don't know how.  They've never had anyone challenge them to do it, and it is as if right now I'm on these steps of manhood and I'm reaching down to a guy who may be straddling manhood and adolescents. Bob:  At least in the area of this kind of spiritual leadership you're talking about. Dennis:  Right.  May not be taking the initiative.  I'm reaching down and saying, “Come on.  Turn your back on adolescents.  Turn your life away from excuses.  Step up and become the man God made you to be: loving and leading your wife spiritually.” Bob:  Don't you think, though, that there are men who are intimidated in this area because they know their own spiritual nature.  I mean they think if you're going to lead somebody spiritually you have to be—well, you've got to be ahead of them.   A lot of guys look at their wives, and they go, “You know what?  Spiritually, she's ahead of me.  I mean she's got time to go to Bible study fellowship or precept classes.  She's doing more quiet time.  I mean, how do I lead her when she's the one who is farther down the path than I am?” Dennis:  Well, if you are not involved—I'm speaking now to this man not to you, Bob.  If you're this guy that Bob is talking about, you've got to find a Bible study with a group of men that are absolutely being ruthlessly honest about their own lives and digging into the Scriptures to find out how to really become all that God created you to be.  There's a lot of guys today who are not engaged in any kind of a Bible study. I was with a man here recently, and I looked him in the eye.  I said, “Tell me what's going on in your life spiritually.”  And it was a blank look.  Every area of his life is full with business, family, other issues with his life, recreation.  Spiritually speaking, there is no food. Bob:  There's just no margin for that.  He says if I'm going to keep the business going and the family demands, I just—I mean I hear you saying get in a Bible study with other guys.  I've been in a couple of those, and it kind of you know—it didn't feel great.  I just don't have the margin for it. Dennis:  Well, you've got to create the margin for it because if you don't—this is the margin you create to live.  It is back to the illustration of Jesus being the one who claimed to be the living waters.  If you don't have time to study about Him and His claims about life and how you as a man ought to live, then how are you going to know how to live as a man?  How are you going to know what God expects of you?   It is instructive to me that as David as dying when he turns to his son, Solomon, it is primarily focused upon the Scripture.  He is charging Solomon: follow the law, obey the Scriptures, do all that God has commanded you to do today.  Why?  Because he said you are going to find life.  He didn't say you'll find you'll find the living water, but it might as well be written there.  That's what he's talking about.   So, the question for men today is “Where you going to find out about life?”  If you're just punching the clock and doing your forty, fifty, sixty hours a week of work and not taking time to grow spiritually, there are some warnings in the Bible about the man who is not into the meat of the Word.   He's not digging into the Scriptures and finding out how it applies to where he is today, to the choices he's making, and to his responsibilities as a man, husband, father.  Maybe a single guy needs to find out what does God expect from me today. By the way, Bob, there is nothing magical, mystical, or spiritual that is going to automatically make you a man of God when you get married to all of the sudden start leading your wife spiritually.  In other words, now is the day to begin tracking with other men and growing spiritually with them as a single young man.   If you want to know how to love, lead, care for, provide, and nurture your wife and cherish her and provide protection for your family, you need to get busy today as a single man practicing those spiritual disciplines of getting in a Bible study of daily prayer, of growing spiritually as a young man.  Marriage will not make you— Bob:  Right. Dennis:  A man. Bob:  Okay.  So, the guy who says, “Alright, I'm in a Bible study.  I am growing.  I'm reading my Bible.  I'm having a quiet time, but I still feel intimidated with the thought of coming to my wife and saying, ‘Let's read this together' or ‘Let's pray.'  I think part of the intimidation is she knows the real me.  She has seen my feet of clay.  For me to come and say, ‘Well, let's pray together.'  She's going to think, ‘Oh, how come you're all of the sudden so spiritual.  You, who I just saw being carnal thirty minutes ago?'” Dennis:  Yelling at our kids. Bob:  Yes. Dennis:  Okay.  So, we fail.  Who doesn't fail?  We're not all living out this perfect, cookie-cutter lifestyle of being these perfect, little Christians.  If we're speaking to a wife here who tends to be focused on what her husband does wrong, why don't you try catching him doing what's right?  Why don't you, the next time he does something to attempt to lead your family spiritually, say, “Sweetheart, that was fantastic.”   It may have only been prayer at the dinner table, but you know what?  He stepped up and stepped out and provided some spiritual leadership of his family.  So, rather than doing it for him as a wife, instead catch him doing it right and cheer him on and don't always be focusing on where he has failed. Bob:  You think this issue of a man providing spiritual leadership is central to being fully on that manhood step to really embracing what God's called us to be as men? Dennis:  I do, Bob.  The reason is as men who are standing on this manhood step looking down to our sons who are at various stages of growth, stepping up themselves.  They're locked onto our lives like little radar units: picking up what we're about, what our values are, what our priorities are.  Who we are as men, what we're attempting to be, and how we're attempting to lead is caught by our sons. One of my favorite poems that was shared here on FamilyLife Today a number of years ago by Coach John Wooden, was actually a poem that was given to Coach Wooden.  It just reminds us of how powerful a man's model can be to his family.            Coach Wooden [recorded message]:  Well, the poem you're thinking of was given to me when my son was born in 1936.  I finished a project for Harcourt, Brace, and Company.  They sent me a picture with a man walking along the seashore and his little son is trying to step in his foot stamps just behind him before the wind brushes them away.  There were some lines along the side that said: A careful man I must always be, A little fellow follows me.  I know I dare not go astray, For fear he'll go the self same way.   I cannot once escape his eyes. What err he sees me do, he tries.Like me, he says he's going to be, This little chap who follows me. He thinks that I am good and fine.Believes in every word of mine.The base in me he must not see, This little chap who follows me. I must be careful as I goThrough summer's sun and winter's snowBecause I am building for the years to be This little chap who follows me. Dennis:  Bob, as men, it is better for us to fail in an attempt of leading our wives spiritually than doing nothing.  Perhaps the greatest and most courageous thing a man who is listening to this broadcast will ever do, will be to take his wife's hand and say, “I want to lead you in prayer” or “I want us to pray together as a couple.”  These are not minor deals. When a couple bows before Almighty God, their souls can be knit together by the One who made them.  It is worth it, just like David's charge to Solomon: be the man, show yourself strong, obey God. Bob:  Yes.  I think a lot of guys miss the fact that our walk with God and our spiritual leadership is central to stepping up.  You know they look at kind of the machismo of the culture, and they say, “Well, okay, being a man is all about physical strength.  It's all about daring, courage, or heroism.”  We would agree with a lot of those things; but at the core, you've got to be God's man. Dennis:  Right. Bob:  You've got to be a man who is in pursuit of a right relationship with God in Christ and who is leading others in that direction.  Otherwise, it is all about self.   I am hopeful that many of our listeners are going to call us this week or go online at FamilyLifeToday.com to get a copy of your new book.  It is called Stepping Up—A Call to Courageous Manhood.  You can request a copy this week if you help with a donation to support FamilyLife Today.  We are listener supported.  Those donations are what keep us on this station and on our network of stations all across the country.   So, this week if you make a donation, we want you to feel free to request a copy of the new book, Stepping Up, by Dennis Rainey.  The book is not currently available in stores or on Amazon.  So, if you are interested in a copy, you'll need to contact us.  If you're interested in multiple copies for a men's study or a group's study, you can contact us; and we can let you know how you can purchase additional copies. If you make a donation this week online at FamilyLifeToday.com, just type the word “STEPUP” into the online key code box.  When we see that, we'll know to send you a copy of Dennis' new book.  Or call 1-800-FL-Today, 1-800-358-6329.  It's 1-800- F as in “family”, L as in “life”, then the word “TODAY”.  When you make a donation, just ask for a copy of Dennis' new book, Stepping Up; and we'll send it out to you. Now, tomorrow, when we come back, we're going to talk more about the characteristics of authentic, biblical masculinity.  That is coming up tomorrow.  I hope you can be here. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.  On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.  We will see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.   FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas.  Help for today.  Hope for tomorrow. We are so happy to provide these transcripts. However, there is a cost to produce them for our website. If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs?2011 Copyright © FamilyLife. All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com