Have you ever felt alone in the emotional or mental health battle that you face where you question if this will last for the rest of your life? Or maybe you have even been diagnosed with a disorder that has left you hopeless with a statement from a doctor that leaves you in the throes of distress.

Has social media become a soapbox influencing the norms of culture? Have humanistic ideals infiltrated our churches and influenced our congregations; building cornerstones of confusion as belief systems to concur with? The top leaders of our day continue to search, investigate, and strategize solutions for the moral dilemmas that we face today.

Has life ever presented you with challenges that seem to knock you out, drag you down and bring you to your breaking point? I know I have been there a few different times in my life. In 2008, my family went through a terrible crisis that lasted more than two years. In the midst of trying to help my family weather the storm, I found myself in my own personal battle for survival. What began as a few months of sleepless nights soon became a full-on emotional breakdown.

We live in a day and age where the foundations of gender are being questioned, masculinity has become the villain, and identity is a point of confusion. Culture has placed the roles of men and women on the scales of equality and attempted to prove the purpose of one or the other. The truth is, men and the masculinity they carry is desperately needed, yet has been drastically disregarded. But, I’d propose that not only has culture been left to tackle the topic of toxic masculinity, but the Church has not known how to approach the beast of confusion that lies in wait at our doorways, lingering over our children, and whispering lies about who we have been created to be. Yet, the unfortunate truth is masculinity has become a source of scary stigmas rather than an experience of the loving strength of God it was meant to display. In return, many welcome the Jesus who was kind and gentle enough to make friends with little children, yet reject the Jesus who crafted a whip before He turned tables over in the temple.

3 COMMON WAYS WE TEND TO THE NEEDS OF OUR SOUL

We live in an extremely egocentric society where men have often been culturized to think only for themselves and no one else. Far too many of these men are not equipped with the life skills needed to adequately navigate relationships, especially when it comes to fathering. Whether it’s due to the lack of a father in their own life or due to a father who didn’t take the time to teach them how to be a man, we are working with a masculinity deficit of grand proportions. What if the solution was taking these men who never received the baton of healthy masculinity and inviting them into a journey of healing and wholeness?

You cannot conquer what you are not willing to confront! Our own pure desire for freedom from the devil will not be defeated in retreat, it will only be dethroned if we are willing to press in and destroy the works of the enemy. Yet, often, on the contrary, the very things that have unrightfully taken a seat in our lives cause us to spiral into a swirl of shame and self-pity and begin telling us we cannot live without them. From addiction, and dysfunctional relationships, to anger and rage we become a slave to the laws they bind our souls to. But, the truth is we were never meant to live in isolation, passivity, and pain - we were designed for a life of freedom in Jesus Christ. Nothing good grows in the darkness of sin.

Conflict, controversy, and combat are not new issues to brace the face of humanity. For centuries there have been wars and rumors of wars that have plagued the planet and grieved the hearts of man. We have seen intelligent men try to render solutions and produce strategies to dismantle advances of the enemy. Yet, so often our response to a conflict is solely focused on the outer advances of the enemy and does not acknowledge the internal battle of the heart. I’d propose that one of the greatest reasons for conflict and controversy is not an external issue in society, but rather an internal issue of the heart.