Every Boy Wants to Be a Man
This was not written for the courtroom, fathers. These “needs” are not a condemnation of you. No, they are meant for your veneration. “I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who has been from the beginning” (1 John 2:13). Young men have failed older men in many ways—through incompetence and inconsistency, through shortcomings and shameful acts, through critiquing everyone else and coddling ourselves—our lives are fraught with failure. It’s true.
No matter what the young, stubborn punk in your life says, we want to mature; we want the skilled, heavy, healing hand of corrective (not punitive) discipline; we want to be told we’re wrong; we want to grow. Every young man wants to be a man who can receive the love of Christ, and out of that, become a skilled lover of God, a helpful lover of friends and a serving lover of a woman.
We want to be like you, as you are like Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).
Older men, the younger men in your life need you more than you might know.
