WHY YOU ARE LOSING THE BATTLE
In order to win the game, you have to know the rules, and you don’t even know what game your playing, or much less the Battle you’re fighting for.
In John Eldredge’s book, Wild At Heart, he talks about the 3 aspects that a Man desperately needs in order to truly live in our full masculinity and embrace our manhood.
No this is not toxic masculinity, it is about addressing the core desires Men have within.
The 3 are:
- ADVENTURES to live
- A BATTLE to fight
- A BEAUTY to rescue and love
He writes this, “A Man must have a battle to fight, a great mission to his life that involves and yet transcends even home and family. He must have a cause to which he is devoted even unto death, for this is written in the fabric of his being”
If you believe this to be true as I do, there’s no wonder why most Men are miserable and living lives of quiet desperation, depression and filled with sedation.
No Adventures to live
-Or are extremely rare and unfulfilling. Watching football on the weekends doesn’t really count
No Battles to Fight
-no, fighting traffic and just struggling to make ends meet paying the bills each month does not count either
And they have likely lost the love, or at least the respect of their Beauty because a Woman will never fully love or respect a Man who doesn’t know who he is inside.
I’ll share this concept again, which is my belief of the construct that a Man’s value system should be:
- God
- Calling
- Spouse
But when you look around today, a Man’s calling or relationship with God are either at the very bottom of the list or just completely nonexistent.
So here we are in 2024, most Men don’t know what battle they are called to fight.
They don’t know what their name means.
They don’t understand that the pain and struggle they’ve gone through or are going through right now, is a possible sign of the precise battle they need to fight!
As an example, Struggling or losing the battle with addiction? Right there is the battle to fight
This isn’t always the case, but I’ve seen it play out in other’s lives and as well as my own:
~~~> OUR GREATEST STRUGGLE CAN BECOME OUR GREATEST STORY <~~~
Yes the place that we’ve experienced our greatest pain is literally the foundation from which we can build our greatest strength.
But that strength is found by facing the dragon.
By accepting you’re calling and doing Battle.
Let me ask you a question: Is it not possible that all the shit you’ve gone through in the past has conditioned you to step into the new Man you’re supposed to be today?
Some may call that shit you went through as mistakes, or f’ups’, or Disasters or whatever negative connotation that can be applied, but please consider you may also choose to label those experiences as extremely USEFUL LESSONS that can be applied moving forward and perhaps even help give you the exact direction you need not only for your own life, but to also help others.
Churchill was quoted about serving during WWII, “I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been a preparation for this hour and for this trial’
You are the author of your story my friend.
You get to choose how the next chapter goes.
And that chapter will begin by the decisions you take with your very next steps.
So if you’re lost and at a place where you have no clue what battle it is you are to fight, consider it is time to search within to find what your true calling is.
If you ‘seek you will find’ has been my experience.
But sometimes you must SEEK HARD & RELENTLESSLY and simply not accept not finding IT as an option.
~~~>Tip: if you don’t find ‘it’, don’t stop seeking.
I’ll leave you with this question, WHAT IF?
WHAT IF you got your heart back?
WHAT IF you discovered your Battle to fight?
WHAT IF you found meaning and purpose in your life again?
To live a life above and beyond just waking up each day to go to a job or business you dread, just to come home to a life you dread as well?
Here is an example of what it could look like when you have a calling inside your heart that is so strong you are willing to sacrifice everything and even die for it.
No, you don’t have to die brother, but many of you already are, so why not go and pursue something that brings you life again?
Below is the example I mentioned.
This is from Major Sullivan Ballou, a union officer during the Civil War and a letter that he wrote to his wife on the eve of the battle of Bull Run and just days before he died.
But he died Honorably, fighting the Battle that fulfilled the calling in his heart.
Headquarters, Camp Clark
Washington, D.C., July 14, 1861
My Very Dear Wife:
Indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days, perhaps to-morrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write a few lines, that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.
Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine, O God be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battle-field for any country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American civilization now leans upon the triumph of government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution, and I am willing, perfectly willing to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this government, and to pay that debt.
But, my dear wife, when I know, that with my own joys, I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with care and sorrows, when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it, as their only sustenance, to my dear little children, is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country.
I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death, and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country and thee.
I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in this hazarding the happiness of those I loved, and I could not find one. A pure love of my country, and of the principles I have often advocated before the people, and “the name of honor, that I love more than I fear death,” have called upon me, and I have obeyed.
Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables, that nothing but Omnipotence can break; and yet, my love of country comes over me like a strong wind, and bears me irresistibly on with all those chains, to the battlefield. The memories of all the blissful moments I have spent with you come crowding over me, and I feel most deeply grateful to God and you, that I have enjoyed them so long. And how hard it is for me to give them up, and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together, and seen our boys grow up to honorable manhood around us.
I know I have but few claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me, perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, nor that, when my last breath escapes me on the battle-field, it will whisper your name.
Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless, how foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears, every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot, I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.
But, O Sarah, if the dead can come back to this earth, and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you in the garish day, and the darkest night amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours always, always, and, if the soft breeze fans your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air cools your throbbing temples, it shall be my spirit passing by.
Sarah, do not mourn me dear; think I am gone, and wait for me, for we shall meet again.
As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father’s love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue-eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care, and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers, I call God’s blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.
– Sullivan