So Sunday School class has been exploring what it means to be a godly man..... and there's nothing like a real-life, baffling, painful, unwanted, unanticipated, and "I can't believe this is happening" situation to give legs to it.
A summary of the class so far:
- Life is not always predictable. Often it is messy and chaotic, and when it is, life’s overriding question for most men is, “What should I do?”
- A man tends to operate in the realm where he can answer that question, where his own skills and abilities are useful, but where courage to live in an unpredictable world is not required.
- But always knowing what to do goes against man’s God-given nature and calling.
- God calls a man to speak into darkness, to remember who God is and what he has revealed about life – and with that, to move into his relationships and responsibilities with the imaginative strength of Christ.
- God is telling a story, and as we see his story told through our lives, and realize we are part of that larger story, we find courage to handle the inevitable confusion of life.
- We are to move beyond the silence of Adam by abandoning ourselves to God with confidence in his goodness.
- With the freedom created by that confidence, we are to move into the uncertainties of this world with a life-giving word.
- Such movement may be accompanied by fear because we realize that there are not codes to follow. But the fear is healthy – bringing anticipation, resolve and God-given courage.
- As men move forward, they realize more deeply their need for God, and so seek him more earnestly. And when we seek him, we will find him. That’s the promise.
- Men who spend their lives finding God become elders / spiritual fathers / Christlike mentors: godly men who know what it means to trust when there is no plan to follow, when things are dark. They are men who bear God’s image, and speak into darkness after the fashion in which God speaks into darkness and chaos, bringing life and beauty.
Among the many Bible passages looked at in this class:
- The story of the Fall – when the first man, faced with temptation (and the chaos represented by the serpent) should have remembered and spoken out God’s intentions, but instead remained silent. Every man has been like this since.
- The word translated “male” in Genesis 1:27 is zakar from the Hebrew root “to remember” – man is supposed to be “the remembering one” who recalls and recounts the mighty acts and directives of God, and connects our experience to God’s story.
- There is a connection between deliberately forgetting the God of creation and the life of sin (The pattern of behaviour in the lives of each of the patriarchs in Genesis; 2 Peter 3:3,5).
Well, the class is going OK. But a very difficult situation (quite apart from the class) has developed that is just eating me up. My head is screaming out “What should I do?!?!” while my heart is trying to trust God. Something traumatic had to happen. All parties involved could see it. All parties understand it. Nevertheless, someone is hurt. Many more will be. There is no specific formula or code for how I should deal with it. But I must... Trust… Move… Speak… and live with the fallout.
