I got a call from a friend who had some extra time on his hands while he was at the airport waiting for his wife. “Hey, Gary,” he asked me, “why is it that when I came home from a trip, I’m always taking Uber to my house. But when my wife comes home, it’s assumed I’ll be there to pick her up? If I told her to call Uber, it would be a declaration of war!”
We laughed at the double standard and moved on.
Most of my guy friends live with double standards like that.
Another friend has served God and his family heroically. He paid for both of his kids to get through graduate school. He supported his wife while she got her doctorate. But he brings in 100% of the family’s income and he made a reasoned but somewhat risky business move. He still doesn’t know how it’s going to turn out.
He’s not worried about himself; he’s worried about his wife. “Gary,” he said, “I’m a bit old to start over. If this doesn’t pan out, or if I die before it does, what happens to [his wife]? That’s what drives me.”
He could live in a small apartment, but he can’t bear the thought of asking his wife to. He’s overwhelmed by the burden but he’s not responding to the anxiety with sinful behavior. I asked him about it out of concern, and he responded, “Gary, that’s what’s almost sad. I’m too old and tired to be tempted by besetting sin. I just want to go to sleep.”
A third friend, Kevin Harney, is a local church pastor, author, and co-founder of the Organic Outreach International ministry (with his wife). He has many responsibilities and a full life in ministry, but he also enthusiastically supports his wife in her ministry as a co-author on some of her writing projects and a co-presenter at some of her speaking engagements. In fact, one of his wife’s books, Praying With Your Eyes Wide Open is one of my favorite contemporary books on prayer (and I’ve read many books on prayer).
His wife’s younger brother died recently right before Sherry was scheduled to lead a conference on prayer. Kevin quickly volunteered to step in to speak for her at the last minute so that her conference would not need to be cancelled (which would have been a great loss to those who had planned, advertised, and organized it). With a schedule already bursting at the seams, Kevin didn’t have time to do this but he made time to protect his wife’s name and interests. Then, that same day, he got on a plane, flew to join his wife on the other side of the country, and stood by her side as together they delivered the message at her brother’s funeral.
Those are the kinds of guy friends I have. I am surrounded by men who heroically serve, honor, respect, support and cherish their wives.
But when I read Christian blogs and go on social media, I’m bombarded by how awful men are, how they are abusive, power-hungry, dismissive of those who prey on women, and misogynistic. I don’t doubt these stories; many of the readers of this blog have been deeply hurt by men in all those categories. I agree with the voices of many that there needs to be not just less tolerance but no tolerance for the way women have been mistreated by men.
But for this one post, I’d like to highlight and pay deference to some of the good guys.
When I taught a seminary class that was equally divided between men and women, we all laughed at the difference between Mother’s Day sermons and Father’s Day sermons. On Mother’s Day, women get handed roses and chocolates and are told that everything good in the world is good because they created it, touched it, raised it, and blessed it. Men are handed shame, guilt and blame for world events, the breakdown of the family, and the anger of women in general. I just about lost it one Sunday when a pastor chose to preach on Amnon’s raping of Tamar on Father’s Day, asserting that, “if we think about it, all of us men are like Amnon.”
As Father’s Day approaches, let me say that I get why so many women are so angry at so many men. They have a reason to be. I am not defending misogyny, abuse of power, chauvinism, or other male ills. I also get that men’s sins tend to be “creepier” than the sins women are more likely to commit. Of course there’s a double standard. If a woman exposes herself, some wives think their husbands are creepy for looking. If a man exposes himself, everyone thinks he’s creepy for exposing himself. And they’re right.
But can we do one post to celebrate the good husbands, the ones who heroically serve, authentically love, sincerely cherish, and sacrificially give to their wives and children? Can I do that without raising the anger of those who want to vent about how awful their husbands, boyfriends, bosses or pastors have been?
The challenge in doing this is the simple fact that since every man has his compromises and conflicts, the question arises, how perfect does a man have to be to be celebrated?
Samson comes off in the Bible as a man driven by his lusts—for foreign women (including a prostitute), for gambling, and for violence. Samson murders thirty men for their clothes, just to pay off his gambling debts. When I preached on his life recently, I couldn’t use him as a positive example because he’s not. Yet…when you read Hebrews 11, he’s listed among the heroes of faith. Some contemporary bloggers would lose their minds at the writer of Hebrews if he was writing today. They’d boycott his books, demand he be fired and chased out of ministry forever until he is sufficiently shamed for being so insensitive as to imply there was anything positive to say about Samson.
Socially, it is open season on men in general and evangelical men in particular. Sadly, men and evangelicals have given their enemies many easy (and justified) targets to shoot at. But my nature is to be an encourager, and I see so many men and so many churches trying really hard, harder than anyone could imagine, to be among the “good” ones; to serve with good motives; to bless and lift up, not to exert power and authority for the sake of their egos; I see men who have given their wives very comfortable and pleasurable lives at great sacrifice to themselves; I see hundreds of pastors who love God’s word and want to preach it compassionately and fearlessly not for fame and certainly not for fortune, but because they genuinely love God and want to serve people. Yet, if there’s one sentence in a decades’ worth of sermons that could be misconstrued, or one decision in a thousand that may, in hindsight, have lacked discretion, they get pilloried and shamed.
I’m not challenging those who have been deeply hurt by husbands and male pastors, but I do want to encourage the men who feel taken for granted and who often get lumped in with those who deserve censure: God sees your service and your sacrifice. While he hates your sin, he’s on your side and wants you to be forgiven and redeemed, not shamed and shunned. If God can find something to celebrate in a repentant Samson, and then honor Samson for that one small step, he can celebrate you in your repentant brokenness and quest to live a new life.
When I was preparing to preach on Samson (which you can hear here if you want to Samson: for just the sermon, scrub to 22:38). I came across a remarkable book written by Nate Larkin in 2006: Samson and the Pirate Monks: Calling Men to Authentic Brotherhood. With almost unbelievable candor and honesty, and astonishingly good writing (I’m surprised he hasn’t written another book), Nate writes about his horrendous fall into serious and addictive sexual sin, and the road out of it to a life of sacrificial service. I picked up the book hoping to glean something from the life of Samson but that’s not what the book is about. It’s a call for men to stop living independent lives, to form small societies of mutual support and encouragement. We’re not meant to live this life alone and an isolated man who feels shamed and alone is walking toward a fall.
Guys, you know we’re in an open season on men—for some understandable reasons. We’re not going to get a lot of empathy from “the crowd” or on social media. But we can support each other. We can let down our guard with other men and encourage each other to become the kind of men we aspire to be, men who won’t define us by our worst moments, but who will affirm God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness, and inspire us in our aspirations to live, love and serve like Christ.
And for those women, sisters in Christ and wives like mine who genuinely respect us and even like us in spite of our failings and mess ups, bless you. I include Beth Moore in this, who, while challenging the extremes, finds words to affirm the good among those with whom she now has legitimate theological disagreements. Such wives, speakers, writers and sisters in Christ are an oasis of nurturing encouragement in a very angry world.
I’d love for this post to make Samson and the Pirate Monks a best-seller. There are some ugly accounts in it, so for that reason I’d warn traumatized (and I mean that in an empathetic, not judgmental way) women to not read it. But for men who are looking for honesty and a roadmap to encouragement in a world filled with condemnation, this book could be water in the desert.
For the good (not perfect) guys: thanks for your sacrifice. I hope your wives will even praise a few of you in the comments section below.
For those women who have been hurt deeply and traumatically by men: I’m not minimizing your pain. Your hurt is real and justified and needs to be taken seriously. You would have to be a robot not to feel angry and jaded. Just please, for this one post, don’t take offense when I tell some men, “Atta boy; keep it up, brother.”
And wives, if you want to praise your husband below as a message to single women that they don’t have to “settle” for a guy who doesn’t cherish his wife, feel free. I offer this as a very public “Happy Father’s Day” forum.
To all the wonderful husbands and fathers who wake up each morning and try to do their best by following God, loving their wives, and nurture their children Happy Father’s Day. I am blessed to be married to a man who works incredibly hard to provide for the beautiful family we have built. He will work ridiculous hours, help with sick children in the middle of the night, always make sure my car is running perfectly and that I have all the things that I need. I am blessed that when we hear harmful preaching regarding women’s roles in marriage or the church I can look over at my husband who will be shaking his head and muttering “that’s messed up”. It always makes me smile. I am blessed to be in a place where I can look around and see good men everywhere. Thank you for this post. It is important that when we fight against some of the awful things being done by some men we don’t then ignore all of the good done by so many.
David Brian Thomas you are all these things that Gary beautifully writes about in this blog. You live for God, for your kids, and for me. Your daily sacrifice, hard work, and simple acts of love to all of us do not go unnoticed! I am forever grateful that God gave me you! Thank you for all you do!
With all my love, your wife
My Queen, you have melted my heart, I have been a good man almost all of my life. But all the credit goes to God, my grand parents, my parents. Who instilled in me God’s word, his love, his mercy, his grace and his constant undeserving forgiveness. Despite being a good man, I ,like many, have only given God the things I foolishly felt he could handle. And have made decisions that weren’t aligned with God’s will but mine. At every turn I have eventually found heartache, hurt and pain. It wasn’t until (in my life’s journey of picking up the pieces), I totally surrendered everything to God and fell totally in love with him, putting him first in everything about me., did God teach me and show me that in order to have a women like my mother, or the women of my dreams, that I had to become the man, that a women of your quality is looking for. And that’s a man that loves God. A man that loves God, is a man capable of loving a women like you. You belong to God, and you are my constant reminder of God’s word that says he will give those whom love him and are obedient the desires of their heart. You remind me that God keeps his promises. You are so easy to love. God has made it perfectly clear to me, in my quiet time and in his word, exactly how I am to love you. Thank you for the kind words in your post. My prayer is that the tongue in my shoes always out perform the one in my mouth. You have again blessed me today.
Thanks for the encouragement and reminder. It is easy to see our husbands faults and overlook or justify ours. Most of our guys are good men trying hard to please us.
I appreciate this post, but I’m curious about opening with the mention of double standards–it almost (unfortunately) sounds like a negative statement against wives and their expectations. In my relationship with my husband, we don’t talk about double standards (unless there are true ones that need to be addressed), but we do talk about trying to understand the differences in the ways that husbands and wives generally (and we specifically) can best care for each other. For us, we would equally pick each other up at the airport after traveling…but we serve each other differently in other ways (I do most of the cooking because I’m good at it, he does his own ironing because he’s better at it than I am). I’m not sure why that opener sounded a little…negative? resigned?…rather than celebratory to me, but I’d like to celebrate all that the Good Men (Good Fathers, Good Husbands) do without even a joking mention of relationship double standards.
Very good words! I’m one who has been (and continues to be) deeply hurt by a guy. (My spouse–no, not physical abuse.) But I’ve come to believe he is a deeply hurt individual, and my heart is for him–to find healing. Unlike Samson, there are a ton of good things about this guy. I celebrate those good things.
Love this post! My husband and I have done Marriage Ministry for 10 years and have walked through our issues together with God in the center of it all! We have been able to tell our story of love and redemption to encourage other couples. Forgiveness is huge but many couples still believe there is someone out there perfect for them when they are not perfect! We have been blessed with 3 daughters who have each married Christian men, not perfect men but men who lean on Christ as a model for their lives! Our daughters grew up with us encouraging them to marry a man with the 2 “J’s“……..JESUS and a Job! Thank you so much for your honest blog posts!
It is a bad time for men; they are being lumped & dumped into a pile of cheaters, liars, manipulators, power-hungry, you name it and most likely you have seen or heard it in a number of situations. I lift up my husband because he is not any of these stereo-types. He’s kind, generous to a fault, hard-working, great provider, loving, funny, smart, and probably most importantly, is a Christ-follower. I waited a very long time to find this guy…today at almost 60, we just celebrated our 9th year of marriage recently. I thank God that He brought the best to me – my husband makes me smile or laugh almost daily. I’m blessed to have him share this walk of life together…he makes me a better person.
Thank you for this post. Thank you for reminding me that good guys still exist. Thank you for wading into deep waters.
I had an extremely unhealthy first marriage, married very young and married KNOWING he had a porn problem… after consulting with my pastor who told me all would be well after marriage and that I just needed to “become the porn” for my future husband. It was a hellish almost 10 years. Nearly 7 years later I found myself pursuing marriage with the man I thought was God’s perfect match for me, he was willing to move from his city to mine, he poured into my children’s lives, he sacrificed his time and gave up his hobby, he drove 2 hours every Wednesday afternoon to spend an hour with me on my lunch break… and I loved him. I couldn’t wait to be his wife. I however, was left shattered and heartbroken not once, but three times as this man became scared and backed out of committing. I fasted, I prayed, I stood by him, I gave him time, space, I started traveling to him, I did everything I possibly could… we were pursuing a friendship December – April and over Easter weekend he broke down and confessed he had been lying all along, that he had a porn problem and that the first time he left me, he’d been with another woman, he seemed broken and was crying and vulnerable.. I thought this was my answer to prayer, I wiped his tears, thanked God for honesty, and told this man I loved so dearly that there is always grace and encouraged him to check out Covenant Eyes, speak to his small group leader and find a group of guys he could be accountable to. We hugged, prayed together, thanked God for truth and confession and grace and for bringing us to this point and looking forward to what He had for our future together. He thanked me for fighting for us. Unfortunately a week later, I mentioned the future (daydreaming) even though we both had agreed that we needed to proceed slowly. This “flaw” of mine caused him to leave and cut all ties… and once again I was left heartbroken, and confused and wondering what in the world was so awful. I could forgive pornography and another woman and be willing to work through that, but he left me over daydreaming about the future and what God might do with us.
I share all that to say, THANK YOU, to the men who are truly vulnerable, to the men that struggle and do something about it, and put themselves in vulnerable places and positions. THANK YOU to the men who are committed to their wives, who serve, who sacrifice, who TRULY love their families more than they love their hobbies, who have the courage to be honest, and humble. THANK YOU to the men who fight for their relationships, their girlfriends/fiances/wives/families. THANK YOU to the men who pray diligently, who seek the Lord and spend time in His word. THANK YOU and enjoy your day! And I hope that you are encouraged and feel seen. Yes, I am wounded and hurt, yes I am still heartbroken, BUT I see some of you, I know you are out there and I appreciate you.
“But can we do one post to celebrate the good husbands, the ones who heroically serve, authentically love, sincerely cherish, and sacrificially give to their wives and children?”
You bet!!!!!!!
To my wonderful husband who has so richly loved me over the last decade, I have forgotten the hurt and pain from any other boy/man and have been made new. I wouldn’t want the role of the husband/dad. It’s the most unpopular one in the home, yet no home should ever be without one, most especially one such as my Brad who provides security and comfort for those around him….I am the rarest of all to have his heart…and I know God’s love is great because of the opportunity He has provided us with a sweet marriage.
I’m not married yet but there is a good man in my life, my father. He is full of character and self sacrifice. He loves my mother and is faithful to her alone. He serves those around him even if it isn’t his responsibility. He is always calm and steady and someone you can count on whenever you need help. My father is full of wisdom and is willing to share when asked. He is never controlling or unkind. The older I get the more I see that my dad is a good dad and I’m so thankful he’s in my life.
I thank God daily for giving me a husband who loves me and sacrifices everything for our family. He always puts our family’s needs before his own. He’s one of the good guys, and he deserves my praise. We’ve been married for 30 years, and marrying him was the best decision I’ve ever made! Our daughters know what a Godly husband and father look like because of his love and his faithful servant leadership.
Happy Father’s Day Curtis!
When i asked God to help me find a companion. I asked for someone the He knew loved Him. Then i knew we could work anything out. And it has held true for 54 years.
All I can say is that I have been waiting for this post for a ling time.
Thank you
My husband and I will be married 12 years in November, most of the beginning we spent “existing” together. Struggling with addiction to drugs and alcohol, we put before our relationship and before God. Both going through treatment (myself having to go to rehab 5 times and ultimately having to go away in another city on my own) He has stepped up and took on caring for our oldest son now 15 years old. I had to learn to let go, say no, stop overextending myself, and that there is more than one way to do something right. We both would agree that each are not the partner we thought of when the future had been imagined, but continue to work on being kind, loving, and understanding to each other and our children (we now have a 2yr old together). Thank you for this read!
My husband is amazing. He works so hard, under very stressful conditions, to provide for me and our daughter. He has always been supportive, and kind, and understanding and I am truly, truly blessed to have him in my life. I love him and I love the God who gave him to me.
Thank you Gary. This was beautifully and sensitively shared. A year ago I would have bypassed anything about even the possibility of ‘good men’. Other than my sons of course. I’m slowly understanding that there are some out there. I love the ending of Samson’s story except that I wanted a happily ever after where he could see and lived and, well, you know the rest. But he had sinned. And he paid dearly. Yet he repented. Oh, that all would repent. I won’t stop praying and believing for that. But I’ve learned that I am not the sacrifice. Jesus is the one who paid it all.
May I be This first to say, “Amen, well said, Gary!” I am blessed to be loved, cherished, served and even spoiled by my husband of 40 years. Oh we have walked through many difficult years where we sinned and sinned against each other—But God! My two favorite redemptive words from the Bible. He is the author of all the good found in our marriage and I am the direct benefactor of the good He has done in and through my husband.
I remember one conflict Tom and I were working through when the Lord rebuked me by saying, “You are who you are in large part because of the way your husband has loved and cherished you.” I was humbled, and filled with fresh respect and admiration for my man.
Thank you, Gary, for doing your part to balance the negativity being blasted daily on social media. It causes my heart to break in many ways, but at times it goes too far. You have found the words to express what I wholeheartedly feel.
Blessings!
I’m married to a good guy! His devotion to family and God are something I hold like a candle in the dark for my four boys to follow as a great example. His sacrifice, care and wisdom for our family are standards I can recommend to my daughter to watch for in young men and admire. I’m so proud of him, He is faithful in his commitment to Christ and wants the counsel of other upright men in his life. I am so thankful for him! God bless the good men this Fathers Day!
Thankyou for reminding us what to value and honor in men. Praise for striving to be a good guy is so important our good guys need to know we see and it matters to us. They are world changers. I think relationships have broken down where everyone needs a soapbox to discredit and tell their little story for every wrong they’ve gotten in a day. In the old days you’d call your girlfriend and get your drama out, and then she’d tell you your derailing and talk ya through it till your head is clear and your back on track. And she’d remind you you have a good good man and to be grateful
Thank you for this very well written post encouraging women (& I is one 😉) to view men through a lens of honest clarity and to speak respectfully and gratefully for all the “good guys.” I have known scoundrels and been damaged by some, but I have also known good men who have blessed my life with their hearts clearly focused on following Jesus and serving others sacrificially. My husband is the number one good guy in my life, not perfect, but a man who loves God with more of his heart and strength each day, and who loves me and our children and grandchildren fervently. He is simply the best man I know. He is also a man among men in that he has mentored many other men, walking with them through difficult life circumstances and helped them to choose to follow Jesus and serve others sacrificially. I am so proud and thankful to call him my man.