To Men in Exile
To the Exiled Men,
In some
ways, many ways, the world seems tailor-made for you. But something just isn’t right. It is too much.
Expectations
are so much lower. No one thinks that
you need to do anything great with your life.
In fact someone might try to medicate that inclination right out of you. Just sit still, behave, and be a good
boy. Don’t strive. Don’t struggle. Don’t work too hard.
Just
play. Have a good time. Enjoy life.
After all, you don’t even need your own health insurance until you are
27. What is the big rush to grow up, to
become a man?
And chivalry is dead. No one expects you to pick up the tab
anymore. No one expects you to open
doors or pull out chairs. This is an
equal society. You save a lot of
money. You save a lot of effort.
Sex is
easier than it used to be. Go back 50
years and you had to give a girl a ring, or at least promise to, if you wanted
to get in her bed. Now you rarely need
to promise breakfast.
But
girls? Who needs real girls? They are complicated. You can have all of the perfect, unencumbered
sex you want. You can fulfill your every
fantasy, no matter how extreme, on the internet. You don’t even have to buy a magazine or rent
a video, just type a few letters, and there it is. Free.
You see
how great that all sounds? Low
expectations. Free sex. No pressure from anyone. No hard work.
No sacrifice. No obligations.
If that
is what you want, then stop reading now.
If you are satisfied with what society want you to be, with what it
wants you to have, then go back to it.
You can’t
though. You cannot shake the feeling
that this is too easy. It is too
simple. There must be more. You were created for more.
You
were. You are.
In the
beginning God formed the Man from the dust of the earth and placed him in paradise. God set the Man in a flawless garden and told
him to “dress it and to keep it.”
There
was work even in paradise. There was
duty. There was obligation. There was a woman.
From
the Man’s side the Lord God made a companion for him, someone to save him from
his loneliness. She was called Woman.
She was
dangerous, this Woman. She was
real. She was flesh and blood, “bone of
my bones and flesh of my flesh.” And
every inch of her flesh was worth every ounce of his blood.
“Therefore
shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife: and
the two shall be one flesh.”
You
were created for work, great works. You
were made to honor your obligations. You
were fashioned to love one woman your whole life.
Look
how far we have fallen, you and I. We
have lost sight of what it really means to be a man. We have sold our souls for an easier life, for
cheap sex.
There
is hope. There is one man, a True Man,
who has come to give us the way. This
Man spent Himself in His work, traveling, fighting, protecting, teaching,
healing. He loved His Bride with every
last drop of His priceless blood.
He is
Jesus, the Anointed One, the King of Israel, the Lord of Heaven and Earth. And He is more than simply an example of
Manhood. He is the source. You cannot earn your manhood by following
Him. You must receive it as a gift from
His pierced side.
Christ
shed His blood on the cross to set you right with the One who created you as a
man. His sacrifice has renewed you in
your manhood.
The
gift of manhood that God gave when He formed you in the womb He then rejuvenates
when He calls you through the waters of Baptism. He revitalizes you in your duties with every
firm declaration that your trespasses are atoned for. He re-galvanizes your one-flesh union when He
gives you His flesh and blood to eat and to drink.
True
Manhood can be found only in Jesus. It
can be received only from Jesus. To the
men in exile, may your Lord bring you in that Way.
In Christ,
A Fellow ExileTo Women in Exile
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