Man Word Blog Begins/Live It

"Don't tell me what you're going to do, show me," my dad used to say. He was always one for action. It's a value I've come to appreciate more and more in this life. All too often, I see men who think about it, dwell on it, dream about it, and even talk it up. But IT never happens.

All too often, I'm that man.

My final post of each week will be focused on application. Because the best lesson is no lesson at all if it's not applied to living.

My desire is to see an intentional generation of men rise up to take responsibility. Men who face life's challenges with confidence, do the right thing even when it hurts, respect themselves and others and act accordingly. Men who make it happen.

That involves putting into action the principles that you learn.

I hope you'll join me in this life quest. Let me know you're following the trail. Send me your questions on issues that are important to you and I'll speak to them out of my experience and out of resources that have been helpful to me.

I'll be here each week, with provocative topics that will make you think, with challenges to take you deeper, and applications that will help you live it!

The first installment begins Monday. See you then.

Man Word Blog Begins/Go Deep

My mid-week post will always challenge men to dive deeper into the topic of the week. Since this is Week One and its purpose is to introduce the vision of this blog, I want to cover three principles that you'll see a lot of if you become a regular reader.


The first is priority. A life well-lived has the right kinds of priorities. Things that are bigger than yourself that challenge you to get off your duff and achieve. Things that remove complacency and fill your life with direction. Things that propel you forward rather than bog you down.

The main priority of my life is my relationship with God. Don't worry, I won't beat you over the head with it. But it's important that you know what drives me. The Apostle Paul wrote to a young man he was mentoring, "Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called..." To his student, Timothy, Paul was saying engage fully in this faith that you've confessed to have. Make it the priority of your life. Don't just think or talk about the principles of your faith--put them into practice.

My faith is the first priority of my life. It directs me. My relationship with my wife and family is next. My church work is third. By establishing these priorities and ordering them in my life, I know where I'm going. And course corrections are a matter of checking my actions against those priorities and then adjusting to bring them in line when necessary. Have you established your life priorities?

The second principle is discipline. In American society today, there are way too many distractions designed to take men off course. Those distractions aren't going away. The answer is disciplining yourself to avoid the things that drag you down and hinder your ability to achieve your priorities. And, like it or not, discipline translates into sweat and hard work. There's no other road to achieving what you want. Accept it. Make discipline part of your life.

Finally, men who engage life need wisdom and discernment. Wisdom isn't memorizing a lot of clever sayings. It's the ability to assess what's going on around you and to determine a right course of action (steps that will lead you to achieve your priorities). Certainly, you need discernment when disaster strikes, but even more so when things are going well. Wisdom involves measuring your impact on life, evaluating the opportunities, and making and executing a plan that will lead to more impact. It's when times are good that you have the capacity to do this.

These three principles will appear a lot in my writings to you. My hope is that you'll take them to heart and that they will become everyday elements of your life.

(Next post this Friday)

Man Word Blog Begins/Think About It

Few things make me as mad as the male bashing I see on today's television commercials.

A good, bad example is the telephone company spot that features a very together woman explaining how easy and inexpensive this telephone service is to install. Meanwhile, her apparent husband appears in the background doing the worst possible impression of John Travolta's Saturday Night Fever bump and grind routine. Clueless of the camera, he makes a fool of himself for all to see.

If the commercial had stopped there, it might have been funny. But, at the end, the woman looks over her shoulder and discovers what has been going on in the background while she was trying to do something serious. She looks back at the camera with this face that says, "My husband is a bumbling idiot and my life is so diminished because I'm anchored to him."

My anger over this and other men-bashing commercials isn't that this type of man doesn't exist. It's the fact that our society seems to relish highlighting their directionless, live-for-the-moment, unproductive lifestyles rather than presenting the more noble pursuits that represent the true calling of men.

This blog is for men and it's about life engagement. Life is meant to be lived. And what the world needs are men who run their lives, not men who let life run them. I want to see men engaged in building a life, not throwing it away in dissipation, randomness, distraction, or laziness.

My hope--through this blog--is to provide solutions, examples, inspiration, and suggestions that will help men live life to its fullest.

As we begin, I have two questions for you: Which man are you? Which man do you want to be?

Think about it!

(Next post this Wednesday)