The question that haunts every man
Every man is haunted by the question, “Am I really a man? Have I got what it takes… when it counts?”
What have you done with your question? Where have you taken it? You see, a man’s core question does not go away. It is a hunger so essential to our souls that it will compel us to find a resolution. In truth, it drives everything we do.
The wound
Every man carries a wound. We live in a world full of broken people. We are all sons of Adam. Most men deny their wound – deny that it happened, deny that it hurt, certainly deny that it’s shaping the way they live today. But a wound that is denied is a wound that cannot heal.
Healing the wound
The whole false self is an elaborate defense against entering our wounded heart. It is a chosen blindness. We are made to depend on God; we are made for union with him and nothing about us works right without it. There are no formulas with God. The way in which God heals our wound is a deeply personal process.
The masculine heart has 3 core desires:
- Battle to fight
- Adventure to live
- Beauty to rescue
1st core desire: Battle to fight
Most men think they are simply here on earth to kill time – and it’s killing them. Man is not born into a sitcom or a soap opera; he is born into a world at war. This is not Home Improvement; it’s Saving Private Ryan. There will be many, many battles to fight on many different battlefields.
“Enemy-occupied territory – that is what this world is.” – CS Lewis
Truth be told, most of us are faking our way through life. We pick only those battles we are sure to win, only those adventures we are sure to handle, only those beauties we are sure to rescue.
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” – Henry David Thoreau
A man must have a battle to fight, a great mission to his life. That is why God created you – to be his intimate ally, to join him in the Great Battle. There is no other man who can replace you in your life, in the arena you’ve been called to. If you leave your place in the line, it will remain empty.
“Without Christ a man must fail miserably or succeed even more miserably.” – Macdonald
2nd core desire: An adventure to live
Adventure, with all its requisite danger and wildness, is a deeply spiritual longing written into the soul of man. Even if your father did his job, he can only take you partway. There comes a time when you have to leave all that is familiar, and go on into the unknown with God. Life is not a problem to be solved; it is an adventure to be lived.
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman
What is written in your heart?
“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” it not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers… He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.” – GK Chesterton
3rd core desire: A beauty to rescue
A man doesn’t just need a battle to fight; he needs someone to fight for. The number one problem between men and their women is that we men, when asking to truly fight for her… hesitate. We are still seeking to save ourselves; we have forgotten the deep pleasure of spilling our life for another.
Will you fight for her?
Learning to fight for the Beauty is not only one of man’s core passions, it is one of life’s greatest joys.
Prodigal Catholic 
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