Jeffrey E. Miller - Hazards of Being a Man: Overcoming 12 Challenges All Men Face

HAZARDS OF
BEING A
MAN

HAZARDS OF
BEING A
MAN

OVERCOMING 12 CHALLENGES ALL MEN FACE

JEFFREY E. MILLER

2007 by Jeffrey E. Miller

Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Miller, Jeffrey E. ( Jeffrey Edward), 1972
Hazards of being a man : overcoming 12 challenges all men face / Jeffrey E. Miller.
p. cm.
ISBN 10: 0-8010-6805-3 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-8010-6805-8 (pbk.)
1. Christian menReligious life. I. Title
BV4528.2.M56 2007
248.842dc22

2006037362

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from The NET Bible, New English Translation, copyright 1996 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. Used by permission.

Scripture marked NASB is taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

To my wife, Jenny, for tolerating your husband who wrote a mens textbook that he himself doesnt always follow.

To my daughters, Malee and Mollianne. May you find men whose lives provide a positive example for how to live and lead.

To the elders at Trinity Bible Church, past, present, and future, for showing me that its possible to avoid the mistakes that others werent able to.

CONTENTS

W riting a book is a team effort, even though only one name appears on the cover. This book was made possible because of the extraordinary skills and efforts of many individuals, a few of whom cannot go unmentioned.

Thanks to Joe Head and Dave Foran at Bible.org for fleece-testing the Hazards of Being a Man audio series online. Thanks also to special agent Chris Goodman for passionately representing and promoting the concept.

Thanks to Don Stephenson, Dave Lewis, and the team at Baker Publishing Group for your enthusiasm for the project. Thanks especially to the editors for fine-tuning the manuscript. Any errors or oversights in the final product belong to me alone.

W hen an opportunity comes to learn from anothers mistakes rather than making your own, take it. The Bible contains stories of men who struggled with sin just like men today. Whether hero or villain, every person in the Bible can teach us something about ourselves and our relationship with God. In fact, Paul takes this a step further by claiming that the stories recorded in the Old Testament about the men who failed were written down to prevent us from making the same egregious errors: These things happened as examples for us, so that we will not crave evil things as they did.... These things happened to them as examples, and were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come (1 Cor. 10:6, 11).

The twelve hazards described in this book are seen in the lives of twelve Old Testament men. These twelve men are some of the most famous in the Bible, yet the Bible paints a balanced picture of their lives by including the good and the bad. They werent perfect. All struggled to live righteous livesjust as Christian men today do.

A series on the hazards of being a man is one of the most enjoyable that I teach, whether in the pulpit, the classroom, or on a retreat. The best part is simply being with men and talking seriously about issues that all men face. By nature many men are isolationists and assume that their struggles are unique. I delight in seeing people convicted by the Word of God and at the same time comforted by the thought that they are not alone in this battle. It is a challenging joy.

As I have taught this series, many men have shed tears of recognition. The struggles described in this book are common to most men. Sure, some burden us more than others do, but each of us wrestles with all of them to one degree or another. If we are to have victory over them, we must be willing to make changes in our life. Life change begins with conviction. We become aware of our sin, we grow convicted of our sin, and we seek a solution for our sin.

Before the tears were shed, there was laughterlaughter of recognition. The men were not laughing at the sin itself, nor demonstrating complacency in the face of failure. They were enjoying the company of others in the battle for purity, kind of like the laughter that a terminal cancer patient can share with another terminal cancer patient. The journey itself is not always pleasant, but the company we keep along the way makes it tolerable.

This is not a book on being a better husband or father perse. Its about being a better man. Some of the biblical characters we will examine were married; others were single. Some had children; others had none. Being a better man will help you become a better husband or father or grandfather or supervisor or employee or club member or church participant.

This is a book for men about men. Specifically, it examines certain struggles that are as common among men today as they were among the men in the Old Testament. Men need to know that they are part of a fraternity. We need to know that other men share our struggles. We are not alone in this battle, and there is hope for overcoming these shared pitfalls. The struggles we have we share with men who lived four thousand years ago as well as with every red-blooded male on the planet today. When we recognize the company we keep, we can use it to bolster our eagerness to see victory despite the hazards.

Best wishes as you strive to be a model for how to live rather than a warning for how not to.

1
The Hazard of
DEFLECTING RESPONSIBILITY

Be thankful for bad luck. Without it, youd have to blame yourself.

Franklin P. Jones

I stay out of the flower bed behind my house. Im wanted in four states for capital murder charges involving flowers as victims. The flower bed belongs to my wife and daughters. Because of their labor, zinnias, alyssum, begonias, and impatiens burst forth in whites, yellows, lavenders, and pinks. Several of the towering zinnia blooms stand more than three feet tall. This makes my seven-year-old especially proud since she planted them herself.

The rest of the yard, however, is my domain. I do the mowing, trimming, edging, weeding, and fertilizing. However, the grass comes dangerously close to the flower bed, and so does my Weed Eater. Because of this unfortunate proximity, I recently decapitated a low-hanging zinnia bloom with my Weed Eater. Chopped it right off the stem. It landed near the kids swing set. What did I do? Im a pastor, accustomed to dealing with delicate situations. So I followed my godly, mature instinct. I looked around to make sure no one saw me, and then I grabbed up the bloom and buried it deep in our trash Dumpster.

Thats when it hit me. I routinely teach the men in my church on the subject of accepting responsibility. I pray regularly for my daughters to learn to accept responsibility. How can I expect them to do so if I am not willing to model it for them? I needed to accept responsibility, and, in this case, my daughter needed to see me do it. When she returned home from school, I asked her to join me outside. I showed her the damage and told her I was sorry and that I messed up. She graciously accepted my apology. Then she showed me how to lift the blooms out of harms way the next time I trim the lawn.