To Men (and Women who want Men) Part 1

It is written,
"Exhort young men to be self controlled."

It is also written,
"If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to control his whole body."

And again, it is written,
"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me."

I read somewhere I can't remember that manhood and womanhood are not opposites. 
Woman is not the opposite of man.  Men and women are not opposing or opposite sexes.
Childhood is the opposite of manhood (and womanhood.  But focus on manhood.)

As a man, husband, father, and officer, I bear witness to the truth of these scriptures.

I've seen that the key to my manhood in all of these areas is self control, as Rudyard Kipling said in his poem, "If," a poem written from the perspective of a father teaching his son about manhood:

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you..."

I've seen that the atmosphere at my house or job rises and falls with my disposition.
All hell can break loose around me, as long as it doesn't break loose in me.
If I loose it, all seems to be lost.

As it says in one of my favorite songs, so it should be in the spirit of every man:

"No storm can shake my inmost calm."

How can this be so?
By God our Creator, for Whom every man is a reflector.

The prophet Isaiah spoke these words from God:
"You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You."

As a man, I've learned, and I am still learning, to trust God's perspective of me, to seek His honor only, to submit to His authority only.  If God honors me, I am honored, whether the world bashes me or not.

Click HERE for part 2...