The Fathers Voice Collection Article 1 Masculinity Is Not Independence What Jesus Taught Every Son About Strength

Every man is asking a question he rarely says out loud.

Do I have what it takes?

Most men won't admit it. Instead, they answer that question the only way they've been taught.

• Work harder.  Carry more.  Need less.  Figure it out.  Don't cry.

• Be stronger.  Don't ask for help.  If you struggle, hide it.

• If you fail, recover quickly.  If you don't know the answer, pretend you do.

Culture calls that strength.  Jesus never did.

One of the most astonishing statements Jesus ever made is found in John 5: “The Son can do nothing by Himself. He can do only what He sees His Father doing."

Pause there for a moment.

The strongest Man who ever walked the earth never measured His strength by His independence. He measured it by His continual connection to His Father.

That should stop every one of us.

Because somewhere along the way, many of us accepted a definition of masculinity that Jesus never modeled. We observe the father-figures in our lives about what masculinity and maturity looks like, and often that meant needing God less, carrying everything ourselves, asking for help is weakness, dependence equals immaturity, but Jesus dismantles all of that with one sentence. "I can only do and say what I see My Father doing and saying."

Perhaps that's why so many good men are exhausted. They've been carrying responsibilities God never intended them to carry alone. Not because they're unwilling. Because they sincerely believe that's what strong men do. The tragedy isn't that men carry heavy things, it's that they carry them without a father. 

There was a moment while raising my oldest son that forever changed the way I understood boys. He was about fourteen years old, and everything between us felt like a battle. One day I finally asked him, "Why does everything have to be so hard?"

His answer was profound.

"Mom, if you want me to do what you're asking, you're going to have to stop talking to me like a mom and start talking to me like my coaches."

At first, I wasn't sure what to do with that. But over time I realized he wasn't asking me to love him less. He was revealing a need that I had never understood about manhood. 

There is something inside a boy that longs for formation, clarity, and leadership.

As a single mom, I carried my boys and gave birth to them, but I couldn't develop their masculinity. That was going to require something I could never be... a father.

Masculinity isn't formed by information alone. It's formed