The unexpected journey: a path to manhood

One thing that is becoming quiet clear in this journey is the fact that is and isn’t at all like the movie. What is like the movie is that there are enemies to be battled. There are even times when the battle is pretty intense and the attackers gain an advantage. There are times when help is needed to defeat a particular foe. It has helped my son to draw a comparison between the things he wrestles with to the fight scenes of the movie. Even though there isn’t the audible sound of clanging swords or whishing arrows, he is beginning to see that the attitude that comes upon him is an enemy to be fought off. I have shared some instances where the enemy—the attitude—has been winning the fight. I have been able to show him that my prayers coupled with his willingness to fight the attitude brought the victory of that battle. Being able to use the fight scene analogy has proven to be a great help. The drawing of the map has also enabled us to see additional tools that are at our disposal like the Man Mirror and the Wisdom Well. However this journey in unlike the movie in that—as you might guess—the fight scenes are much shorter while the passage—the daily routines—are much longer than depicted in the movie. There have been times when our Man Cave time has been uneventful—almost boring. I have to be careful not to allow that monotony to lull us into apathy. This too can be an enemy to detour us from the path and stifle the journey. Thus far I have been able to utilize these times to talk about why the journey is important. In fact this morning we spent a fair amount of time rehearsing what this journey means to my son. I explained that it isn’t some assignment where he must memorize enough material to score high on a test. To be sure there will be tests—many of them—but this is a journey that will build deep within him the foundations that will enable him to fight the many fights, pass the many tests and overcome the many obstacles that he will surely face in his lifetime. It is also important to understand that there have been fundamental foundations imparted into his life over the past 12-years. That which is happening now is simply building on what has already been established. I have been a student of the late Zig Ziglar for many years. He coined a phrase that has been the foundation of life for a long time. It goes like this: “Repetition is the Mother of learning, which makes it the Father of action and the Architect of accomplishment.” These “daily routine” times are simply times to reinforce the repetition.