If young men need one thing, aside from knowing they've been made with painstaking care in God's image, it's direct personal guidance from older men who have the experience they're after. When young men don't get this guidance, they tend to unwittingly go looking in the wrong place for it. That's when they turn to things like drugs, alcohol, degrading sex, porn, anger, violence, gangs, etc. They fill their lives with that stuff. And it's the reason we live in a country where 40% of children born today are going home without a father.
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| photo courtesy of Garry Knight at Flickr.com |
It's in the past
About 6 months ago, I posted about a conversation I had with a young man, in my church's youth group, who sent a naughty text to my daughter. I gave him a very direct and very blunt warning about respecting women. I told him that, if he didn't learn to respect other people, and specifically women, he was going to end up alone.
After that he apologized to me, and my daughter... and my wife for good measure. And we dropped the whole thing. Allison and I got updates on him through his mom since we're good friends with his family. We prayed as we heard that he continued to struggle with not only respectfulness, but also anger and even physical violence at times. And as things seemed to be getting worse for him, we started to worry.
Not so happily ever after
Then very recently my phone rang. It was him. He wanted to know if we could get together. So we met at my house and sat at the patio table in my backyard. And it was there that he gave me some bad news.
He had just turned 18, and his physical and emotional trouble at home had started to put other people, namely his mother, in danger. As a result of not choosing not to respect his parent's rules and respect his family, he was no longer able to live at home. He tried to stay at friends houses for a while, but eventually those fell through.
By the time he met with me, he had been sleeping on the ground behind a Circle K for nearly a week. And, as I had warned him, his growing lack of respect for other people landed him alone, and homeless to boot.
As soon as he was done telling me all of this, I jumped across the table, stuck my finger in his face and shouted, "I TOLD YOU SO!"
Just kidding. I didn't really do that. But if I'm being honest, I did have to fight off some arrogance after hitting the nail so squarely on the head with my warning. But that's not really what this post is about. Sorry, I digress.
As soon as he was done telling me his story, I told him how sorry I was to hear what hard times he had fallen upon. Then I asked him what his plan was. He told me he didn't have much of a plan, aside from one thing - then he wanted to ask me to be his mentor, and help him get himself back on his feet.
Today, I'm happy to tell you, the young man isn't sleeping on the streets anymore. He's got a studio apartment that his mom hooked him up with. He's just started a new job, is attending college, and him and I are meeting regularly to pursue the goal that he came up with himself - to become a respectful and respectable man.
A plan to save man
My purpose in telling you this story isn't to point out what a great advice giver I am (In fact, I'd argue that I struggle to give any advice, good or bad, without becoming full of myself). The purpose is to give you a picture of young men today that you won't get by reading the statistics.
There are numbers all over the place that tell you how likely young men are to drop out of school, get their high school girlfriend pregnant, become addicted to porn, become homeless, join a gang, or begin using drugs. But what the numbers don't show you is what is at the heart of each and every guy.
Regardless of what the statistics say, no guys grow up dreaming to get thrown out of their parents house. It happens because, these days, there aren't enough people teaching boys how to become men. Without any direction, most guys do what seems logical and turn to whatever gives them the most immediate results (i.e. drugs, sex and rock & roll).
The real shame exists in that it doesn't take much to help these young guys find a better life for themselves. For most of them it's as simple as showing them a living picture of what they want. The young man from the story wanted to be respectful and respectable. He came to me because he believed that I possessed those two qualities, and he thought I'd be willing to let him in on what I know.
More than anything, young men today need other men whom they can follow and want to be like. And I'm not talking about celebrities. I'm talking about the men who are already in their lives, like you or the other great men you know. And young girls are in need of the same thing. They need women they can look up to, who will help them find a better path.
When we live in a country where 40% of children are born without a father in the home, the need for stronger older men and women is powerful. It's one that is calling all of us. Okay, I'm soap boxing now. Sorry. I'll stop. You should mentor someone younger than you. Thanks for reading.
What was the most impactful piece of advice you received in your younger years? Please leave your answer in the comment section below.
Warmly,
Tim
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