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The Wound

Genesis 3: 8-10 "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

There it is! We hide (pose) out of fear. Fear of being found out. It’s brutal to begin to be honest with ourselves about those things that have worked for us, those things that we present to the world that we want people to see, to hide what we don’t want people to know about us. You have to be willing to be honest about the hiding/posing to be able to set it aside to get into the deeper things. The pose is just the thing in the way.

Do I have what it takes? Am I good enough? Do you feel like “It’s up to you?” Like everything is on your shoulders? Is your “drivenness” eating you up inside? There is always a story to a man’s woundedness. Beneath every posing man is a wounded boy. Here's the hard truth for most men: often the deepest wounds are given by our fathers. This can be a difficult thing to unpack.

Two things every boy needs to know:

• His father adores him. He needs to hear “I love you,” I want to spend time with you, and I adore you.
• He needs the affirmation from his father in a thousand ways that he has what it takes. “I see you! Way to go! Look at you! That a boy!”

The delight of the father affirms the question in the boy’s heart. Am I good enough?

Now here is the real crazy truth! Even Jesus needed to be affirmed by His Father. Matt 3:16-17 "As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him, I am well pleased.” If the Son of God needed this kind of affirmation, how much more do we as the Fathers' sons?

Take some time to bring your question before your heavenly Father today. He longs to answer it!