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In the past week, I have experienced a lot of good news. Some of my highlights include completing another degree, getting more involved in my community, making more time for friends, and receiving a new job offer.
I shared all of that news with a friend of mine named Danny.
Danny and I recently decided to meet once a week to remind each other of our identity in Christ, pray for one another, and to encourage one another to live out our identity. In short, we meet once a week to hold each another accountable.
There are four parts to our meeting — celebrate, strengthen, repent, and pray.
Celebrate means to praise God, strengthen means to encourage each other, repent means to share our struggles (read: sins), and prayer involves praying not just for our struggles, but for the struggles of others.
After sharing the good news, I encountered over the past week and giving praise to God; I begin to share with Danny insights from my personal readings. My reading for the week was Matthew 1. The best thing about reading God’s word is that it serves to highlight and remind me of the areas of my life where I’m failing to align mine with his words. Which in turn leads directly into the third part of our weekly meeting: repent.
Good Men Project editor Andy Grant has a podcast called Real Men Feel. The podcast serves as a place for men to turn to for expressing their emotions — my weekly meeting with Danny is this place for me.
When I repent, I get to talk about the sins I’m struggling with (temptation, women, masculinity, and sex). Danny will then point out a truth about God and the Gospel that I should turn to when struggling. Moreover, he asks “how can I help?”
Every man needs this. We need a place where we can be open, honest, and vulnerable.
Having a friend, or small group of friends, who allow you to talk without shame about your struggles, be there for you, and pray for you would help many.
During the last phase of our weekly meeting (prayer), I prayed for Danny, Danny prayed for me, and I also prayed for any man who needs a place to turn to when he needs to talk.
Unshackled yourself from toxic masculinity and find a place to be honest and real.
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