I’m flying home from another EMB and reflecting on some of the comments I heard from the guys this weekend. Here are a couple of them:

“I’ve decided I’m going to become the man God is calling me to be”

“I’m going to pursue purity whether or not my wife stays with me”

“I’m committing to my band of brothers to walk this journey with them”

As I think about it, within each statement is a choice. The men making these claims had to choose to change. They had to decide, volitionally, to let go of their entitlement, isolation, pride and justifiable resentment. They realized that in order for life to be different, for there to be any real change this shift was necessary. What a huge reality to face! I can tell you firsthand, engaging the reality that personal change requires surrendering myself is incredibly difficult. It is even harder for someone who has a right to be angry; at the world, their spouse or even God.

For many men, the choice to change comes at too high a cost. When it could mean losing a job, a spouse, a family, a career, a business, an estate, an inheritance, a ministry, etc. some men decide against changing. “Even though I’m stuck in a miserable rut, at least I have [fill in the blank]” is how the thinking goes. In order for the scale to tip in my life, I had to come to the conclusion that nothing could be worse than being stuck in the miserable rut any longer. When God gave me the opportunity to get out, I reluctantly took it. I knew I had to be willing to lose myself to find freedom. The Message Bible says it this way, “If you grasp and cling to life on your terms, you’ll lose it, but if you let that life go, you’ll get life on God’s terms”. Isn’t that what we know will fulfill us anyway – life on God’s terms?

I hope you’ll choose change for yourself. Maybe you are one of the men who need to attend EMB -  its finally time. Or maybe you’re a spouse who has wondered for too long whether your husband has been faithful – it’s time to ask him. Perhaps you’re single and it’s finally time to surrender getting married – time to find intimate friendships. You never know, you might like who you find when you finally surrender yourself.

At EMB I spend a few minutes talking about humble pie. In case you don’t know, humility is the currency of relational redemption. It is humility that allows a grudge-holder to forgive, a trespasser to repent, and broken relationships to be healed. Think about it- do you really want to be close to someone who is prideful, arrogant, entitled and/or self-righteous? No way. We want to distance ourselves from people like that. If we are to draw people close to us we must assume a humble posture. That is true whether you apply it to friends, kids, spouses or mentors. If we’ve damaged one of these relationships we cannot will the other person to like us, forgive us or reconcile with us. We have to eat a large slice of humble pie and work towards being forgivable.
Too often I hear men lament that someone (usually their spouse) is required Biblically to forgive them, yet refuses to. Usually I’ll ask them if they’ve been forgivable. The answer to the question is evident in the very manner in which the guy answers: either in a humble, contrite emotional way or in a defensive, indignant, prideful way. If the latter, the issue becomes obvious.
If you are in the process of restoring broken relationships I hope you’ll have a large slice of humble pie. It is the currency with which you’ll make deposits into an entirely over-drafted account.

A friend from EMB, Steve, gave me this picture at the EMB 2.0 event. He said he was on a trip to Wales, saw the restaurant and took a pic as a reminder. Now it sits on my desk between a current picture of Shelley and I, and our wedding picture. It is a great reminder for me too.