Encouraging Men to Be Men

This program was made from the following episodes:

"Encouraging Men to Be Men" from the series,"Moments with You."

"Encouraging Men to Be Men" from the series "True Woman 101: Snips and Snails."

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Dannah Gresh: In a culture that speaks of toxic masculinity so often, isn’t it encouraging to witness evidence that God created men to be good. Here’s Karen Loritts.

Karen Loritts: My second little grandson is such a sweetie. He’ll be nine pretty soon. He has three brothers and a sweet mom and dad. This shows the protection of his Mimi (I’m his Mimi). They were here, and he would open the car door for me, and make sure the door was locked, “Are you locked in Mimi?” “Yes, Mimi’s locked in.”

Dannah: Sounds like a good little man. I don't know what you think, but I think we need more of those. Well, what if I told you that you and I—dear woman—play a part in encouraging men to be men? Good men.

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh.

It’s been a long time since my Robby was little. He towers over me now, but one thing I remember about raising him was how much his little chest would swell when I found a way to communicate, “Son, you have what it takes.”

You know who else needs to hear that? Your husband. And your pastor. Your dad. Your coworkers. Your encouragement can go a long way toward helping men step into the role God has for them.

Dennis Rainey says that women are a powerful force in the lives of the men around them. Sometimes we use that power for good, and sometimes our words can be more like a hurricane. They can do a lot of damage. 

Nancy Demoss Wolgemuth pulled up a chair for an honest conversation between Dennis and his wife Barbara about the impact we have on the men in our lives. He said, “Men need women who fiercely believe in them.”

That’s such a good reminder. Let’s pull up a chair of our own and listen in.

Dennis: Well, I tell you how Barbara’s been used. I was thinking how there really are two kinds of women: Jezebel, who incited the king to do evil; or there’s the Barbara Rainey’s, who has incited her husband to do what’s right and to believe the truth about who I am, who God made me to be, to be obedient to Him. It’s not that Barbara’s perfect . . .

Barbara: . . .because I’m not.

Dennis: That’s right. When I finish speaking, when I finish writing something, when I’m getting ready to go do something, it’s her opinion that matters most because I know she can be trusted. She doesn’t hesitate to tell me the truth, even when it doesn’t feel good. I would say that’s a key for women, the whole concept in Ephesians 4, speaking the truth in love. Flattery is not what men need today. Men do need to be built up. They need to be encouraged. They need to be cheered on. But men need women who fiercely believe in them and who will speak the truth to them even when it is steaming, even when it hurts, and even when, perhaps, their husband’s reaction may not be pleasant at the moment.

Nancy: Help us out, Dennis. We don’t often on this program get a man to speak to us as women, and we welcome that. So you’re talking about a woman speaking the truth in love but saying things that can sting.

In your marriage how does Barbara does that in a way that affirms and encourages you as a man of God without tearing you down or discouraging you by speaking the truth that may be hard?

Dennis: I think that’s a great question, and I’ll let her answer as well because she has to have a kind of methodology to this because she’s done it so well.

Most communication is non-verbal. Ninety-three percent of all communication is not what is said but how it’s said, which means: When you deliver it, how you say it, your countenance, the timing, all those things matter in how you deliver a message to your husband.

I know on more than one occasion Barbara has had something she needed to say to me. She would begin by letting me know and affirming me as a man, as her friend, as her husband, letting me know and assuring me of her love, not setting me up for the negative, but nonetheless letting me know, “I’m committed. I’m here. I’m for you. I’m on your team, and there’s something you would benefit from.” She hasn’t always done that perfectly, but overall, that’s what insures the message being heard by your man.

If you’re a nag; if you’re constantly harping on issues, constantly mentioning things, griping, complaining—who enjoys coming home to that? Or who enjoys being married to that? But those positive comments—praise, appreciation—those are all really important.

Barbara: One of the things that I learned early on in our marriage . . . I’m not really sure how I picked this up because I don’t remember someone teaching on it—maybe the Lord just graciously showed me that this was the right thing to do. But I began asking Dennis’ permission to tell him things that were difficult.

I remember very, very early in our marriage—before we had kids, so this had to be in the first two years. When we would go places where he was speaking and I would be sitting in the audience, when he would finish, he wanted to know what I thought. He would ask me what I thought, and I would tell him I thought he did a great job and whatever, and then I would say, “But I have a couple of things I thought might make it better. Would you like to know?” He would always say, “Yes.”

Initially, in the early days, there were a few little grammar things, and since I was good in English and he wasn’t (I’m terrible at Math, and he’s good at Math), it was one of those things that I knew I could help him on. He would say, “Yes, I would love to know what that was.” I would tell him, and he would go, “Great.” He wanted to be good, too. He didn’t want to say something that was wrong.

So that sort of began a habit in our relationship. When there was something that I felt like he needed to learn that I knew, or something that he needed to improve, I always asked permission. If it was something that I thought might make him feel uncomfortable or might make him feel insecure, I would ask permission.

Dennis: When a man knows that his wife believes in him and is on his team and is cheering him on, he can hear a lot from her. But if he senses that she’s on a reformation project called, “Husband,” trying to change him . . . That really brings to mind a story early in our marriage how Barbara was on her own husband reformation project with me.

Barbara: Well this, again, was in our first year of our marriage. I was under the assumption that there was a right way to have a quiet time. My husband is much more spontaneous, much more of a free spirit, and he didn’t do it the way that I did it. I just assumed that he was wrong, and I was right.

So I began, literally, to make this prayer list on a piece of paper, which is how I kept my prayer list at the time. I would write them down. So I wrote down, “Pray that Dennis will start having quiet times. Pray that they’ll be regular. Pray that. . .” I had this list, and it began to grow. But I realized after praying through this list, repeatedly, every day, for two-three weeks, that all I was thinking about was all the things that were wrong with him, that God needed to change.

I came to this conclusion, which again was very pivotal in the early days of our marriage, where I decided, “I don’t like the way this makes me feel. I don’t like the way this makes me look at him negatively.” So I remember specifically telling the Lord one day, “Okay, Lord, You have given me this man, and these are the things that I think need to be fixed. But he’s Yours, not mine, so if You want to fix them, it’s Your business. I give You this list. I’m not going to pray about it anymore. If you want to change him, fine. If You don’t, that’s fine, too.”

I did begin to pray then for positive things that I knew God wanted to do anyway. I began to pray that God would make him the leader that He wanted him to be. I thanked God for the ways that Dennis provided and cared for me and loved me. I only prayed about the things that were positive and encouraging. In that way I was filling my mind with what was good and what was right, and literally I have not prayed for God to change anything about him since, because it’s God’s business to change his life, not mine.

Dennis: I wouldn’t say absolutely that a woman shouldn’t pray for her husband that some things would change, because there are some women married to some men (and they know who they are right now), there’s some things about their husbands that do need to change. But in this area that Barbara was talking about, I think this was important for her to let go and to let God work. He has, and He continues to work.

I think what it does is it releases a husband from feeling like he’s being mothered or smothered or like he is a project to change and that he really does have a friend and a partner in life and someone who is, as I’ve said many times, on his team, not on his case, someone who’s a cheerleader, someone who is believing the best. I think in marriage we forget the power of words.

Barbara: I just want to say, too, that even though I made a couple of really good choices in the first year of our marriage, it doesn’t mean that I haven’t struggled with wanting to change my husband, because we are very, very different people. 

I think it’s difficult for us as women because we love our husbands, and we care about them, or we wouldn’t have married them in the first place, to not want to take care of them in the same way that we take care of our children. Yes, I need to take care of my husband, but I don’t need to treat him like a child.

Nancy: So, Dennis, would you say that most men would feel they don’t want to be mothered by their wives? Is that pretty much across the board true?

Dennis: I think any man who wants to be mothered as a man is in need of growing up.

Barbara: Amen to that.

Dennis: I really do. I think we have a generation of some young men today who are not assuming their God-given responsibility, and as long as a woman mothers him, he’ll remain a boy. If you look at 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verses 13 and 14, Paul exhorts the men in Corinth, “act like men; let all you do be done in love.” I’m not talking about men being harsh or hard, but men being men.

There’s so many benefits to women, Nancy, when a man is a man.

Barbara: I’ll amen to that, too. It’s really true.

Dannah: I would "amen" that too. That was Dennis and Barbara Rainey. 

I only have one man living at my house right now. Even when Robby lived at home, my daughters and I still had the guys outnumbered. But my friend Erin Davis lives with all men—one husband and four boys! I’ve learned a lot from her about how to bring out the best in those men she adores. I’ve watched her celebrate their strength. 

Here’s some of Erin’s advice for how she encourages her husband to parent their children in his uniquely masculine way. 

Erin Davis: I remember the first time I saw my husband, Jason, holding our first baby. That birth was wild. It went on for days and I was sort of out of it, and I woke up, and there Jason was, holding this little, tiny peanut of a baby. Eli was 6 ½ pounds. Jason had obviously been crying a lot; his eyes were puffy, his nose was snotty and runny; but those were tears of such pure joy.

Eli was one we were told by doctors wasn’t going to make it, so the fact that he was alive was a miracle and the fact that we were parents was a miracle, and Jason’s heart was just so soft the whole time. It was so sweet to watch.

Jason’s soft heart really helped soften my heart. We had gotten this news when I was about twelve weeks pregnant with our first baby, that he had some very serious issues and was probably not going to survive the pregnancy. I just put armor on myself in that moment. I just kind of steeled my nerves, and I was going to march forward towards whatever happened. So I didn’t really let myself feel much, I didn’t want to decorate a nursery, I didn’t necessarily want to have a baby shower—that happens when you don’t think you’re going to bring your baby home. But Jason’s heart was so soft the whole time.

In fact, midway through that pregnancy, he changed the baby’s name. We were going to name him Truett, which was the name that I had picked, and Jason said, “We’re changing it to Elisha, because it means ‘God is my salvation’ or ‘my God saves.’” So he always carried such hope for that pregnancy and that life.

I’m so grateful for that. Parenting is a dance between two people. In one moment you’re the softhearted one and the other one’s maybe more stoic, and maybe you’re the grace parent sometimes and they’re the law parent sometimes; you work together in that. But all throughout my pregnancy with Elisha and his birth, Jason was so softhearted, and that helped me have hope that we would bring that baby home; and ultimately, we did.

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I think one of the things about believing what the Bible teaches—starting in Genesis—which is that men and women are both created by God, equal value to the Lord, but created distinctly different—I think that shows up when you’re coparenting. What my sons don’t need is two moms; what my sons don’t need is two dads. We parent very differently. We can see the same situation differently. We almost never agree on, for example, when it’s time to go to the doctor. We flip-flop. You know, Jason will be like, “I think it’s time to call the doctor,” and I’ll say, “I think let’s wait 24 hours.” Then the next sickness we might be totally different. So it just depends.

Or we might have a different idea about how to discipline a certain situation or a different idea about whether we should allow a child to do something or not. I tend to want to keep those babies in the nest; Jason tends to want to think as they get older, “It’s time for them to have some responsibility.”

An example that comes to mind from recently is some folks asked my older boys to mow their lawn. It is a big lawn, it requires those big lawn mowers and weed eaters, and I said, “I don’t think they’re ready. I don’t want them to do it.” And Jason said, “They are ready. They have to learn responsibility. I’m going to teach them.” He has done that.

So, for me, just realizing, he is not me, and sometimes that means he might be firmer than me, and that can kind of make me uncomfortable, but my boys need a dad who is firm on things, that they know he isn’t going to buckle just because they whine or throw a fit. Sometimes that can mean he pushes them out of the nest before I feel like they’re ready for it; and that’s okay, too. So just embracing that moms and dads are different, and learning from that.

My husband has wrestled our boys on the ground most evenings all of their childhood. That’s not something I do as their mama, but I can see that it’s something that’s really important to them. So I think sometimes as moms we can say, “Don’t be so hard on him!” or, “Cut him some slack!” or, “Let that go,” or we can kind of downplay his instincts as a dad; and I’ve had to be quiet and let him parent the way that he parents.

Now, there’s give and take. It’s not a blank check. There have definitely been times when I’ve said, “I think you’ve got that wrong, and here’s why.” And there have been times when he’s said to me, “You’ve been really irritable,” or, “You’ve been really hard on one kid in particular, and here’s why.” So there’s give and take, but I think embracing that they do it differently.

Especially when the kids are little, as the mom, you are the foremost expert in your baby. You know what every cry means, you know when they need to be changed; you just intuitively know. The dad, at that juncture in their development, doesn’t know as much. They’re not getting their food from his body, for example. He didn’t carry them in his womb. But as my boys have grown I’ve seen that Jason’s intuition—given by God—is good and right, and I try to celebrate it, and a lot of times that just means closing my mouth.

Dannah: That’s Erin Davis. Okay, I know what you might be thinking, I don’t have a man like that in my life!

Maybe your husband isn’t a strong spiritual leader. Or your boss is very passive and he lets things go unchecked at work. 

Well, I think I have something that may help you. A conversation with Nancy and some of her friends, including: Karen Loritts, Carolyn McCulley, Mary Kassian. If those names don’t ring a bell, let me tell you these are wise women who know God’s Word and live it out beautifully. 

They were talking about men, specifically how the Bible calls women to treat the men in their lives. If we were a part of that conversation today, we’d probably reveal that a husband’s leadership looks different in every marriage. 

That idea made Carolyn think of some friends of hers who had only been married about five years at the time of this taping. Let her words encourage you that when it comes to building up the men you know and love, there’s room to get creative! 

Carolyn McCulley: The first (almost) year of their relationship he was fine, but then he had a car accident, had a traumatic brain injury. They thought he was going to die . . . and long story, wasn’t going to talk again, wasn’t going to walk again. God slowly healed him on a variety of levels, but he’s still not able to hold a job.

What she’s done has been to be very creative in building up his leadership in whatever ways. He had started a phone company with friends of his, so they’ve made sure to keep him involved in that, at whatever level. They always refer to him as one of the founders of the phone company; in fact, it’s headquartered in their home.

So he has these people around him. He has that sense of participation, even though she actually brings in the paid work. She’s always looking to him for counsel. “Help me sort through my feelings. Tell me about God. What are you reading?” She's getting him involved in whatever capacity he can be.

So I look at women who are creative in where the boundary lines have fallen in more difficult places, and yet they’re still trying to live this out.

Mary Kassian: They’re still trying to really encourage that foundation in their men, of manhood.

Nancy: And it’s not the boundary lines that are really the issue. It’s the disposition, the heart, the inclination to honor how God has made men, and to be how God has made us to be as women.

Mary: Another thing the passage talks about in terms of how God has wired men is to keep the guardians as protectors, and we see our men as protectors. It’s been so amusing to me to watch my own sons rise into that protector.

At a very young age, as they started getting to be bigger and bigger boys, they started to feel the sense of protection and benevolence and responsibility for me, which is really kind of fun—cute to watch in the boys—but also for their female cousins.

We ran into a few incidents. At school one time there was a boy paying some unwanted attention to a female cousin. So my son felt that it was his responsibility to take this boy and hold him very gently up against the locker and tell him, “You mess with my cousin, you mess with me!”

It’s just interesting to watch that just come out of them. The same thing happened a couple months ago when a thirteen-year-old cousin celebrated her birthday. My twenty-four-year-old son said, “I just wanted to be there so those guys knew that I was there.”

Nancy: It’s interesting how that provision and protection mirrors what Christ does for His Church. As men step up to the plate on those matters, isn’t that what it’s all about, reflecting Jesus, giving an earthly picture of who Christ is?

They’re showing Christ to the world, as they fulfill those roles.

Karen: And it all comes down to a measure of trust. Do we really trust God, who’s sovereign, to do what He needs to do? And He knows what He’s doing. Really. That’s the bottom line.

Mary: He knew what He was doing when He created men different.

Karen: Right. My second little grandson is such a sweetie. He’ll be nine pretty soon. He has three brothers and a sweet mom and dad. He shows the protection of his Mimi (I’m his Mimi). They were here, and he would open the car door for me, and make sure the door was locked, “Are you locked in Mimi?” “Yes, Mimi’s locked in.”

Mary: Where did he get that?

Karen: Well, first of all he sees that modeled in his dad, and he just knows that, “I’m the man; I have to protect my Mimi.”

Mary: There’s such joy that comes into a man’s life, I think, when he can do that for a woman. And there’s such a blessing when we welcome it and we receive it.

Carolyn, as a single woman, I’m sure that you’ve had instances where you’ve really welcomed that kind of input from men.

Carolyn: Oh, definitely. I’m going to use the term chivalry, because I appreciate that. It’s kind of an old-fashioned word and may throw some people off. But there are small moments of consideration when you realize that the man in the situation realizes that you are a woman and there’s a difference.

Whether it’s from small customs—you usually see this in the South, where the man walks on the outside of the sidewalk—but it’s handy in certain cities. When we travel internationally, we’ll read, “If you walk too close to the street and you’re carrying a bag, there’s going to be somebody who comes on a motorbike and takes that.”

So when I’m traveling with the guys on my film crew and they know these kinds of things, they say, “Okay, this is how we’re going to lead and guide and protect.”

As meaningful to me as the physical protection and the small courteous efforts that are made is the spiritual protection. When men take the initiative and they see a problem, they see it coming, so often it’s so easy to think, “I don’t want to get involved.”

But I appreciate, especially the colleagues I work with who are dealing with me on several levels (not only whatever goal we have) but also as fellow believers when we are all believers working together—what’s the spiritual goal?

I’ve had many a film trip where I have been tired and cranky and uncomfortable. It’s my responsibility as the producer and director to make sure we’re all working together. But one of the guys, who’s a brother in Christ, will take the initiative to take me aside later on and say, “You know what? You’re actually really setting a bad tone for the crew. I’m hearing the pride; I’m hearing the anger. I just want to pray with you.” (Rebekah, can you find a better landing place?)

Dannah: Fascinating conversation from Carolyn McCulley, Karen Loritts, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, and Mary Kassian.

Did you hear what Nancy said? “It’s the disposition, the heart, the inclination to honor how God has made men, and to be how God has made us to be as women.”

I want to ask you today, what can you do today to honor how God made men? I don’t know about you, but I’m walking away from this conversation with a list of ideas! I want to be a woman who shows my husband Bob, my son Robbie, my coworker Wade that I believe in them. I really want to be that woman! 

If you’re listening to this and you feel like you have some work to do, especially in the area of encouraging your husband, let me encourage you to get The Husband Encouragement Challenge. It’s a thirty-day challenge where you agree to—get this—say nothing negative about your husband (to him or to others). And it’s filled with those creative ideas, like Carolyn mentioned, for how to build him up each and every day. It’s one of our most popular resources.

You can get your copy so by calling 1-800-569-5959, or go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode. 

Next week, I’m gonna share the story of how God used His Word, my obedience, and our barn on the Gresh farm to remind me of His promises. Oh, the value of knowing His Word and hiding it in our hearts. We’ll talk about that next time.

Thanks for listening today. Thanks to our broadcast team for making today possible—Phil, CJ, Rebekah, Justin, Michelle, Katie, Erin, and for Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh.

Revive Our Hearts is calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

 

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