A Rally Call For Guys!

I did not sleep much last night.  In fact, I went to bed around 7:00am.  Just before I finally crashed into a coma, I had the clearest thought…the clearest realization about myself.  I want to be the epic hero that I see in the movies, but that’s not who I am.  Why is that? 

Why do I even watch movies in the first place?  Why do I have this need to be entertained?  You see, it takes a very specific thing to entertain me.  I have to be moved.  Most often, I watch action/adventure movies with a hero who is given a difficult challenge that seems impossible to overcome.  I hold my breath when they’re on the edge of failing, and cheer for them when they walk out alive and victorious.  Hollywood is filled with stories like this. 

But to return to my question, why am I drawn to movies like that?  Could it be that my very soul was designed to be in that kind of an epic role?  Could God have created me for the purpose of throwing myself up against the difficulties in life and overcoming them?  Could it be that my life is meant to be as entertaining as the best that Hollywood can offer?

My favorite movie characters are all men.  They all have characteristics that I wish I had myself, whether I admit it or not.  Aragorn from Lord of the Rings resisted the temptation of Sauron’s ring and let Frodo go on alone.  Persevering, he faced impossible obstacles and held out against the greatest of evils.  Though he had at first chosen exile, he eventually faced what he was meant to become and accepted his role as king and leader.  He made the ultimate difference.

Then there’s Balian, son of Godfrey in Kingdom of Heaven.  We find him at the end of the film holding the burning city of Jerusalem against thousands of Muslim soldiers.  The other leaders have long abandoned the city, yet Balian remains behind trying to save the people.  I get chills every time I watch the enemy swarm into a breach in the wall and Balian and his soldiers bravely stand guard and fight them back for hours and hours. 

Balian and Aragorn are just two of my heroes.  I have many.  And each time I watch a film like that, I find myself needing the hero to win.  I need him to be victorious no matter what it costs him.  I have this need in the deepest corner of my soul to see good triumph and evil flee.  So I pursue and obsess over any sort of entertainment in which I can quench that thirst.

Here’s what I have realized.  God put that thirst there.  But He didn’t put it there so I could enjoy movies where the good guys win and the bad guys die.  He put it there to drive me forward in living out His purpose.

Now we’ve got a problem.  If this innate desire to overcome evil and be “heroic” comes from God, why am I so keen to sit down on the couch and watch someone else live out my dreams on a TV screen and not live it myself?

I am passive.  Like most men in this twisted American culture, I have become dull and tolerant.  I am more content watching a movie about a hero than actually being that hero to the people around me.

When did this become okay?  Such atrocity should have never become the norm in our society.  It is time for me to rise up and become the man I thirst to be, but am too weak to risk becoming. 

I am all too familiar with the hardships involved in being strong.  It is much easier to be weak.  Hollywood depicts being the hero in movies like 300.  We watch in awe as 300 men fight off thousands and thousands of men for days.  Hopelessly outnumbered, they don’t stand a chance.  Yet they fight anyway. 

It is so easy to say that I want to be like that here in the comfort of my bedroom, but when push comes to shove, could I really join the ranks of the 300 and wage a war I could not win?  Do I have that kind of strength in me?  That kind of courage?

Most men do not.  And I am becoming sick of being one of the many who will never get up from their couch and become the kind of men they find so entertaining.

This is a rally call for the guys.  I will not pretend to understand woman, but I know the heart and soul of a man and I feel the quench to be great like all men do.  And I know what God calls me to be.  I am called to leadership.  To wage war against a spiritual enemy far older, more experienced, and more frightening than any enemy ever seen in a movie.  And my very soul and future is at risk.  There is not room for me to be passive.  There is not room for us to be passive.

Guys.  We are called to be men.  Leaders of nations.  Heads of the households.  The loyal friends.  The loving brothers.  Elite soldiers in a kingdom too great to be imagined.  This is the destiny laid before us. We are all called to be heroes.  Warriors.  Brave and honorable. 

Aragorn, Balian, Maximus (Gladiator), King Arthur.  Men such as these are only giants in our entertainment industry because American men do not have stories and lives to rival them.

This is it, guys.  A call to arms against a passive lifestyle.  An empty lifestyle.  Let’s go.