Male Friendships Nullify Rejection
In Gordon MacDonald’s book, “When Men Think Private Thoughts,” he eloquently describes and explains this principle of friendship further from a ski-trip adventure he experienced.16 He likens male friendships to being AMBASSADORS. The ambassador is there to support you, help you climb the hills of life, and join with you in discovering life. “He doesn’t compete with you and he doesn’t take more from the relationship than he gives.” An ambassador helps you feel comfortable.
In addition, MacDonald likens male friendships to being a SKI LIFT ATTENDANT. The lift attendant is there to serve the skiers and their needs. Our friends must see the needs in our lives, whether it’s prayer, encouragement, a helping hand, or a shoulder to cry on. He must inquire about how our life is going mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually and sexually. He is a friend who knows us beneath the surface level and knows that we are to serve each other.
MacDonald also likens male friendship to being a SKI INSTRUCTOR. Ski instructors teach other skiers to ski better and improve performance. Male friendships require taking instruction from other men who can teach us about life because they’re more experienced than we are. A male friend can teach us something valuable, like how to enjoy true manhood, and that’s worth more than a pot of gold.
MacDonald again likens male friendships to being SKI PATROL MEMBERS. They warn skiers of multiple dangers on the slopes and rescue injured skiers. Male friendships require that we look out for each other’s best interests. A male friend will come when we’re down and out, broken by rejection and life’s circumstances. They won’t leave us on the slopes to die; they will just take us on as their responsibility. Such men are not just friends who talk compassion, but they walk compassion.
I believe Hicks’ description of wholesome friendships, with true male bonding through Jesus, will stamp out the spirit of homosexuality. The macho-man image in which a man wraps his identity up in a woman through sex will also end when men discover their true image of manhood. In other words, a man on a journey looking for a father’s confirming love by seeking, “manhood from a woman’s arms or from her voice will be profoundly disappointed. [Sadly,] his search will go on until he is burned out. While there may be a moment of pleasure and solace, that inner sense of confident manhood will remain elusive.”
The obligation to perform in the image of a macho-man has left many men drowning in a sea of lost identity. It is not important what barricades you hide behind, or how you got there. What is important is that your search for an identity and destiny ends with Jesus.
Just as women bind together with one another in conversation to teach, share and express the essence of womanhood without shame, men need the same nurturing without feeling pressured to live up to some lofty standards of learned ignorance that fits neither their character nor their personality. A lack of bonding friendships between men causes dysfunction inside the heart of men.
Robert Hicks points out that recent studies suggest that male friendlessness exacts a heavy toll in both physical and psychological health, especially in old age. Men who live without male friendships throughout life are more likely to suffer regret, feel lonely and die prematurely before their wives.
