MEN

THERE was a special on TV about a herd of young male elephants that were running wild. They were running over trees, fighting each other, and creating havoc in their environment. They were male elephants gone wild, and experts were trying to figure out what was happening. Finally they noticed that there were no adult males in the herd. They were all teenage elephants that had lost their natural mind. The reason there were no adult male elephants is that poachers had come in and killed all of them for the ivory. So in an attempt to fix the problem, the experts flew in a group of male adult elephants, and dropped them into the herd.

When these male elephants were dropped into the midst of the chaos, they began flapping their ears, raising their trunks, and making these loud sounds. After a few days of flapping their ears, raising their trunks, and making these sounds, the teenage male elephants calmed down. As long as the teenage male elephants were calling their own shots, you had gangs of elephants that had gone crazy because of the lack of discipline. But when the adult male elephants were dropped in and they flapped their ears and raised their trunks and made the sounds, they demanded order.

We’ve got some teen terrorists today because there are no adult male elephants in the midst. We need a generation of adult male elephants—real men who will flap their ears and raise their trunks and sound out the truth of what a man really is in order to calm down a generation who doesn’t know how to act because they’ve never seen male elephants in their midst.621

[Discipline, Love in; Fathers; Parenting; Parenting, Discipline in]

Prov. 13:24; Heb. 12:7–10

MEN can be compared to a variety of birds. First, there is the canary. The canary can usually be found singing up a storm in a cage. They just sing all day. Other folks feed them and they are pretty much powerless birds. Too many men are satisfied with the status quo. They are happy just to get their house, their beans, their potatoes, and their TV remote and they are fine.

And then you’ve got the buzzard. The buzzard sits on poles all day and just squawks, making this irritating sound. Far too many men want to sit on the sidelines and complain. “Well, my wife is not this, and my wife’s not that; I wish she were this, I wish she were that.” A buzzard is a guy who just sits around all day, complaining.

Then you’ve got the peacock. The peacock just wants to sit up and look good all the time. You know why? Because the peacock’s interest is only itself.

Many men are eagles. Eagles just don’t sit around all day. They soar. They take over. They are in complete control. Which bird are you?622

[Character, Importance of; Men, Weakness of]