Somewhere along the way, it became feminine to be peaceful. Any man that chooses the path of least resistance is often viewed as weak, which causes many guys to make choices that increase conflict, as opposed to decreasing it. I could take the time to write out any number of real life examples of men reacting in ways that cause conflicts to become more severe, but the reality of this truth is everywhere. Even in your own life there are probably several instances you can think of when you reacted to a situation in a way that made the problem worse.
In both Matthew and Luke, Jesus is quoted as saying "turn the other cheek." If this idiom is new to you, then welcome to the world! Being born yesterday, your ability to read already is truly a miracle. This saying is so common that, regardless of your faith, you have heard it more than once in your life. If you attend a Christian church, you have probably heard many intelligent men expound upon the Bible text in which it is found, so I have no intention of boring you with more of that. However, I do want to point out that the root of what Jesus said is that we should make choices that decrease the conflict in any and every situation. Right before this, he actually said, "do not resist an evil person," and "do good to those who hate you." Jesus didn't want us to simply ignore unfair treatment, but to actually do good in response to evil.
Most of this is probably not new to you, but the question is, has your understanding of this truth come to fruition in your actions? You know that Christ calls us to do good in response to evil, but do your choices reflect that knowledge? I would assume that you, like me, have a masculine pride that gets in the way of making choices that decrease conflict. Out of your fear of being seen as weak, you rarely, if ever, return good for evil done to you. The world says things like, "stick up for yourself," or "show them you won't stand for this sort of treatment," but Jesus literally said the exact opposite.
In James 1, the half-brother of Jesus tells us to keep ourselves from being stained by the world. The problem with modern day ideas on masculinity is that most of the ideals reflect the culture's standards, not Christ's. We have allowed the world to stain our definition of what is manly, so instead of returning good for evil done to us, we do not hesitate to respond with choices that increase the conflict. The world calls this "being a man," while God calls this "being a sinner."
I know that many of you are thinking, "but what about justice? What if someone hurts my wife or my children?" I understand that we have a God-given role to protect our families, but how often do these situations actually impact the safety of you or your family? Our role is to love and support our families through the evil done to them, not to retaliate and "make them pay." Several times in scripture we are told to leave all the wrath to God. If someone has a gun pointed at your son, I don't think Jesus would advocate you pushing your daughter in front of the gunman as well in a "turn the other cheek" fashion. But in almost every situation when you, your wife, or your family is the victim of evil, it is not your place to retaliate or react in a way that increases the conflict. To be more manly, according to God, is to redeem when others would retaliate. When a relationship has gone sour because of someone's sin, take it in a step towards healing by choosing to do good. If more Christ following men would live by this principle of manliness, I think people would begin to see how radically different a life focused on God truly is.
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