CHAPTER TWO: When A Man Inclines His Ear Toward God

Kit McDermott

As I will mention in Putting on the Man, guys feel most comfortable when we

think we know what we are doing. We are pretty sure we’ve got a handle on what has to

be done. Somebody has told or shown us the way, and we can take it from there, thank

you. In short, the same holds true for exploring the spiritual discipline of listening prayer.

So, in order for the guys who have little idea of what I am talking about to take even the

first step toward this crucial way of relating to their King, I should define it as clearly as I

can.

Before I do, I want to offer that there are many helpful books written on the

theology, spirituality, and practice of listening prayer. They do a better job than I would

at carefully explaining the “whys” and “wherefores” of praying this way. In Appendix

One, you will find a list of books that we have learned from and used for the last 13 years

on Listening in Christ retreats through Klesis and the Center For Renewal, at Covenant

Presbyterian Church, in Simsbury, CT. They have guided our spiritual growth in this area

and helped shape our ministry. I heartily recommend any and all of them.

I am also hoping that you are curious about how we practice listening prayer and

how you might do the same. While prayer is never to be a prisoner to method, starting

with a clearly laid out process and letting God mold you through it is helpful. So we have

also provided in Appendix Two a method for learning listening prayer, as we understand

it. The important thing is not what method you use, but how much you are able to put

yourself in God’s presence to hear all that he has to say to you. The method we have laid

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out serves well the purpose of helping men and women learn to hear God. Use and adapt

it as God leads you.

Now back to coming up with a helpful definition: Funny name …. listening

prayer. I have always felt a little out of kilter when I used the term in leading a retreat or

counseling or teaching. And I have, hundreds of times. But it never fails to feel a bit like:

“I thought praying was talking to God, and listening was when I stopped talking. How

can praying also be listening?”

Listening prayer in its plainest sense is simply pausing in prayer to hear what God

has to say about what you are seeking or about anything else he chooses. God’s speaks to

a man’s spirit (you know, that part of you looking out on the world from behind your

eyes), and quietly shows up in the flow of his thoughts as he waits humbly to listen for

him. This waiting is attentive and focused like a hunter listening for the footsteps of a

deer on dry leaves in late fall. A man in the quiet side of praying listens for what the bible

in 1King’s 19:12 calls a “still, small voice,” or put another way, the “voice of a gentle

whisper.” God could thunder with his voice and shake the foundations of the world, but

he chooses in listening prayer to speak with a quiet authority. You know it is he when

you hear it, and he doesn’t have to yell to be convincing. You can miss his voice in the

raucous jumble of a busy mind, but he can be heard if you hunger to hear him.

What I have come to find out through actually practicing listening prayer since

1986 is that praying is not merely laying my requests on God for his prompt attention and

beneficial action. I must also give him the courtesy of listening to what he has to say

whether or not he wants to say anything about what I am asking him for. The Scriptures

are clear that you and I, if we belong to him, live not just by what we put on a fork, but

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by every word that God wants to say to us (Deuteronomy 8:3). That means we had better

take the time to listen to him or our lives will be spiritually hamstrung and ineffective in

what he calls us to do as men.

What man in his right mind, if he really understood the meaning of his own

words, would declare to God:

“You know, Lord, I appreciate what you do, really. . . no, seriously.

Its pretty amazing stuff, and I have been blessed more than once from your work.

I think I also have a pretty good sense from the Bible how you do things and what

you want me to do. I’m getting to church and I hear the word.

As you are aware, I am a busy guy, what with work and family and all the other

stuff I need to get done yesterday. Probably don’t need to remind you of that.

Anyway, I wish I had the time to pray more, and listen to what you have to say,

but I’ll be OK. I know where you are if I run into a snag. You always come through in a

pinch. I really appreciate it. Really. . . no, seriously”

None of us have prayed that way, but many, if not most of us, have or still live in

that kind of superficial “help me out here, God” relationship with the King of Kings. If

someone were to watch the way we relate to God for a period of time, I wonder if they

would have to say that we prefer to relate to him as our go-to guy rather than the Lord of

all. True, he invites us to ask for his help and guidance in everything, but he never meant

that we would leave it at that. Prayer is meant by God to be a conversation of friends,

never equals, but committed friends engaged in the same redemptive mission of love and

reconciling initiated by him. Listening prayer seals and deepens the friendship and opens

a man to accepting the call God has fashioned only for him.

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 How does that happen? God has created in man, male and female, the longing and

capacity to connect with other people. The extreme loners among us were not created by

the Father to be that way. People were made to be with each other in some form, whether

family, friendship, brotherhood, teamwork, or any other kind of community. One of the

ways such relating is built and cared for is through talking. We can communicate also

through body language, gestures, music, pictures and the written word (for those of you

“men of few words” I’ll add grunts to the list.), People relate ideas, information, values

and feeling through words or thoughts aimed at someone else. We are simply wired that

way.

A man relates to God by how he has learned to relate to people, especially other

males. A boy has a God-given impulse in him to gradually turn away from his mother,

seeking to bond with his father, one who is his same kind. He will naturally want to

connect with and be accepted by brothers, uncles, peers, friends, coaches, teachers, and

other male authority figures. He is looking to find his place among the “community of

men.” He is looking for cues from them that say, “Yes, you are one of us.” He may be

self-conscious, or oblivious to this impulse, but it exerts a primary influence on how he

will see himself.

Most men I have talked to over the years, if they can conceptualize him at all,

think of God in masculine terms be they Father, Lord, Supreme Authority, or sometimes,

elder brother (in relating to Jesus). A few men might unconsciously relate emotionally to

the feminine aspects of God’s nature as mother, through the Holy Spirit, the Comforter,

but that view is commonly talked about between them. The point is, you and I think of

God in masculine terms and relate to him accordingly.

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 And God knows this about us. He has made us to look at the world as males. That

also means he will engage us in a way that you and I can recognize. Notice, for instance,

that he has given us a written record of his interaction with the world. Most men I have

known in my thirty-two years as a Christian who have spent any time in the bible at all,

like that they have something authoritative and tangible they can refer to. In talking with

men over the years, I have found they also relate to certain parts more than others. Many

men like Proverbs and James, because they speak practically and plainly. Other men

enjoy Paul’s letters because they lay out propositions and instructions. Still others relate

to the Gospels for the rich stories teaching deep truths in the face of a cosmic struggle.

Some men find the Old Testament Prophets, King David and courageous men like

Nehemiah, challenging them in life-giving ways. The Scriptures present concrete images

of God and what he requires of a man. Men, in general, like that kind of sure-footed

clarity.

Prayer is another profound way that God speaks to a man. Remember, I said that

prayer is meant by God to be a conversation of friends, never equals, but committed

friends engaged in the same redemptive mission of love and reconciling. Listening prayer

seals and deepens the friendship and opens a man to accepting the call God has fashioned

only for him. Listening prayer, in harmony with the Scriptures, guides his call each step

of the way.

If that is at all true, then you can see where a man is “shooting himself in the foot”

by avoiding learning how to listen to God. Friendship with God is, by definition, putting

oneself at his service and pleasure. God is redeeming the world, one soul at a time and if

a man learns to hear him, he will hear his heart because God longs to use him to speak

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life and grace into the wounded, broken and lost. Listening prayer is the spiritual means

of opening a man’s spiritual ears so he can hear God’s heart for him and for the

wonderful, redemptive things he has for him to do in the days he has been given. Lately,

God has given me the image of men standing along side of Jesus, shoulder-to-shoulder,

laboring in unity with him as he still brings good news to the poor in spirit and body,

binds up the brokenhearted, proclaims liberty to the trapped and captive, flings open the

prison for those who are buckled and bound, proclaims the year of the LORD’s

affectionate favor to all who will hear, and comforts the mourning in their flood of misery

(Is. 61:1-2). If a man does not listen to Jesus, he listens only to himself or others who

serve his interests. His life stays small in comparison with what Jesus summons him to in

the quiet room of listening and instruction.

Listening prayer is crucial to knowing in a very personal way the “dream” that

God has for each man to fulfill in the Kingdom. There is rich redemptive potential

planted in each man like a seed. It needs fertilizer, water and sunlight to make it sprout

and grow. In the quiet place of listening with a masculine heart turned to humbly receive

the life-giving words of the King, the seed will sprout and grow strong until the fruit

destined for it to yield springs forth. And because becoming masculine in a godly way

really means becoming spiritually mature so that Christ-likeness is increasingly evident

in a man, he will yield Kingdom fruit through his masculinity. Christ-likeness means that

a man does what Jesus did.

God’s personal words to his sons transform life because they come from the

gracious heart of the Father of fathers. A human father has to learn to “know” who his

son is. The baby boy becomes the young boy, then the young man, and a human has to

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watch and listen and understand over many years in order to really know his son. Even

then, he will know him only partially. God the Father knew everything about each of his

sons before the creation of the world. He knows who they are and who they will be. Their

individual personalities and peculiarities are his intimate creation. This Father of fathers

speaks with a knowing that exposes and captures a man because his words are aimed at

his core and they are offered without falsehood or error.

God seems to hold relationship with his sons in highest regard. His speaking is

intended to deepen a man’s relationship with him as the first order of divine business.

Even his holiness and Lordship is to be viewed by a man with the kind of awe-saturated

respect (you can also read it holy fear), and affectionate admiration that turns his heart

and mind heavenward where Christ his Servant-Warrior King is seated (Colossians 3:1-

4). God invites a relationship with his sons that reflects the same loyal commitment as

marriage, and the same resonant goodwill that parents seek to have for their children. He

wants oneness of heart and soul, the same timeless, exuberant relationship that the Father

Son and Holy Spirit have always enjoyed (John 17:20-6). God speaks that into being in

the hearts of his sons. Listening prayer opens our spiritual ears to hear and understand it

if we will.

God’s intimate talking to me over the years has healed, equipped, chastened and

directed me such that I have learned to trust him when life tried to tell me, “Trust no

one.” I am an ordinary man convinced that God’s tender heart toward his me, on of his

struggling sons is immeasurably beyond I think it is. His love is astounding and

unrelenting. And it is expressed in his desire to call us near His heart that we may become

transparent vessels of that heart for his sons and daughters who cannot find it yet. To do

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that, I think he invites us to four “modes” of relationship with him: the son, the friend,

the comrade, and the servant.

We have all heard the clichés: “like father, like son,” or “ a chip off the old

block,” or the “nut doesn’t fall far from the tree.” I am not sure I like that last one! They

describe a relationship where one person is like the other as a carbon copy mirrors the

original. There is an unmistakable likeness; similarities can be readily seen in both

people. When you are looking at one, you see the other as well. A son who is the

“spitting image” of his father may or may not like that fact, but everyone who knows

both men can see it.

The Father God of the bible intends for his sons to be fully transformed in his Son

Jesus. He wants them to become completely like him in attitude and action. To be a son

of God is to be a man yielding over time to the work of the Holy Spirit who is fully

dedicated to make him so. In other words, by grace through faith, he is made fit for the

kingdom. His heart is softened and transformed into a heart following hard after God the

Father and His enterprises in the world.

But God knows that we are fickle and fallible and fearful, so as we begin listening

to him, he speaks tenderly with an affection that scares us at first because we can’t

believe that he would be this way with the “likes of us.” But he persists, because he

knows that we need to trust in his fondness for us in order to have the courage to submit

to his training for the mission with just our names on it.

Most of have some idea, no matter how buried by the harsh reality of a non-

existent or abusive father, of how he should love and care for his son in order for him to

grow up and become a man in his own right. We have mental pictures of dads doing all

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sorts of things with their boys to encourage and teach and affirm them. Dad’s are

supposed to be intimately involved in the lives that their sons are living: the joys and

sorrows, victories and failures, fears and confidences, disappointments and successes,

sins and strengths.

They are supposed play catch with us, go to our games even if we are on the

bench most the time, see our junior high school plays, answer homework questions, show

us how to master mowing the lawn, teach us about God, show us what’s right and wrong

without making us feel stupid if we don’t get it right away, help us work through the

bewildering beginnings of sexual feelings, take us to the office, go on hikes, wrestle with

us, let sit next to them when they are watching football or working fixing mom’s lamp, or

hug us just for the heck of it. We have an innate drive to be near our fathers and to have

them interested in us so that we can find our own ways. We want them to be in our lives

and to know that they want that too.

If that is so, and God refers to himself as Father and he calls us his sons, then why

would we think that he, the one who created fatherhood, does not want to be in the

everyday experience our lives: how we think, feel and act from the way we experience

from one day to the next? What we long for is what he desires to give us: himself.

God wants to live with his sons and he wants then to live with him, as if he is

really there in each moment actively engaged in our lives and the lives of our brothers

and sisters. Listening prayer opens the way for seeing how that is so. The Scriptures

reveal God’s heart for us, his covenantal plan of salvation, the way he wants us to live,

and what our lives are to be about while we are here.

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 Listening prayer makes life with him very personal. He speaks to you and me as a

concerned father to a favored son. He wants us to know not only his will, but his heart

just as a human father imperfectly wants his son to know the right way to live, or what to

do in a given situation or how much he enjoys him. And he wants us to respond to him as

if we really are related to him. He is God and we are mere men, but he has made a way

for us to be one of the family. Listening and talking in the private quiet with your Father

in heaven is one of the few places on earth where your place as his son is most

consistently affirmed and assured.

****

When a man begins earnestly to seek after God in listening prayer, especially for

him alone, not what he can give, he begins to take seriously the opportunity to become a

friend of God.

Here’s how God views friendship:

“A friend loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17a).

“A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks

closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24).

“Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6a).

“…the sweetness of a friend come from his earnest counsel” (Proverbs 27:9b).

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his

friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you

servants for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you

friends for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:13-

15).

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 “The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to

them his covenant” (Psalm 25:14).

God does not take friendship lightly. True friends love each other and love is the

most powerful glue binding people together, including friendship. Out of such love flows

commitment and loyalty toward the other; a friend sticks through bad feelings,

misunderstandings and disappointments. And a real friend will speak truth to you because

he wants your greatest good even if there has to be pain involved, a pain that purges

destructive sin, devastating habits and the bone-headed choices a man can make from

time to time. Opportunities will arise in the normal course of a friendship where sacrifice

is called for because one’s friend needs someone to willingly pay a cost on his behalf.

That can be as simple as giving up a Saturday to help him and his family move, or it

might be as costly as supporting him financially for many months while he looks for a job

or changes careers. Then, there is the most extraordinary sacrifice (often seen on the

battlefield) of putting yourself in harm’s way to protect the life of a friend, taking a bullet

to shield him. Friendship always requires giving something of your life for your friend

because he is your friend. No other reason need be necessary.

Isn’t that what God did through Jesus? To create the possibility of friendship

between the likes of you and me and him, the Father gives everything he has, holding

back nothing. (Crucifix’s are helpful to me in this regard, because they show in the

anguished, suffering form of Jesus, how vulnerable God made himself for you and me. In

most traditional depictions, Jesus’ arms are spread wide across the crossbar, revealing an

unprotected hearted, utterly open to men. God did not hold his cards close to his chest

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(Romans 8:31-2). His intentions are clear in the awful price he paid for our vacillating

friendship. But he did it anyway, having no illusions as to our grandeur (Psalm 103:13-7).

Heaven has never been a lonely place for him. Yet he intentionally wounded himself that

we might be called friend and no longer enemy (Romans 5:10-1) because of his nature as

One who gives.

It is through listening prayer that a man is ushered into the intimacy of genuine

friendship with God. God will speak to any man who earnestly seeks to hear him, and he

approaches such a man as a friend. A man who sincerely seeks to hear God on God’s

terms has already surrendered his heart and desires to obey because he knows it leads to

life. He is convinced of the King’s goodness toward him, and wants what his Friend

wants because it is exquisitely true and good. Such a man is deemed “a man after God’s

heart.” There is no more masculine or noble calling for a Christian man.

In listening prayer, God reveals his heart to his friend. Over the years, he has

shown me wonderful things of his will and his purpose for my family, my church, the

people he has involved me in ministering to, and my walk with him. I have seen his

desire to heal others. I have listened to how he has spoken the truth in love to heal my

broken masculinity. I have heard him say in the quietness of my thoughts what he wants

me to teach or preach. He has revealed to me what I cannot yet see in myself and

encouraged me to stay the course in difficult, discouraging circumstances. There have

been many in my half-century plus three. He has shown me how to father, how to be a

husband, how to lead my ministry, and how to do the most mundane of tasks when I had

little idea. I am still learning his friendship and trying to obey well, but he has won me

over to the idea that he cares for how I grab hold of my days. Not only that, but for some

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reason, he wants to involve me in his enterprises on earth. He entrusts me with what he

wants done.

As my Friend, he speaks into me words of life that transform me into deeper

friendship as I am willing to believe him and become more godly and masculine, striving

with his energy to bear my responsibility with faith, courage, passion, creativity, and

hope. He knows me and tells me the utter truth. But I am not beaten down or bruised by

his words. Even correction comes from the Lord Most High who delights in me because

he has fulfilled his own conditions on my behalf. He sticks closer than a brother and his

wounds in my place have shown his faithfulness like no other.

If you give your time to seeking his friendship by listening to him and are willing

to take him at his word, he will show you the heart of a Friend who has given his life that

you may flourish and be made fit for the most glorious undertaking any man can

shoulder: building the kingdom of God in his life and all those it will touch. This kind of

friendship heals the world.

****

“Comrade” is an unfamiliar word to our ears today. It has a peculiarly musty and

awkward feel to it. And for those us who grew up in the Cold War years having been

exposed to the evils of Communism or Socialism (especially the Soviet variety), in the

world, it has a decidedly negative taste. On the other hand, we think of the term “comrade

in arms,” positively as denoting partners in the battle, joined together in unity to fight a

common foe. Then, there is the term “camaraderie,” the “all for one and one for all” word

that pictures a deep sense of fellowship, support and committed teamwork in the course

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of a quest everyone is working to achieve together. Tied to this word in all its forms is the

notion of striving after something difficult to do, but worthy of any effort we can muster

individually and corporately. We are going after something of great value and doing it

together as one man.

Most of us have not been trained to think of ourselves as comrades with God. It

seems too familiar, too personal or just plain strange sounding. He is God and we are not,

period. He freely does his work in us and through us. Much of it we most likely will

never even recognize, so great is his sovereign ability to see and carry out the

monumental scope of his plan, or grasp the unfathomable depths of its complexity

throughout all of history and into the future with every life that was, is and will be. But,

he does call individual men and women to individual missions as if he needed them to do

something in order for his purposes to be realized. Obviously, there are needs, and there

are needs. God is not bound by needing our ability to take care of his work for him. He

will do as he will do and it will be as he determines in the end. But at the same time, his

patience and wisdom enables him to draw us into the plan, and he is willing to let us

stumble around until we get what he wants done, or not. It does not depend on us, but we

each have a responsibility to fulfill in his Name.

So I think the word “comrade,” at least from our end, fits well what our third way

of relating to him should be as we come into the stillness to listen. God reconciles and

redeems the world to himself as its Creator and LORD. As men, I believe we are to be a

spiritual and physical vanguard (men are expected to going into disarray and turmoil

first), in God’s on-going battle to restore the world (to be seen at the end of the age in the

form of the new heaven and the new earth, Revelation 21:1-8). In this regard, to be a

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comrade is to be closely allied to God’s battle in the areas of life that he has called each

man to. It is very much to be a “comrade in arms” laboring alongside God to:

“bring good news to the poor . . . bind up the broken hearted . . . proclaim liberty

to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim

the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort

all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion—to give them a beautiful

headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of

praise instead of a faint spirit,; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the

planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. They shall build up ancient ruins;

they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the

devastations of many generations” (Isaiah 61:1-4).

I am a layman in full-time ministry as a retreat leader, teacher, counselor and

spiritual director. I have seen first-hand the flesh and blood war God wages against sin,

its devastating effects, and the work of the evil one who wars against the church and

keeps millions spiritually dead. I have seen marriages ransacked, families pillaged,

parents and children bitterly in contention with one another, men and women trapped in

all sorts of addictions, middle-aged men numbed by depression, young women tormented

by anxiety, people devastated by death and disease, overwhelmed by the mounting

pressures and stresses of life, beaten, and bruised by their own sin, the sin of others

against them, and the oppressive harassment and deceit of the adversary. Scratch not to

far below the surface in any Christian family, and you will inevitable see the effects of

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this war. As I write, we are talking of to going to war with Iraq. Americans are being laid

off from one end of the country to the other, and the stock market continues to plummet.

I am not a pessimist. I see the troubled state of things as a spectaculars

opportunity for Christian men. The fields are still white with harvest (Luke 10:2). God is

continues fulfilling the words of Isaiah 61:1-4 and his men are summoned to go hard with

him, shoulder to shoulder. To be God’s comrade is to be aligned with him heart and soul.

His business is to be a Christian man’s business first and foremost. Such a man’s life

belongs to another who is committed to make him fit for Kingdom service, and thus to

serve at the pleasure of the King (1Corinthians 6:17, 19b, 20). Anything less is chasing

after windmills. The time to go is now.

So God calls a listening man into comradeship with him. Since 1986, he has often

shown me what deceives, traps, and torments the people I have been called to free and

equip under my watch. A man who comes to God ready to serve and battle alongside his

King will also hear how the war is raging in his family, church, and workplace. Many

times, God reveals enough details of the fight so that a man can pray intelligently and

effectively. He does not want you or me charging off into the fray like an green recruit

full of spit, but without discernment, patience and discipline. Our war is won through

love and truth salted with wisdom.

Or he will show you the spiritual dynamics of a particular situation and give you a

clear view of how to proceed, including waiting until you are summoned to act. He is the

one fighting the deepest fight (Daniel 10), but we are his flesh and blood comrades

engaged in a cosmic struggle (2Corinthians 10:3-6): praying for people, encouraging and

exhorting, opening the scriptures, comforting, healing, instructing, correcting or simply

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bearing their burdens when they can’t. And as we listen to Jesus, we also hear his support

when the battle gets too great and we are out of gas. He lifts us up when our wounds are

too bloody, and they can get that way fairly quickly when the firefight is fierce. He

strengthens our resolve when courage seems to vanish or we feel as through we are

having no effect on a bad situation. I have been in the thick of things when human sin

threw the doors open to Satan and his henchmen so that it seemed impossible to tell

which end was up. Even in the turmoil, Jesus spoke through the deceit and confusion. I

was bloodied in the fight, but I learned. Wisdom was ready for my next battle.

Don’t forget that this part of our relationship with him is one of listening for his

understanding of how to come alongside of him to advance the Kingdom. He knows how

to do what he wants of us, so we are prudent to listen for every word he wants to say

about our mission, including our roles as husbands and fathers. We need to know his

strategy from the Scripture and from the quiet voice that whispers how we must walk

(Isaiah 30:21). Listening prayer pulls us to the front lines of our lives where the stakes are

high, people get hurt, and lives are affected for eternity. This is where we should be.

Authentic godly masculinity requires it so. In the quiet, God speaks to his broken and

inconsistent comrades as though they might be his mighty men. If we listen and follow,

we will become more than we ever thought possible in that regard, despite our

brokenness.

****

Perhaps the role that most closely reflects what God holds dear, whether

embraced by men or women, is that of the servant. If a man has God’s concerns at heart

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he will learn to live a life of serving. Of himself, Jesus said “the Son of man came not to

be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). Paul

tells us in his letter to the Philippians, that Jesus “made himself nothing, taking the form

of a servant” (Philippians 2:3-11). He became one of us, went willingly to death in our

place, and God honored his service as a treasure. Jesus tells his disciples in Luke that the

one who serves most is greatest in the kingdom (Luke 22:25-7). In other words, the man

who would walk after God’s heart will embrace serving as his preferred way of living.

He will be outward looking, seeing other’s interests as, at least, equal to or, more likely,

as superior to his own, and he will learn to delight in such an attitude. Service is a natural

issue of love, much akin to giving, because it is love’s nature to serve out of a generous

heart and spirit.

So when a man places himself before the Father in the throne room to hear from

him, he comes to learn to serve, or to be directed to the ways he is to serve in obedience

to his Lord. The proper attitude in this facet of listening to his Servant King is:

“Father, my life is yours. I come to you in need of grace to serve you and to serve

those you love through the gifts you have given me.

Make me fit for your service and leave no stone unturned until my heart yields to

no other Master.

Speak to me all that I must hear so that my life will visibly reflect your beauty and

majesty without shadow.

Send me to those who are dying inside and out; give me to the lost and beaten;

pour me out for those that the privileged overlook or shun; turn my masculine heart to

lowly paths where the forgotten and defenseless lie desperately in wait for you.

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 Make my life a virile living sacrifice filled with love and grace and transforming

power flowing from wisdom and faith.

Teach me to serve to the degree that I decrease and you increase, and make my

heart fill with joy when, from my service, you are seen and loved as you are.

Finally, give me masculine courage to the carry strong the cross fitted for me so

that no room remains for cowardice and foolish lord Self.

When we listen to God, we listen to our Master. The word “master” is harsh

sounding to our ears because we have such a sensitivity to the notion of radically

obedient servitude, of being a slave to Christ, the One in whom “all authority in heaven

and on earth has been given” (Matthew 28:18). But for a man to really get what it means

to serve God, he has to settle this idea of belonging to him to be used at his pleasure. In

fact, a man becomes a man when he makes his way to this eternal truth and learns to

abide there. It is his proper relationship to God, the one where he will best fulfill his

mission on earth. The centurion seeking healing for his servant understood this

relationship between servant and master when he recognized Jesus’ supreme authority,

offering the proper respect to the King of kings and submitting in deference as “one set

under authority with soldiers under me”(Luke 7:8). His servant was healed.

Listening prayer enables a man to sit at the foot of his Master and hear his will on

matters for which they both care. Such a man looks for his LORD’s perspective on

everything so that he might serve God first, and then be an instrument of grace in his

hands to serve the Master’s interests in his marriage, family, workplace and church.

Similar to the comrade’s attitude in listening, the servant’s attitude is that of seeking to

know what God wants done in and through him. He also desires to get God’s help when

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he falters, is confused, or defeated. What drives him to listen is to know what God wants

and how he wants it accomplished for his glory.

Now, remember, God knows we have much to learn and we often fail to fulfill

what he has given us to do. Sometimes, we never even get to the starting line, even if we

understand what he wants. Other times, we never even find out what he wants in a

particular situation; we just barrel ahead on our own without a thought as to whether we

are heading in God’s direction or flying solo. It has been my experience that God is

patient and generous with his sons. He is a teacher without peer and seems to keep

working with us despite our stumbling and bumbling. He recognizes that we have much

to learn all the time, and kindly serves us in our need to grow. Love does “cover a

multitude of sins” (1Peter 4:8), and “he does not deal with us according to our sins nor

repay us according to our iniquities” (Psalm 103:10).

As I explained in Chapter 6, five essential qualities of godly masculinity are:

exemplifying what is of eternal value, protecting the priceless and preserving the truth,

initiating: finding or making a way, sacrificing for what God says is good, and

establishing God’s rule in every area of life. Listening to God helps a man grow in each

of them.

Listening as a son to his Abba Father enables him to hear what is of eternal value

from the heart of the Father in his own life and in the lives of others around him. God

teaches him about what is priceless from his perspective, including how deeply he loves

his sons and daughters.

Coming to God as a friend enables a man to hear how he wants him to exemplify

what his Lord cares for. We often identify with things we admire or respect in a friend.

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By drawing near God in the silence, we come to know his heart and learn to mirror it in

our own lives. Remember that I said a friend seeks his friend’s highest good. A friend of

God seeks his glory by becoming what God intends for him to be. He will sacrifice for

what God says is good and right and true, because God has befriended and freed him. As

a friend of the Lord, he also longs to hear the truth. A man’s wisdom depends on being

able to see the truth and respond well. A godly man works to preserve the truth wherever

he is summoned because it matters so deeply to his Friend of friends.

In the quiet, God’s comrade spends time listening for how to take the initiative

where he knows he is being directed. In finding or making a way, he listens for God’s

activity so that he can draw alongside him in the battle or any other Kingdom enterprise

so that he can do his part. In the quiet, he hears where God is fighting to redeem and

reconcile the world. In the process, he also hears the King’s call to come along. The

desire of his heart is to establish God’s rule in every part of life for which he has been

given responsibility even if there is a struggle on his hands.

The servant in a godly man moves toward sacrifice like a quarterback drives his

team to the goal line; it is his stock and trade. To sacrifice often for what God says is

good is at the heart of a servant. Such a man wants to listen to God to know what he says

is good and then be released to achieve it in service. He wants to exemplify the servant

heart of God, and enjoys hearing what his Master has to say about the needs around him.

To serve God and his interests flows through his veins. To learn the way from the

Suffering Servant is an honor and privilege in his eyes.

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 ****

Listening prayer turns out to be one of the most virile spiritual disciplines a man

can undertake. It requires steadfastness, perseverance, patience and courage to obey. It is

for ordinary men who dare to try to run their races to win the prize. Not spiritual heroes

or giants, mind you, just guys who want to run as well as they can for a God who has

been good to them. The spiritual discipline of listening prayer and the truth God speaks

there treats ordinary men with respect and exhorts, “Go. Run the race and don’t look

back. I AM.” And they are responding with “Yes, LORD, but help me.” .

The discipline of listening prayer, as with all disciplines, also exposes a man’s

laziness and drive for comfort. We want to do what gives us pleasure, amuses us,

distracts and stimulates us. Boyishness, especially emotionally, is an easy place to spend

lots of time. And it often calls to us when the way to godly masculinity just seems too

hard. But if we submit to boyishness, we miss out on treasure. A man who listens to God

grows rich in intimacy, faith, hope and trust. He has heard God call his name and he

knows it. While life has all manner of frustrations, losses, betrayals, and dead-ends, a

man with a listening ear will find a way through them because he is following hard after

the One who walks very near him every step of the way and speaks life into him.

When a man learns to listen to God and has discovered that it is a indispensable

part of being a godly Christian man, he will wonder why he avoided such a life-giving

activity with the living God. And he will be grateful that the journey ahead will be trod in

dialogue with a God who spoke the world into being and will speak all that he needs to

get home safe and sound.

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