Does Accepting God's Love Make A Man Weak?

Photo by Ahmed Rabia

We men don't have time to fiddle around with love.

It makes us weak. We're strong. So all that feely stuff doesn't have a place in our manly man lives.

...Right?

I used to think accepting God's love made me a wuss. It's honestly not a crazy thing to think -- we men like to feel like warriors, fighting for what we believe in, protecting who and what we care about. We like to feel strong. Strong is part of a man's identity, part of his Original Design. And sometimes, receiving love doesn't make us feel very strong.

Recently, I've been living my spiritual life not accepting love from God because it made me feel weak. It made me feel like less of a man to revel in His love. You know... because love is just so... mushy.

But that all changed a couple weeks ago.

Last month, I felt like God was telling me to read Song of Solomon because he wanted me to bask in his love. Gross, I said. That's what needy people do.

I resisted for a while. I knew what was best for me, and being super mushy just isn't me.

Then, in classic God fashion, He started using multiple different avenues to say the same thing to me. From sermons to books, everything pointed to the fact that I wasn't accepting God's love.

So finally, I relented.

I began to read Song of Solomon. And God began working on me, slowly cracking through my hard, shellish exterior. I began to experience His love in a way more refreshing than a thousand ocean breezes. God began telling me things that were true about me, things that I thought were going to be mushy but actually made me strong. He began telling me how crazy he was about me, which I thought was going to be mushy but it made me filled with courage and the will to fight for goodness in this world.

And then I realized I had it all wrong. God's love makes a man strong, not weak.

Starving myself of God's love only made me lose clarity. It made me turn inward, it made me only care about myself. When that happened, I lost sight of the great battle taking place for the Original Design of humanity, and I lost sight of my role in it as a warrior and a change bringer.

And I realized something else. What I thought was protecting me and making me strong was actually keeping me from receiving life. 

love feels like it makes you needy. But in reality, being vulnerable and open is the thing that makes you stronger. Know what makes you weaker? Isolation. Isolating your deep self from God and from your community. We men, just like women, were made to share our deep selves instead of hiding them. We convince ourselves it's not manly to talk about our feelings, but it's really fear. It's weakness that keeps us from talking about our deep selves, from opening up to love.

Attention men: Us refusing to accept God's love is like us refusing to eat.

Does it make you weak to need food? Of course not. It shouldn't make you weak to need love either. It's a basic human survival need... for your spirit.

I've learned some things in the past month. I've learned that love doesn't have to make a man feel girly. When God showers love on a man, it makes him stronger. It makes him see more clearly. It unlocks power and allows him to fight more effectively in the battle that actually matters -- the battle for souls. Love makes a man fight harder for relationships, fight harder for connection, and fight harder for his friends.

We hold it out of our relationship with God because we get tricked into thinking it clashes with our Original Design.

But the reality is, when men accept God's love and bask in it, and then learn to dish it back out, that's when they become a force to be reckoned with... a force the enemy is truly scared of.

And that's why a man's ability to give and receive love is always under attack.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 - "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 - "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

1 John 4:19 - "We love because he first loved us."