Brett February 1, 2019

The Way of the Heart Podcast is intended for men – husbands, fathers, leaders. But anyone can benefit. In this extended episode Jake and Brett are joined by their good friend Jason Jensen, co-founder of Glass Canvas and discuss living as an orphan/son, three common styles of relating, and ways to foster stronger relationships with other men.

Key Points:

  • Spiritual orphans believe they do not have a Father who loves them and they have to do life on their own. Orphans are self-protective.
  • Jesus came to give us his Father as our Father. The Father wants a close, daily, ongoing relationship with us, his sons. When operating in sonship we are relaxed. Sonship has real authority and power.
  • Three styles of relating are 1) moving toward, 2) moving away, 3) moving against – we can operate in all three either as  a son or an orphan.
  • We need to reject passivity as men. Changing from the orphan to the son requires courage – we need to decide ahead of time who I want to be in future situations. 8 seconds of pain can lead us into a heroic moment of sonship. Engaging in life as a son when it’s hard requires the grace of courage and humility. We need to celebrate the heroic moments when we lean into adversity. Courage doesn’t feel like courage in the moment.
  • Close male friendship is so valuable. Men’s group without purposeful vulnerability often fails. Men’s groups could benefit from articulating a path toward and the cost of building committed, authentic male friendship.
  • Brother wounds are just as real as father wounds – we can heal that wound by risking a deep relationship with Jesus. Vulnerability is the same as honesty. We need to be prudent and modest when we choose vulnerability; not everyone can honour our vulnerability or we might need more relationship before we can be more vulnerable. Vulnerability in relationship goes deeper as trust increases. Just purging emotions and emotionally dumping isn’t the point or goal of vulnerability.
  • Listening is better than advice giving. A good default for men’s groups is presence (moving toward) and very cautiously move against. A good goal for relationships with men is to listen to understand and reflect back.
  • Our spiritual radar isn’t sensitive enough to detect every movement of God. When looking for daily affection from the Father, we have to be looking and be looking for simple movements in unique ways to you (a love language).

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