Confront and Conquer: The Warrior’s Facade

Kim CrabillBy Kim Crabill9 Minutes

Kim Crabill: Hello everyone and welcome back to Strengthen Your Walk. I’m Kim Crabill.

Watch Confront and Conquer with Kim Crabill

Casey Gomes: And I’m Casey Gomes.

Kim: Here with this new series “Confront and Conquer,” providing biblical principles to reveal, revive, and restore the warrior inside every man.

Casey, there’s this theory out there floating around that women talk more than men. I don’t know where that came from but one thought even goes as far as calling it “gender jabbering!” I don’t like that but that’s what they say. However, a new study published in Science Today reports in some spaces, men and women actually have the same number of words daily.

Last week you alluded that we do need to talk; not only women but men need to talk. In fact, you called it a spoiler alert. So, if men need to talk and they have the words to talk, why aren’t you talking?

Casey: I think we do talk, and I agree that the perception might be that women talk more than men. I think sometimes we talk about some of the surface-level things a bit more. But we do really need to talk not only more, but about things that are more personal and more in-depth to who we are as people and as men.

Kim: Well, yes because if we go into the Word, the Word says in John 16:33 that “In this world, we all have trials and tribulations.” And so when I’m working with women, or even counseling with women, I use that a lot to help break this façade that we do live in a perfect world.

One of the things that I use is a brown paper bag. I ask women, “What would you put in this brown paper bag? Your hurts? What are you hiding? What is it that’s in there?” It’s a great visual to help all of us to be able to look into our hearts and look into our lives. But with men, you say a brown paper bag is not enough.

Casey: That brown paper bag is actually stuffed into a briefcase. And this briefcase that we carry with us is important because it blends in with everything else. But it’s actually an armored suitcase with thick walls. We use it to carry it with us every day. But not only does it protect those, it also blends in so we can’t see all those sins. And we carry that briefcase with us (our imperfections, our mistakes) wherever we go. And then they stay in that briefcase often too long.

Kim: You have seen men open that briefcase. What was that like?

Casey: It’s the same every time. I think at first we’re unwilling. It’s expected judgment, condescending. It’s seen as weak. So, we’re unwilling to, or hesitant to, open it at first. But then the same thing happens after that which is, once it’s open, the man who does it feels a relief. And when he is doing it in the communion of other friends and brothers, it makes it okay for other men to start to do it too.

Kim: Yeah, and as you listen to this, I just want you to remember that in John 16:33, it does say that we will have trials and tribulations. And I know that you know what that’s like as you’re listening to this. We can list our trials and our tribulations and our hurts and maybe where we’ve messed up and we’ve made mistakes. You know we know that. We can see that on the inside.

But here’s the great promise: Jesus goes on and you know there’s the rest of that verse. Jesus goes on to say, “But take heart, for I have overcome the world. I have overcome all those things that we have gone through.” I think that that’s where talking truly matters — is that being able to release the truth and for someone else to accept it.

Casey, what have you seen when people have spoken their hurts and their pains, speaking of men. When men actually speak their hurts and pains — let’s face it, the world really doesn’t say to men all the time, “be real, what hurts your heart? Right?” — you have to break through some barriers to do that.

Casey: Yeah, breaking through barriers. Like I said before, when I’ve done it with some of the men’s groups that we’ve shared this with over the last few years, there is this really cool bonding moment that happens once one man is willing to open his briefcase and share some of those hurts. I had men that I had known for eight weeks that I didn’t even know their last name and once they had shared with me some of their hurts and their burdens and I had done the same, there was a bond created with us that was very deep and almost instantaneous. But it took that first person in the group to really go there and be willing to do it. Once he did, the floodgates opened as they say. And all the other men in the group felt that they could do the same thing.

Kim: That’s right. And that’s what you can do. I know that we all have hurts. We all have things inside us, but you know God is calling us to … He knows! He knows and He want us to know that He knows.

So, this week, as we end this session of “Confront and Conquer,” I want you just to think about your briefcase this week. I want you to think about what is inside there. And then next week, let’s take a sneak peek, or the next time we meet, let’s take a sneak peek into that briefcase. Let’s talk about there is a hidden strength inside you as a warrior. And that strength is to be able to share the hurts that are inside and what is going on inside you.

Until then, I’d like to encourage you: just think about life. Maybe you would like as an adult to write a letter to the little boy you once were. Journal your journey and talk to that little boy. Tell him the words that would encourage him as you open up your own briefcase. What have you been through that no one else knows that you’ve been through?

I think if you journal that and you begin to write to that little boy from a man’s perspective what that little boy would need to hear, I truly believe that you’ll begin to discover that those words were really God’s words that were speaking to you all along. He has always been there with you.

I just want you to remember: we cannot conquer what we don’t confront. But as we confront, Romans 8:37 assures us that God has already made us more than conquerors through Him. So thank you for joining us today. We can’t wait to see you next time on Strengthen Your Walk.

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