Better Men: All Things Examined

By Regis Nicoll
January 14, 2011

Excerpt:
his book The Making of a Leader, Dr. Robert Clinton notes that less than one third of the leaders in the Bible finished well. Even those who did—Jacob, Moses, Aaron and David, to name a few—experienced major moral lapses that significantly undermined their ministries. Although the particular temptations they succumbed to may have been different (pride, abuse of power, lack of integrity, sexual misconduct), common to all was the lack of accountability.

I’m reminded of what Jimmy Swaggert said about his moral fall: “I fasted and I prayed and I begged God for deliverance from pornography. I realize now if I had turned to my brothers in Christ for help, I would have been delivered.”

Then there was pastor and author Gordon MacDonald who, after an immoral relationship was revealed, stated, “I now realize I was lacking in mutual accountability through personal relationships. We need relationships where one man regularly looks another man in the eye and asks hard questions about our moral life, our lusts, our ambitions, our ego.”

Vital to our well-being are people who not only cheer us on, but challenge us with sometimes uncomfortable questions—the ones that make us pause and examine the trajectory of our lives. Yet as men’s ministry leader Rod Handley points out, we want friends but not accountability. When we hit a pothole in life, we think: “I can handle this on my own”; “What I do privately is my business”; and most tellingly, “I don’t want to change my sin patterns.”

The failures of heroes past and present demonstrate that, as someone once said, “the only thing we can do successfully by ourselves is fail.” Indeed, the words of King Solomon are as important today as they were three millennia ago:

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up!”

This year the wisdom of those words will be showcased in a most unlikely place. the rest