Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s = Depression

I have to be honest.  I hate the holidays. All of them. Those 2 hour appearances shoveling turkey and dressing for show at the soup kitchen, those stupid fairy tale “make believe” Christmas letters that only highlight vacations, job accomplishments and beautiful family photos; NEVER …
Depression
Divorce
Disappointment
Disobedience
Death
Dysfunction
(the 6 D’s)  

Most are fake and far from reality.  I have teased my wife for years that I was going to write our own Johnson Christmas letter listing our pain and suffering and failures , line item by line item, for the year.  An honest and vulnerable newsletter calling out the pain and suffering in this fallen world but also the fact that when I am weak, then I am strong.  2 Corinthians 12:10.  

Men resort to Posing

Just like these fake Christmas newsletters and doing political time at the soup kitchen once a year, many men live fake and secretly depressed lives.  They pose for their buddies, their wives, their children, their parents, their pastor and their employer.  Afraid to be real and honest and human!  But why?  Well…. The obvious first thought is the fear and humiliation of rejection.  I can’t trust you (ie. Wife, buddy, child, pastor, mom and dad, employer) enough to share the real story!  There are so many self-righteous jackasses out there that don’t have an ounce of sympathy or empathy for a hurting soul.  I will never forget meeting these people when I was 22 on my first real job after college.  I didn’t realize how mean and selfish people can be.  Over 40 years later, I get it and know this is a fallen world with fallen people.  And men are taking it personal with suicide rates 3.63 times higher than women according to the CDC in 2019.  

The second reason could be about how we, as men, have been trained and programmed to think and act.  I will never forget the day my father, Lt. Col. Jack D. Yates, told me that I could nothurt his feelings because he didn’t have any.  What?!?  Now my father was a tough guy …….. part Comanche, called “Animal” on his high school football team, Green Beret, Special Forces, 2 Purple Hearts with multiple scars as evidence, 1 year Korean War, 4 years Vietnam, multiple kills and highly decorated with a Bronze Star and Silver medal.  But he damn sure had feelings!!  Because I saw them multiple times facilitated by my drunken mother and her immature kids.  Real tears and real pain!  But why couldn’t he admit it?  One reason is that he was given a false definition of manhood by his father and mother and high school coach and commanding officer and his buddies in southern Alabama.  That’s right Men!  Many people in your life have been teaching you a false message about Authentic Manhood. 

As my friend Tim Mays explains in his book Radical Mentoring and the Real Men workbook, men are not authentic and real because they have not been validated by their fathers.  They don’t know who they really are.  And their fathers don’t know how to remind them who they are.  This is a major objective of AbelKeepers.  During a weekly 15 minute discussion with your keeper, your commitment is to remind him who he is in Jesus.  Speaking of our Lord Jesus in Romans 6: 10-11, Paul makes it clear when he says,

For the death he died, he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.  So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

I can’t tell you how many days, months and years since meeting Jesus in 1978 that I have clung to sin, not believing that I have died once for all, not believing that I am alive to God, not believing that sin has no dominion over me and not believing that I am a slave to righteousness now and no longer sin!!  And I can say that many brothers I have met over the last 40 years have lived the same life of disappointment, forgetting who they really are in Jesus.  

Posers miss the Abundant Life

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10

Not only are men living 5 years less than women on average, they are living a partial, less fulfilling life in their later years.  According to Dan Benson in his book, “The Total Man”, in marriages where both are still living one of the pair is an invalid ---- and it is usually the husband.  Benson believes that men who are unable to express emotions or seek help in time of need or show gentleness and caring, finally, after many years, pay a very heavy price physically.  So the way we think and act as men not only reduces the quantity of life but also the quality.  We must remember that we are no longer slaves to sin!  We have been given the abundant life as a gift from God.  Let’s decide to live it.  Let’s not exchange it for less.  

Real Men Need Real Friends

I know a lot of people.  I have few real friends.  Why?  Because like you, if you and I will be honest, I have not been honest with many people.  I have not been real and vulnerable with other men.  I am not saying everyone has to know my business but I need someone I can trust and confide in and so do you.  

My father died at 58 of lung cancer, beaten down by his alcoholic wife with few friends and little hope.  A highly decorated war hero, lonely and sad; never validated by his father, and missing the abundant life that Jesus offers. If we are honest and open as real men, we can live the abundant life and sin does not have to have dominion over us.  Take the first step.  Find a Keeper who you can be yourself with.  And after he confesses sin, remind him who he really is in Christ Jesus!