2Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.
— James, the brother of Jesus verses 2:8
Eric Bucher
Born and raised in Lexington, KY, and transplanted to West Palm Beach, FL in 2006. Until 44 years of age, I was living a lie. A lie passed on from generation to generation. In childhood our fathers pass on their wisdom from their fathers; lessons rarely change. The lie I’ve been living is the definition of manhood. My father grew up on a farm, just like his father and his father before. In farm life there is no room for weakness, obstacles are overcome through sheer will, your own will. Weakness isn’t to be shown or discussed, we are raised to ‘toughen up’ and learn the lesson. As a child, sometimes when we are weak we must appear strong, and the facade that goes along with the appearance creates an incongruent soul. As I aged through adolescence and later adulthood, that incongruence led to alcoholism, anger, disconnection, hiding from God, or better said, running from God. It was in my own father’s weakest moment that I recognized my measuring stick for life and success wasn’t in the Lord but in the flesh, the flesh of my dad. A father can only teach a son to be a man if his lessons are through Christ, his actual Father. This blog and the podcasts and books to follow offer a window into what it means to be a child of Christ and how His light develops us into men. Through surrender and renunciation in Christ, we are born again. In that birth, we learn that in our weakness we find His strength.