We Are Intrepid. We Carry On.

'So you failed. Alright you really failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You failed. You think I care about that? I do understand. You wanna be really great? Then have the courage to fail big and stick around. Make them wonder why you're still smiling.'

Well, may this be a shoutout to all the men who, once in their life, think they are not enough, that they can't be the man they're supposed to be, that they will remain who they are for the rest of their lives. Someday you'll find just the right girl who will believe in you even when you can't seem to believe in yourself.


An excerpt from Wild At Heart by John Eldredge, pg. 132-134:

God's Name For Us

"I noticed a few years ago, a ways into my own masculine journey, that I related well to Jesus and to "God," but not to God as Father. It's not hard to figure out why. Father has been a source of pain and disappointment to me ... to many of us. Then I read this in MacDonald:

In my own childhood and boyhood my father was the refuge from all the ills of life, even sharp pain itself. Therefore I say to son or daughter who has no pleasure in the name Father, "You must interprit the word by all that you have missed in life. All that human tenderness can give or desire in the nearness and readiness of love, all and infinitely more must be true of the perfect Father - of the maker of fatherhood." (The Heart of George MacDonald)

The gift was perfectly timed, for I knew it was time to allow God to father me. (All along the process of my initiation, God has provided words like that, messages, people, gifts to open the next leg of the journey.) Masculinity is passed from father to son, and then from Father to son. Adam, Abraham, Jacob, David, Jesus - they all learned who they were out of their intimacy with God, with the Father. After all, who can give a man this, his own name? God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is. This is usually thought of with a sense of guilt - yes, God sees me ... and what he sees is my sin. That's wrong on two counts.

First off, your sin has been dealt with. Your Father has removed it from you "as far as the east is from the west" (Ps. 103:12). Your sins have been washed away(1 Cor. 6:11). When God looks at you he does not see your sin. He has not one condemning thought towards you (Rom. 8:1). But that's not all. You have a new heart. That's the promise of the new covenant: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws" (Ezek. 36:26-27). There's a reason that it's called good news.

Too many Christians today are living back in the old covenant. They've had Jeremiah 17:9 drilled into them and they walk around believing my heart is deceitfully wicked. Not anymore it's not. Read the rest of the book. In Jeremiah 31:33, God announces the cure for all that: "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people." I will give you a new heart. That's why Paul says in Romans 2:29, "No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit." Sin is not the deepest thing about you. You have a new heart. Did you hear me? Your heart is good."