WHAT THEN WILL YOU DO?
HOW WILL YOU SHOW YOURSELF A MAN?

1. What does your name mean? Is there any clue to your parents’ hopes, or even God’s intentions, in the meaning of your name in its original language?

2. What words were said about your life when you were born? Form these words of blessing and vision into prayers and destinations. Make curses and negative labels into Yabetz-like prayers.

3. What tribe do you belong to? Is there any defining language or story that comes with belonging to that tribe? Take them for yourself. Make them a matter of prayer. Live their ideals. If some of the words that swirl around your tribe are negative, do as Yabetz did: ask God to break the curse and enlarge you.

4. Take a loving, honest look at your family culture. Take the good and extend it. Identify the harsh, the bitter, and the destructive and work against it. Do this in prayer, in discipline, and by living in exactly the opposite spirit.

5. Consider keeping an “Honor Book” or some “Honor Pages” in your journal if you already use one. Record the words that nobly define your life: words of your ancestors, tribal leaders, parents, teachers, coaches, friends, and so on. Record words from Scripture, poems, books, even movies and songs that embedded themselves in you when you heard them and have become part of who you are and want to be. Rehearse them, make them yours, pray them, ask God to break the opposite of these noble words in your life, and celebrate on the page your journey into honor. Don’t feel silly or unmanly about this. George Washington, George Patton, Ronald Reagan, and some of the greatest men who ever lived did this too!

“NOTHING GREAT WILL EVER BE ACHIEVED WITHOUT GREAT MEN, AND MEN ARE GREAT ONLY IF THEY ARE DETERMINED TO BE SO. FOR GLORY GIVES HERSELF ONLY TO THOSE WHO HAVE ALWAYS DREAMED OF HER.”

—Charles De Gaulle, from The Army of the Future (Vers l’armée de métier), 1941