THE GIFT OF MEN

When Moses hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up one on one side, one on the other, so that his hands remain steady” EXODUS 17: 12 – 13

In our journey of becoming all that the Lord has written about us, we should be careful not to trivialize the role of men who can appear in form of brothers, sisters, friends e.t.c.

Sadly, we live in a world that has taught us that everyone is our competition and rival, it turns out that we have a generation growing that doesn’t know the importance of friendship and the need for support systems in their lives.

The importance of friends, people that share the same vision with you and people that are willing to go out of their way to see you rise can never be over buttressed. In life, there are days that you know what is to be done but have little strength, one of the ways help would come to you is through the men around you. One of the ways God blesses men is by giving them the gift of men. In the gospels we see a pictorial example of going through life without people willing to go out of their way to help you and how it can lead to a delay in breakthroughs as in the case of the man by the pool Bethesda, who had no one to put in in the pool when it was being stirred by an angel of God, which resulted in his healing being delayed for thirty-eight years.

In forming relations with men, we must involve the holy spirit and his gift of discernment, because just as men can lead to you rising, they can also be the cause of your falling. We see a striking effect of this in the case of Lot, Abrahams’ nephew. It can be seen from scripture that he experienced a lot of increase when he was with Abraham, but lost everything when he went to dwell with the people of Sodom, even though he thought that staying there would lead to his increase because of the fertile land and water.

When relating with people, one of the greatest stumbling blocks is failing to realize that they are human beings like you, so they have strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, opinions, and how they express themselves may be different from how you do. These differences can give rise to a conflict of ideas and even disagreement, but it doesn’t mean that that should be the end of the relationship. Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4 : 2 talks on how to relate with one another he said “Be patient with each other, make allowance for each other faults because of your love”. I am not in any way encouraging keeping toxic friends who hinder your growth but in all we do we must trust the holy spirit to grant us discernment to choose our battles.

Lastly, in our journey through life, companionship is a crucial part of our existence, so we should learn to care for the gift of friends that God has given to us, always praying for the well being of our friends, learning to appreciate them when they go out of their way to help us or even when it may seem very little, a heart-felt thank you always goes a long way. As we set goals and priorities for this year, we should take into account the importance of nurturing friendships. May God grant us the grace to discern and appreciate the roles of men in our lives