Congressmen and Broken Cisterns

I know, how loathsome of me to post on Congressman Weiner. . .have we not heard/seen enough of this?

As I was perusing the blogs this morning, there was a really interesting piece from Maureen Dowd in the NYT. She was lamenting the state of current manhood (especially as it relates to successful, powerful men) and others were talking about how we can build "better" men in the church.

I would recommend all of this for your reading enjoyment, because it's all very thoughtful and well-done.

I, somewhat, agree with the diagnosis. But, I think there's a radically different "cure" for the problem of "boys being boys". Let's throw adultery out for a minute. . . how do we, as guys, relate properly to the women around us?

As men, we're vulnerable, insecure creatures. We like to act like we're not (especially when we appear on Fox News), but we all know it's not true. There's a hole in each guy that needs approval, acceptance and recognition of ability (or power).

The biggest mistake a guy can make is to try and fill that hole with a woman. God gave us our wives to perhaps, help with some of this. . . .but never to actually fulfill it. The wonderful, God-sent women in our lives cannot and will not answer those questions for us (news flash guys: you're not answering your wife's questions for her either).

Listen to one of Congressman Weiner's mistresses:

"Meagan Broussard, a 26-year-old college student and single mom from Texas, wrote onBigGovernment.com, conservative Andrew Breitbart’s site, that her relationship with Weiner began when she wrote on his Facebook page that one of his speeches to construction workers was “hot.”

“Within an hour,” she wrote, “we were sending messages back and forth.”

Broussard lost her sense of awe pretty quickly: “Talking to him was sometimes a turn-off because he was so open and just so full of himself, as if he were looking, searching for something.”

(NYT: Dowd)

Searching for something indeed. Congressman Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, was a beautiful, successful woman (she was one of Hillary Clinton's aides), and he had risen to a level of power that most of us will never see in this life. So, what was he searching for? Why was he texting college girls?

The bottom line is that it won't be enough. Jesus is the only one who can fill our souls with the kind of radical humbling, and then radical acceptance that we need. As Tim Keller says, "we're more wicked than we ever feared, but more loved than we ever dreamed". The Gospel "speaks a better word" to us as men than any woman, or position, or success ever will.

(In fact (this is another post) we can't love our wives well, understand them at all, or accept their changing ways if we try to use them to fill some huge insecrity gap that we're struggling with. It simply won't work for us (or her). )

I know, these are the Sunday School answers. . .but they're answers that Congressman Weiner, and I, need to hear every day. Thanks be to God who has "brought us near" by the blood of His Son, Jesus.

Jeremiah 2:13
for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me,the fountain of living waters,and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Matthew 11:28
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Ephesians 2:13-14

English Standard Version (ESV)

¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility

Hebrews 12:24

English Standard Version (ESV)

²⁴and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

1 John 3:1
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

Colossians 1:17
And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together