From Dad to Whom?
After yesterday's blog, We need to acknowledge that Dad can only take his son so far in life. We don’t like to believe that as dads, but dad can only take a son so far in life. That’s why a son needs to be handed off to other men – to mentors – and blessed is the man whose life is filled with mentors – even one mentor. It’s wonderful to have that.
That’s because male mentors are specialists who are used to expanding and enriching a young man’s life. They enter a son’s life at various points in his life journey, and they teach a young man skills his father could not. And they call a young man to pursuits and feats his father could not imagine. They empower a young man with resources and confidences and wisdom that’s often outside his father’s ability – all in the context of mutual admiration. Because you get to where you admire each other; you admire the mentor – and the mentor admires you. That’s the role of the mentor; to carry on the training and empowering that a dad began, but a dad couldn’t finish. And no dad can finish it. There have to be other men in your life.
Comments About a Mentor
1. He is one who supports. He is one who supports, rather than competes with you.
2. Secondly, he is one who is primarily a cheerleader, not a critic. One of the great things about a mentor is he’s not going to see what’s wrong in you; he’s going to see what’s right about you. For dads, as your sons get older, sometimes – and they’re wonderful sons – but sometimes it’s just the natural inclination of a dad to find the things that a son’s not doing. Keep picking at it. But the mentor comes and he doesn’t notice so much the soft spots; he notices the things that are right about you, and he can feel those things and the power those things could have if they could be further developed, and he wants to breathe even more life into those things.
3. He’s the one that seeks to encourage the development of your gifts while seeking to protect you from costly mistakes.
4. He is the one who admires and delights in you because he instinctively recognizes your value and untapped potential.
One of the things about a mentor that’s always unique is that he has a gut feel for you. He can listen to you. It’s like I listened to this young man on video and his sermon, and I was just sitting there listening and I could feel ‘this guy can preach. This guy’s got a future. He’s a leader and he needs to know that.’And that’s what mentors do, they have a gut feel for your potential.
5. He’s not necessarily a close friend. He may become a close friend, but you know a lot of mentors don’t become your close friend, but they do become a close confidante. They are safe people that you can say things to that you can hardly say to anyone else.
Is Mentoring Different from Discipleship?
The answer is yes and no.
No, in that both mentoring and discipleship seek to impart wisdom to a young man and unleash the best in him.
Mentoring does that and discipleship does that. They call a young man up and out, to get better in his life.
But yes, there is a difference between mentoring and discipleship in that discipleship always has a spiritual center to it. It always has Biblical moorings and roots to it; whereas mentoring may or may not. Mentoring may be purely secular in that sense. It may be to help you become a better investor of your money, or a better manager of your company. It can be in a host of things and purely one-dimensional. But discipleship always has a tie to life – spiritual life. So there is a difference, but in some ways they’re also the same.
The best mentoring that there is in any area, or in any field, is mentoring that ties the occasion to the bigger scope of life.
What a mentor brings to the table
1. He brings wisdom through experience. It’s the mentor who can say, ‘I’ve been there. I can tell you what’s on the other side of the river.’ we do a lot of premarital work with couples who are getting married. One of the things that we try to provide for these couples as they go through this pre-marriage training is to know what it’s going to be like on the other side of the river when they get married.
But not only that, but we go ahead and provide for them a mentor for their married life; to walk with them. How rich is that!? To have somebody I can call as I’m trying to adjust to this whole new experience, but that’s what a mentor provides is wisdom.
2. Secondly, a mentor provides warnings. They’ll mentor them and say, “you want to know what it’s really like? We’ll tell you what it’s really like.” And they give them that experience before they get there, But that’s what mentors do; they provide wisdom; they provide warnings.
3. Thirdly, a belief in you. It’s good to be believed in! We all need that. In Acts, you have this moment where Paul is on this missionary journey with a friend named Barnabas and a young man named John Mark. Evidently Paul got to the place where he was irritated with John Mark. He didn’t think he had the right stuff, and so he told John Mark, basically to catch a ride and go back home. And Barnabas objected, because he thought John Mark was worth investing in.
And they had a spat there. They had a fight about whether to bring John Mark along, and eventually, John Mark and Barnabas left and Paul went on. Barnabas continued to believe in this young man and build into his life. And evidently, Barnabas knew what he was doing because at the end of Paul’s life – when he’s in prison, when he’s about to die at the hands of the Romans – he pens this letter in 2 Timothy and he says, “when you come to visit me, would you pick up John Mark because he’s valuable to me.” That’s what a mentor can do. He can believe in you and maybe for you, allow you to believe in yourself.
4. Fourthly, he cheers for your achievements. Sometimes, you can mentor, what I call “mentor for a moment.” Just for a moment you can be a mentor and unleash that power. There are young men all around town who today, just by putting your hand on their shoulder and saying, “you know, I’ve been watching you here. You do a good job.” You can just feel the life going into them, because you, a veteran, and you’re cheering for him.
5. In some instances, a mentor brings to the table being a proven hero. Not every mentor’s a hero. In fact, most mentors would look at themselves and say, ‘I’m no hero. I mean, maybe I can share some things, but most of my life is filled with pock marks, and flaws and mistakes.” And that’s right, that’s part of what a mentor gives away; the raw experiences of life.
But young
men need heroes. They need older men they can believe in. They’re not perfect; but they’re good men and these younger
men want to be like them.
And in some cases, you’re going
to have a young man who locks on you and even
though you may not believe it, he says, ‘You’re my hero.’ And we need heroes today.
There are guys who are around with eyes looking to and fro every day, wanting to find a hero who can let them live in this life a heroic life. It’s worth living that! It’s the quest for authentic manhood. And older men need to be constantly calling these younger men up – and even in that process, looking at ourselves and saying, ‘you know, up is a worthy place to go.’
The Bible is filled with mentors and mentoring
Here are just some of the examples: You have Moses and Jethro; you have Joshua and Moses; you have Ezra and Nehemiah; Elisha and Elijah; John Mark and Barnabas; Timothy and Paul.
Two of the letters of the New Testament – 1st and 2nd Timothy – are nothing more than mentoring letters. Paul, an older man, trying to build in and make successful a younger man. You have the 12 disciples and Jesus. It says, “and He chose 12, that they might be with Him.” And why did He need them with Him? So He could build and breathe into their life a vision – not for a little lake where they could go fishing, but for a whole world where they could fish for men. That’s what He breathed into them. He believed.
Exodus 18
says, and it’s with this occasion where an older man, Jethro, ministers to his son-in-law Moses. He says to Moses; he saw all that he, Moses, was doing for
the people, and Jethro said,
“What
is this thing you are doing for the people? Why
do you alone sit as judge and sit and all the people stand before you from
morning until evening? The thing you’re doing is not good. (He
was trying to judge this whole nation of Israel by himself. He was a young guy and he didn’t know how to manage; he didn’t
have the basic Management 101 Course yet.) And
so his father-in-law says, “you’re going to wear yourself out. And you’re going to wear these people out,
for the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. Now listen to me, and I shall give you counsel.”
And if you want
to look at that some time today, look at Exodus
18. He lays down an
unbelievable management blueprint - an organizational blueprint of how to do
justice for a whole nation. And Moses
listens and the people prosper.
In 1
Thessalonians 2. Here’s Paul speaking to a group of
Thessalonians, just a small house church of people, but he’s mentoring them.
And he says,
“Having so fond affection for you (see, he notices them. ‘I have a
fond affection for you.’) and because of that I’m well-pleased to
impart to you, not only the gospel of God, but
I’m also willing
to impart my very life. (‘I’m willing to invest in you.’) Just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and
imploring each one of you, as a father (‘I’m
not your father’ but mentors are father-like) …as a father
with his own children. And here’s my goal for you; that you might walk in a manner worthy of
God who calls you into His kingdom and glory. (‘I want you to live UP! And
I’m willing to impart my very life to get you there.’)
10 marks of a good mentor
This is a blueprint for you younger men to choose a mentor, from Howard Hendricks’ book As Iron Sharpens Iron.
1. First, a mentor is a man who clearly has what you personally need.
2. Secondly, he chooses to cultivate a relationship with you. A mentoring relationship is not a forced relationship. You must both want it.
3. Thirdly, he’s willing to take a chance on you.
4. Fourth, he is respected by other men. And that’s an important thing if you have a mentor in your life – that he’s respected by other men. You know he’s the real deal.
5. Fifth, he has a network of resources.
6. Sixth, he’s consulted by others.
7. Seventh, he both talks and listens.
8. Eighth, he is consistent in his lifestyle. You can have a guy mentoring in one area of your life, but if you notice other areas of his life are out of control, then beware, because he may not be mentoring you out of integrity. He may be really good at business, but if his home life and personal life are wrecked, you need to beware of his business mentoring.
9. He is able to diagnose your real needs. He has the ability to speak and connect with you. It’s like this guy has a way connecting the dots in this young man’s life. It creates sparks of energy and excitement about life. He can diagnose your real needs.
10. And then, finally, he is concerned with your interests. That’s his focus; not his interests, but yours.
The impact of mentoring
A) For The Mentor
Every man, at some level, ought to be a mentor before his life is over. And here’s why.
1) It closes
the loop on a man’s life cycle. It gives an older man
a reason to live; not just to
play golf/foot ball. Not just to
retire at a lake; it gives
him a reason to live, at
the tail end of his life. He can invest and close
the loop with meaning and purpose by investing down in a whole
generation of young men.
2) It connects older and younger men in a symbiotic relationship. That word symbiotic a biological term that just means two organisms come together for the mutual benefit of both. The benefit to the young man is that he gets wisdom. The benefit to the older man is he gets a reason to live – a purpose for life.
3) It allows an older man to teach naturally from experience. You don’t have to be some great teacher. You just share your life. Younger men desperately need and want that.
4) It gives an older man a significant purpose, in the second half of life.
5) It adds a missing satisfaction to an older man’s life. If you’re an older man – and when I say
‘older man’ – 40, 50, 60 – and you want an added dimension to your life, you
begin to connect with a younger man in some way.
B) For his protégé (Mentee)
What does mentoring do for the protégé?
1) It gives him hope. He gets to know he can do it, because an older man is saying ‘you can do it.’
2) It gives him wisdom in time. The older man says, ‘here’s how you can do it. And here’s how you can avoid taking unnecessary hits in life.’
3) It gives him a bigger personal vision for his life. ‘You can do much more than you’re doing right now.’ That’s what a mentor says. ‘You can go much further than you’re thinking right now.’
That’s what a protégé gets – hope, wisdom, a vision for life and encouragement.
Want to be a Mentor?
What do you do if you want to be a mentor?
1) Make a list of your strengths and experiences that you can bless a younger man’s life with. This is most important because you’ve got some strengths. Every man does. But as you get older, you’ve got a host of experiences that a younger man desperately needs. So make a list of what those are.
2) Determine how much time you have to give.
3) Pray for and choose a young man or men you want to be with and reach out to him. Look around; just begin to pray and say, “God, I want to know; where’s a young man I can invest in?” And just wait and you may find a miracle moment where God says, “There’s the guy, right over there. That’s the one I want you to have.”
4) finally, if you do connect with a young man, then initiate some regular time together until he has what he needs. Then let him go. This is not a forever relationship, necessarily. It might develop into a great friendship. If it does, great; but you’re there to give him what he needs, and then once he gets what he needs, let him go.
You’re
like one of those big tanker planes, and he’s like that jet fighter that gets right up under
it. And you put the hose down, and you fill him up. But you don’t stay there, do you? Once you fill him up, you let him go. And let him fly. That’s
what a mentoring relationship is all about. So
that’s what you can do if you want to be a mentor.
Need, but Lack a Mentor?
This is for younger guys.
1. Pray for wisdom and guidance. You can use those 10 characteristics of a
mentor Howard Hendricks gives. It gives you a grid to look for a mentor.
2. Go and ask courageously– this is the most important one. Once you spy out this mentor, go and ask him to mentor you. Most older men will not come to you and say “I want to mentor you.” Okay? Comrades, most of them – there’ll be a few – but most older men don’t have the confidence to say, “you know, I’d like to start spending time with you.’ So that’s going to mean, you spy them out and you go and say, ‘hey, would you spend a little time with me? I’d like to ask you about your life.’ And say ‘”I’d like to learn from it.’ And then maybe you can even formalize it, ‘will you spend some regular time just kind of helping me think through life?’ And that honors an older man, and a lot of time it engages him to spend time with you.
3. Don’t get discouraged
if you get turned down. Because
some Comrades just won’t feel capable of doing that, but many will.
4. Get a group and ask an older man to “mentor us”. And then if there’s a Comrade you really want and maybe he turns you down, Go get a group of young men that want to spend time with him and then go ask him again. Say, ‘will you now not mentor me; will you mentor all of us?’ Leverage him through numbers. And if he has three or four young guys saying ‘hey, would you spend some time with us?’ again that honors him and he says, ‘you know, I will. I’ll do that for you.’
Comrades, we’re finishing this whole
concept of relationships and we talked about being disconnected is where a man
wounds himself; it’s a self-inflicted wound. We’ve talked about the fact that
this wound occurs when men are disconnected from one another, peers for support and from
older men for wisdom.
“It is a poor man who goes through life without men on his inside.”
It’s a poor man –
you’re going to make a huge mistake – you’re going to put on your life a huge self-inflicted wound
if you go through life without letting
a few men on the inside of
your life. This is the golden piece of
advice-Don’t go through life without Comrades
on your inside.
And for you older men, it‘s a shame for you to keep your wisdom to yourself
👍🏽 Robert Lewis
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