Family Talk

Dr. James Dobson: Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It's a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute, supported by listeners just like you. I'm Dr. James Dobson, and I'm thrilled that you've joined us.

Roger Marsh: Well, welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Roger Marsh, and on today's program, we'll be continuing a conversation that really gets to the heart of what it means to be a man of God. Not the macho stereotype the world offers, but the godly strength that flows from a deep relationship with our heavenly Father.

Our guest today here on Family Talk is Gordon Dalbey, author of the groundbreaking book *Healing the Masculine Soul*. Reverend Dalbey is a Harvard-educated pastor, a former Peace Corps volunteer, and a conference speaker. He has spent decades helping men understand the wounds they carry and shown them where true healing really begins.

On the last edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, Reverend Dalbey showed how men struggle to connect with others because of broken relationships with their own fathers. On today's Family Talk broadcast, he'll take us even deeper, exploring what biblical masculinity really looks like and how fathers can pass that legacy on to the next generation. So let's rejoin the conversation right now on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.

Dr. James Dobson: Gordon, welcome back today and let me start with this. I know from your book and from our conversation last time that you believe that this difficulty in opening up, this difficulty in bonding with other men, often results from a breakdown in the relationship between those individuals when they were boys and their fathers. They're looking for a replacement for what should have taken place in the earlier years, and that masculine healing in that area often occurs in small group settings with other men. Isn't that correct?

Gordon Dalbey: Any men who will get together where two or three men are gathered in the name of Jesus, He's there, and He's saying, "Come on out, my son." The spirit of the Father God comes to the fellowship, to the body of Christ. Where men will gather—men who have been wounded by their fathers, who are lacking from their fathers—it is the small group, it's the fellowship of men where the Holy Spirit comes today to minister to men. I see it all the time.

Dr. James Dobson: What do you say specifically to men who are searching for that father influence in their lives?

Gordon Dalbey: I prayed with a guy one time like that. He said to me, "Gordon, you say that my Father God can give me anything that my earthly dad didn't." I said, "Absolutely." This guy was 35 years old. He says, "My dad was a semi-pro baseball player, and he never taught me how to play baseball. I felt like a wimp on the playgrounds all my life. Can my Father God teach me how to play baseball at 35 years old?"

I said, "Okay, Jesus, you're on. Of course He can. Sure, John"—not his real name. So let's pray. This guy prayed the most beautiful, heart-rending prayer. "Father God, teach me how to play baseball. I want to feel like I'm part of the guys." It was just a beautiful prayer. My heart just went out to him. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "Uh-oh." But nothing apparently happened.

We changed the subject a little bit, and I blessed him. Next week he comes to see me and he's astounded. He says, "Sit down, Gordon, you're not going to believe this." I said, "What happened?" He says, "Last week I was at a sales meeting with about 60-70 guys. I met this one guy. We kind of hit it off. He said, 'Let's go back to the office together.' We got in the car, halfway down a freeway he says to me, 'What do you do for fun?' I said, 'Oh, not much.' He says, 'I'm a baseball coach. I'm trying to get a softball team together at work. Would you like to come and work out with us?'"

Dr. James Dobson: You're kidding.

Gordon Dalbey: Hallelujah. And he says, "All I could say to him is, 'What do you think that means, brother?' It means I got a Father who loves me." A lot of men will come to me later in life and say, "My dad must have hated me. He must have thought I was awful. He never did this."

When we pray and ask the Holy Spirit to come and Jesus to come and reveal what needs—almost nine times out of ten at least, the man begins to get that sense, "Wait a minute, it's not that my dad hated me. It's that he was scared. He didn't know how to reach out to me."

Dr. James Dobson: Gordon, you were in the Peace Corps for a period of time. And you went to Nigeria with them.

Gordon Dalbey: I did, yes.

Dr. James Dobson: You had some experiences there that related to the book that you wrote.

Gordon Dalbey: Very much. This story I'll share with your listeners was like a dry seed in my soul that I didn't think much of at the time. But later, when I became in my 40s and began to feel some of my own brokenness and needs and longing for male fellowship and support and encouragement, it was like this seed kind of came to life. The Lord stirred it within me.

I used to teach at a boys school in rural Nigeria in 1965 and '66. One of my students came to me and asked me one day because they're fascinated about America all the time. He said, "Mr. Dalbey, in your village in America, how was it that your father came to take you from your mother?" I said, "What?"

He said, "In American villages, how is it that the fathers come with the older men of the village to take you from your mother to be with the men?" I thought for a minute. In the Igbo village where I was in those days, they had polygamy and the father would live in a big house and each of his wives had a separate house beside him and the boy is raised by the mother in her home.

In America, the mother and father live in the same house, so we don't need that kind of thing. God forgive me. I didn't know. When I came back later to tell the story, an American man said, "No, Gordon, in America it's not true. Today, in most cases, the boy is raised with the mother and the father is not there in the home." This story is powerful even today.

By the grace of God, one of my friends, a Nigerian teacher on the staff, had an opportunity to tell me what had happened to him when he was about 12 years old in the village, living in his mother's house. His father had been watching him, as fathers do. The fathers in that village know, as most fathers around the world, that if they don't do their job and reach out to the sons, there's going to be a curse. The land will be smitten with a curse. There's going to be destruction somehow.

If the fathers don't draw the boys into manhood, if the men don't grow up with a sense of security in their own manhood, those masculine strengths are going to be put to destructive ends. Somehow they know that. We've forgotten these things. Granted, these people didn't know Jesus, so we're going to have a kind of a wrong spirit here, but the right man. We who know Jesus don't know the right man. We've got to learn from each other on these things.

So what happened? On one night, say you're 12 years old and you're asleep in your mother's house because that's the way it is. One night, your father comes to the edge of your mother's yard with a group of the grandfathers, the elder men of the village, and two other special men. One of them is a drummer. He keeps the pace for what's happening tonight.

The other man is a very special man. He's the Nmu. Nmu translates in Igbo language in two ways: either spirit or mask. Suffice it to say that the Nmu has a mask on with graphic masculine characteristics. They stand on the edge of your mother's yard in the dark of the night and the drummer begins to pick up a beat. The spirit begins to move out from the men to your mother's house.

No man is allowed to approach your mother's house tonight. The spirit begins to move, and he doesn't make a beeline for your mother's house either. He dances and begins to clean the territory between the men and your mother, because somebody's going to walk that territory in a minute. A precious son is going to come out.

When the time is right, the spirit beckons to the drummer. The spirit charges your mother's house and bam, bam, bam, knocks on her door and drops back. The drummer's beating it. You're inside and you hear this noise. Your mother opens the door and says, "Who are you? What do you want?" At that point, your father leads a shout from the men, "Come out, come out, son of our people, come out."

Your mother says, "No, you can't have him. He's mine." She slams the door. Bam, bam, bam, the spirit charges your house again. She opens the door. "No, you can't have him." "Come out, come out." Up and back and forth. That goes on as long as it takes. The men are coming for something tonight and they will not leave without it, because they know that if they don't do their job as men tonight, the land will be smitten with a curse.

The mother resists. Of course she resists. She's a mother. I wouldn't respect any woman who just says, "Oh yeah, you can have my son." Of course, she's a mother. You don't have to get angry at her for that. That's a problem in our society. We don't understand these things. We haven't been taught these things.

Finally the mother gives up. She yields to the men because she knows she must, because these men are not going away. Finally she steps aside. It's a moment of truth for every boy in the village. You've got to move towards the men. Your dad is out there calling. The grandfathers are calling. The whole masculine heritage is calling. Generations of men are calling to you and you take that one step. One step out, that's all it takes, and the spirit grabs you and rushes you over to the men in case you had second thoughts. This is scary business. As soon as you get there, a great cheer goes up. The men start shouting victory cheers from a battle.

Dr. James Dobson: Gordon, let me make sure I understand what you're saying now, because you indicated that when the boy comes out of the house and leaves the mother, he's leaving kindness and sensitivity and all of that, and yet every woman wants a kind, sensitive man along with it.

Gordon Dalbey: I'm not saying he never becomes kind anymore, but he gets the balance at last. He begins to know the masculine part of himself. Without that, you have the soft male who is a nice boy for his mother and knows how to please his mother and later knows how to please his wife and wonders why ultimately the woman says, "Wait a minute, I don't just want to be pleased all the time. I want some energy from you, my man, my husband. I need an agenda from you. I need to be held accountable sometimes."

Dr. James Dobson: You talk in this book about a biblical masculinity, and that's really what you're referring to here, isn't it? What is that biblical masculinity? Because the macho image has been ridiculed to the point that I'm not sure people really know what the ideal is even from a biblical perspective.

Gordon Dalbey: The macho image was the alienated and violent. Jesus was neither of these. Jesus never picked up a sword. But He was strong and tough and He wasn't alienated. In fact, He was bonded with His Father. In John, He always says, "I only tell you what I hear the Father saying. I and My Father are one." There's this bond with the Father.

Jesus was tough. I remember the scene when the little girl was supposedly dead and everybody's mourning. Jesus goes in there and everybody's mourning this girl's lying apparently dead and Jesus said to the people to leave. You're going to tell people who is mourning to get out? He must have spoken with real tough authority there. Who's going to do that unless you're one with the Father and you know what the Father's agenda is and you can move in power in that?

Dr. James Dobson: How about provision for and protection for a woman?

Gordon Dalbey: Exactly. That is something we seem to have lost. I was driving down a road a while back and I saw a man working out in the front yard. This is a very masculine man. He had big forearms and he works hard. I just thought, "That man would give his life to protect his wife." I know him. He would do it. He would literally lay down his life. If anybody had designs on her, wanted to hurt her or take her for their own purposes, or his children, or his property, they'd have to deal with him.

We've lost this sense of protection. I get my greatest satisfaction in my family life from the fact that I have taken care of Shirley. She came out of an alcoholic home and before we were married, I told her, "I'm going to make up to you for what happened to you when you were young." That is one of my goals in life. I've done that. It hasn't been a perfect life, but I've done that. I would give my life to protect her or our kids. Men seem to have lost that sense of responsibility.

Dr. James Dobson: First a husband has to understand that someone has already given his life for his wife, and that's Jesus. Talk about how a man and a woman should relate to each other in a marital relationship in terms of masculine leadership and submission. There's been so much written about this.

Gordon Dalbey: Jesus is Lord of the marriage. He will determine if both man and woman, as it says in Ephesians, are submitted to one another out of reverence for Christ. If both the man and woman are submitted to Jesus, He will determine what particular gifts He wants to bring forth in the woman or what particular gifts He wants to bring forth in the man. If the woman is just leaning on me and looking to me to do everything, when I'm out of whack, how's she going to allow Jesus to bring us back into focus?

Dr. James Dobson: Take it on into the other implication: when she gets to pushing you or leading you, what happens?

Gordon Dalbey: Then the man has to speak up and say, "Honey, you know I love you, but this is not working out like this." There has to be something from the guy that calls her into accountability, that says, "Time out. Wait a minute, honey, when you push me like that, I'm really not comfortable with that. Don't do that, honey, and let me explain why." Not just a down-on-her, "Stop it, I'm the man in this house." Explain to her why and say, "Look, when you do that, it really takes something away from me."

Dr. James Dobson: You believe masculine leadership is a biblical concept.

Gordon Dalbey: I do believe that the Lord husbands that. But let me explain what leadership is. What does Jesus say a leader—the first thing a leader does if he's following Jesus, where is he found? At the cross. If a man's going to be a leader in his family, he's got to be at the cross daily. That doesn't mean at the cross saying, "Okay Jesus, now change my wife. Look at her, now you got to change." That's not what you do at the cross.

You surrender your heart to the living God. "Search my heart, O God, and find out what wickedness there is within me." The first place a man has to go to be a leader, anybody has to be a Christian leader, has to be at the cross where your heart is strewn out in front of the living God and He searches your heart and He says, "Okay son, when you did this the other day, you're going to have to answer to Me now. We're going to have to deal with this in you." When your wife did this, you weren't listening. But when she did that, you've got to go back and tell her now that's not appropriate.

Dr. James Dobson: But what happens is the guy wants the leadership but he doesn't want the cross.

Gordon Dalbey: This is such an interesting subject. I come from a long line of very strong men in the family who were very dedicated to their families, not vicious, not uncaring, but strong men. That's the image that I have. That's my father, that's my grandfather. My grandfather died before I was born and people in our family still speak almost with reverent tones when they talk about him.

I'm bothered a little bit today by what I'm hearing and reading about the need for men to cry, the need for men to be more like women. I do cry myself. I cry in this studio quite often when the Lord speaks to me, it often moves me emotionally. But there is a strength there that I admire and I don't want to see men give it up. Do you?

Gordon Dalbey: There's a wonderful story where Jesus sees all the crowds in Mark and His heart went out with pity and then some other text have anger. I remember once when I was ministering to somebody and I was praying for them and I felt their pain. I started to cry and all of a sudden it just bottomed out. It hit almost like a trampoline in my spirit and I bounced back with my fist and I said, "This is going to stop." I started speaking, "This is going to stop."

Anger rose up in me. In 1 Samuel 11:6, where the enemy surrounds the people of Israel and the people are going to make a treaty, the enemy Ammonite army guy says, "I'll make a treaty with you if I put out every right eye of every man in Israel." Whoa, they can't handle that, so they run to Saul. Saul asks what's going on. They tell him and it says, "When Saul heard this, the Holy Spirit came upon him and he burned in anger." Marvelous text.

A Christian man should be angry? Another text says the Spirit of God came across him and he became furious. Help me with this, Lord. When the enemy is threatening the people of God, sensitivity, tears? No, that's not a time to be crying. That's a time to be picking up your sword. Unfortunately men today, because we have not had fathers present, we've learned to move in some other ways. I'm glad I can cry. It's a wonderful release to cry.

But if a man can only cry and doesn't allow the pain to move him into action and into the masculine that takes up the sword and says, "This is going to stop. Because I'm a son of the Father God, I'm going to stand in the gap in any way I can to make sure it stops." That's the balance.

Dr. James Dobson: I can't help but think, Gordon, as we talk about this subject, of the counterpart to it. We're talking about us as men with our fathers and what our relationship was and how that has an impact on me today. But let's take it from us down to the next generation and our responsibility as fathers with our children, both male and female. I think fathers play an incredible role in the lives of little girls as well. But are we satisfying those needs? Are we being the role model that they need?

Gordon Dalbey: A lot of guys will come to me and I'll be honest with you, we're thinking about becoming parents. I have no children. It's scary business. I confessed that before a group of guys the other night and one of the guys who is a father said, "You better be scared, Gordon." When men come to me and say they're scared of this, I said, "Wonderful." Until you're at the end of your own power, you're not going to go to Jesus.

If you don't know how to be a father, wonderful. Let's go to the Father. Ephesians 3:14, "I fall on my knees before the Father from whom all fatherhood in heaven or earth receives its true name." Guys will come to me and say, "This sounds so great, Gordon. Take us to a retreat with our sons. Let's go up the mountain." I said, "Wait a minute. Before you can minister the Father's love to your son, you've got to know yourself as a son."

How are you going to know the Father's love? It's too easy. It's a cop-out. A lot of times guys will say, "Forget me, let's go to my son." No, we don't forget you. If the Father forgets you, then you're going to forget your son somehow because you're not being a father. Go to the Father and confess that you as a son need your Father God's love. Give Him permission to start moving in your life and to show you how He loves you. Then we can talk about being a father to your son.

Other guys will say, "I don't know what my son needs from me." I say, "Wait a minute, you're a son. I don't care if you're 20 or 50 or 80, you once were a boy. What did you need from your daddy?" A guy isn't in touch with that a lot of times because it's too painful. He doesn't get in touch with it because he doesn't believe Jesus is there in the pain to walk with him. Let's ask Jesus, just call on Jesus and let Him reveal to you what you needed from your own father. Sometimes a man will end up crying, other times he says, "Yeah, I really needed that from my dad." I'm keeping a little checklist here. Here's what you need to go and do for your son.

Be sure that you stay in touch with the Father God through Jesus. Go to the Father always, confess you can't be a father and call on His Father spirit to minister first to you as a son so that you'll know the character of the Father so that you can model that and give that to your son.

Dr. James Dobson: Title of your book is *Healing the Masculine Soul*. We only have a few minutes left, but we really haven't talked about how one heals the masculine soul. We've talked about the wounding of the masculine spirit and where that comes from and how to avoid it perhaps. What do you do when it's there?

Gordon Dalbey: When it's there, it's not so much to know how, so to speak, as a technique as who. It's to know where to go. Most of us men scramble for techniques. "Just give me a list." I wouldn't dare do this. I'm going to give the rabbinic approach. I'm not going to give men a list because the Father's not looking for men to give a list to. He's looking for relationship with His son. That's what we don't have.

What I teach men, what I hope by the grace of God I can model in my own life is that as we draw closer to the Father, He will give you some ideas about what will please Him and what will draw you into full manhood. It's the relationship with the Father which is generated by your honesty with Him. It's not by trying to be good that you get into relationship with the Father. Pharisees did that fine and didn't get near the Father.

It's by confessing like the apostle in Romans 7, "I can't be good. I know that good does not live in me that is in my human nature and though the desire to do good is in me, I'm not able to do it." Can you get on your knees and go to your Father God and risk discovering His wonderful mercy to you as a man and say, "You don't have to do it, son. I've come in Jesus to do it for you if you'll let me, if you'll surrender and be broken before Me and let me." Relationship with the Father will come out of that relationship that defines healing. The definition of healing is oneness with the Father. When you're one with your Father, the enemy flees and you are a man.

Dr. James Dobson: Is there any implied disrespect for women in this book?

Gordon Dalbey: None whatsoever. In fact, I've had women come to me. One woman said, "Before I read your book, I hated men. I don't anymore because I understand now." Another woman said, "I never understood men before I read your book." I've had feminists come. I've got quotes from feminists in the book saying, secular feminists saying, "We need men to get stronger today." Women are so thankful. Women have such a high stake in the healing of men.

That's what the editors were up to when they pitched the book at the women on the cover like that saying it's an affirming message for men and the women who love them because they said, "Women want men to get healed." When they hear me talk, some are a little on edge at first until they hear me talk and I'm calling men to accountability, but I'm also saying women are also sinners, incidentally. They too need to be held accountable. A woman who is a woman of God needs a man who can hold her accountable, even as the women have certainly been holding us men accountable.

Dr. James Dobson: Gordon, thanks for being with us these two days. Tell me if Western society is moving toward the ideal that you describe in this book or away from it.

Gordon Dalbey: My statement here is you have a Father who loves you. Bank on Him, count on Him, trust on Him. Western society is in its position of sin now, missing the mark, but Jesus has come to bring us back to the mark.

Roger Marsh: You've been listening to Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, featuring Dr. Dobson's conversation with our guest, Reverend Gordon Dalbey, author of the book *Healing the Masculine Soul*. If you missed any part of this two-day conversation, or if you'd like to share it with a friend who would benefit from this wisdom, visit JDFI.net.

Don't forget, coming up this Thursday is the deadline for all the essay submissions for the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute National Essay Contest for middle school and high school students. As America approaches her 250th anniversary, we are inviting young people in the middle school and high school age ranges to reflect on how Christian faith has shaped the founding of our nation and how God is calling them to carry those principles into its future.

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I'm Roger Marsh, and on behalf of all of us here at Family Talk and the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, thanks so much for joining us today. Be sure to tune in again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.