Becoming a Man Alive: God's Answer for Your Deepest Need (10-Pk) Paperback - 2012

A Man’s Primal Needs

Over the last four decades I’ve met one-on-one with thousands of men. Most of them know that Jesus promised “a
rich and satisfying life” (John 10:10). But almost to a man they are confused about what that looks like.

In fact, I’d estimate that 90 percent of men lead lukewarm, stagnant, often defeated lives—and they hate it. Their instincts are screaming, There must be more!

When men try to put into words what keeps them from feeling fully alive, what’s holding them back, they invariably describe one or more of these seven symptoms:

“I feel like I am in this thing alone.”

“I don’t feel like God cares about me personally—not really.”

“I don’t feel like my life has a purpose. In fact, it seems random.”

“I have a lot of destructive behaviors that keep dragging me down.”

“My soul feels dry.”

“My most important relationships are not working.”

“I don’t feel like I’m doing anything that will make a difference and leave the world a better place.”

Do you feel the angst in these confessions? In my experience, these inner aches and pains correspond to seven primal God-given needs that all men feel deeply. By “primal,” I mean that as men we have a raw, restless energy that is different from women. It needs to be channeled, chiseled, transformed.

In my book Man Alive, I show men how God has provided the means to harness this energy for each of these seven instinctive needs, letting it propel them away from mediocrity.

In this booklet, I want to share one chapter adapted from Man Alive that is very special to me. You see, I’ve spent most of my life struggling to believe, really believe, that God loves and cares about me personally. Not as one among many. But me, Pat Morley. And in all those one-on-one meetings, I discovered that I was not alone. Does God really care about me? That is the question. Most men are not so sure.

By God’s grace, not only do I believe today that God loves me, but I actually feel like His much-loved son. Special. Fully alive. You can too. Let me show you how you can satisfy this primal need. No man should have to settle for being half alive.

The author of eighteen books, Patrick Morley, PhD, is best known for writing The Man in the Mirror, which has sold over 3 million copies and was named one of the 100 most influential Christian books of the twentieth century. He teaches a Bible study to 5,000 men, and is the founder of Man in the Mirror, a ministry to men. www.maninthemirror.org. He and his wife have two grown children and live in Winter Park, Florida.