Why Successful Christian Men Still Feel Empty (And How to Fix It)

Machine transcribed from the episode audio, lightly cleaned. Timestamps are approximate.

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So there's a type of man that I know all too well. He loves God, provides, carries weight, people respect him, but privately he feels like something isn't fully right. He's not failing, but he's not fully free either. And here's the truth that most Christian men don't want to admit. Success does not heal identity. If achievement fixed the deeper issues that we all struggle with, some of the most successful men that I know that we know would be the most at peace, but that's not what I see. And I don't think you see that either. In this episode, I want to talk to

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you about something that's been heavy on my heart. And I want to help you walk away with three things The first is I want to help you to recognize when your identity is driving unhealthy patterns. Two is I want to help you to understand why acceleration without restoration actually creates instability. And then I want to offer you one practical step you can take this week to begin leading from wholeness instead of compensation or any other performance based metric that may be there. The pattern that I'm sharing with you today is consistent. The issue isn't information, it's identity. So let's talk about where this challenge and the opportunity shows up first.

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So the first place that distorted identity reveals itself is a lot quieter than you think and that we probably give ourselves credit for. Most men, they carry wounds quietly and then they build around them. And I'm going to give you a biblical example here in a second. But I want to share a story with you to kind of set the stage for what's about to happen for the remainder of this conversation. So I was sitting in my men's group this morning. So I've been fortunate enough over the last five years to journey alongside 20 to 25 guys. Some of those guys have turned over, some have left,

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some have been added. But there's a core group of about six or eight of us that have been around and together for the better part of five years. And we've gone through different books, some deeply theological, some deeply practical, some deeply spiritual. And it's been incredible in just so many different ways, watching transformation, receiving transformation. I mean, experiencing it, it's been awesome. So we're getting ready to, we're starting to go through a new book on manhood and masculinity written by a pastor that's a part of our larger church network. Really excited to get into. And so we were talking about the introduction this morning, and it was talking about just how men are shaped, how they're formed. And one of the questions that it started

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to ask was, what is your vision for the future? And like, what, you know, what do you want people to say at your funeral was kind of what he was talking about. And I love this question. This is something that Stephen Covey has provoked in me. Begin with the end in mind. If you don't know where you're going, how are you going to get there? I think that's all incredibly powerful. But as we started talking about some of the issues, the challenges that we face that are holding us back, I started hearing guys share symptoms, not root cause. And so what I was hearing was challenges with complacency, challenges with pride, challenges with comparison, challenges with a desire for more and striving.

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And every one of those things is very real. And those guys, I mean, I know most of these guys pretty well, and they were very honest when they were sharing and they're wanting to be open and transparent. But as I was hearing one of the guys in there, I respect him so much. He's a bit older than me, but I just love him to death. He's very mildly spoken, but when he does speak, he carries so much wisdom and he was sharing complacency. And so when I asked him, I said, hey, I said, you know, I said, can I challenge you that maybe that is a symptom and not a root cause? And he says, well, what do you mean by that? And I said, well, I said, are you at a point in your life where you've gotten complacent

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because you feel like you deserve it? Like it's owed to you? And he says, ah, he says, maybe. He says, but maybe, you know, it's a little bit more of like pride. And so he unpacked that a little bit. And I said, well, even that, I said, you know, I said, I think there's something deeper there. And it led to the beginnings of this wonderful discussion. And as people were talking, I opened my heart and I just said, look, you guys, I said, this is so heavy on my heart. This is just one of the greatest passions of my life's work right now is helping men to get clear with identity. I said, you know, the two biggest challenges that we as men face are typically rooted in an unknown or

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a distorted identity. Either we don't know who God has created us to be, or it's been distorted by a variety of things. I said, and until we answer that question, I said, we're going to really struggle to build anything great. Maybe glimpses of, maybe temporary seasons of, but nothing sustainable because we will be building on a shaky or broken foundation. Because even if you put healthy skin over the top of cancerous skin, eventually that cancer is just going to eat at that healthy skin. And the same thing applies to us. And so I challenged them. And because I'm challenging

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myself, I'm challenging my clients, and I'm challenging you listening to this, to consider the wounds that you are quietly carrying, those that you haven't completely explored, either you're intentionally hiding them, or maybe you're just unaware of them and you haven't continued to do the work. You started to do some work on identity, but you just didn't get it all the way. You know, as Christians, our identity is in Christ. Our identity is children of God. It's been imputed. It's been given to us by the work of Christ on the cross. And it's incredible, but we still need to gain clarity as to what that actually means for us. Beyond just what we read as very basic Christianity 101. Very important concepts, by the way, but we need to go deeper.

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So I want to now walk this back and I want to go to a little bit of scripture just to kind of help unpack this idea of how we quietly carry wounds, how we quietly hold on to these things, hide these things, suppress these things. Man, sometimes we don't even know we're suppressing them. That's how buried they are, and then how we build around them. Okay, so go back to Genesis chapter 3. And if you'll remember, God creates Adam and Eve. He says, it's all yours. Everything is yours, not only to tend to the garden, but all that stuff out there. Be fruitful and multiply. You have dominion

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over all these things. He says, but this one thing don't touch, right? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Satan comes on the scene as the serpent twists God's word around and tricks Eve into eating of the fruit. She gives some to Adam. He does the same, and bam, all of a sudden they're naked and they're ashamed. And so what do they do? They run and hide. And I think that that is the default response that so many of us default to ourselves, and we don't realize it. Adam hides his first response

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and reaction to hurt that he caused, but also that somebody else caused him, right? It was a collaborative effort, him and his wife. His first response to that brokenness was concealment. He tried to hide it. And again, I think this is what many of us do. And I don't even think it's all intentional in a sinful or evil way, though it is sinful to hide sin. But I think that sometimes we just suppress it. We try to cover it up. We try to protect ourselves from being outed or exposed or having to deal with it or to be seen as weak. So we suppress it. And for many men, that suppression

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actually shows itself as compensation for compensation. We strive to succeed. If I just show them, if I have enough success, if I have what looks like a good marriage, if I have what looks like a good family, if I have what looks like a good business, if I actually have those things, not even what it looks like, then people won't see just how broken I really am inside. We compensate. You see, this is because most men aren't made to talk about their wounds. They're taught to build around them, build on top of them. And this happens a lot of different ways.

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But what I want you to understand is, is that this is never going to be sustainable. And I'm going to get to more of this in a second. But I just, I need you to understand from the bottom of my heart, not just in my own experience, but in journeying with hundreds of men, as a coach, as a pastor, as a friend to so many, you can run, but you cannot hide. Eventually this stuff will come back and catch up to you. And when it does, man, it will wreak havoc. And what's so brutal about this is, is that if you would have dealt with it, if I would have dealt with my hurt in my early teens, if I would

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have actually understood it and dealt with it in my early teens, it would not have nearly destroyed my marriage, lent a hand in me losing my house and wrecking so many things in the process. See, because when it was small, it would have been easy to do damage control for, but the bigger it gets, the worse the outcomes are. And what I find is, is this just cycle of compensation, right? You're compensating in some way. And so what happens is, is we're wounded. That wound creates a false belief, which in this, again, example, it's not always this way, but in this example, it's, I must prove myself. And so I overcompensate. So I work harder. I want

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to control more, or maybe I'm going to isolate. So I'm just going to, I'm going to drown everybody out. And then we repeat that fallout. What you do not heal, you will repeat in your marriage, in your leadership, in your legacy, you name it. If you do not heal it, you will repeat it. And so just in this one instance, before I transition into the amplification of this, um, by way of success, I just want to offer you a couple of practical things, actually really just one practical thing for you to consider. If this is you, if you're like, you know what? I don't know. I know that I'm

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sure I've got some issues. I'm not a hundred percent certain to how they're affecting me. Well, first of all, you can go back and listen to the episode that I shared last week, where I unpacked the wound analysis framework, super practical framework that, uh, that I can offer to you. And so you can go back, listen to that, watch that, whatever you do, and that will be helpful. But maybe you just need to ask yourself this one question. Where do I overreact? Where do I overwork? Or where do I withdraw? Answering that question, uh, it would be helpful to journal the trigger and then maybe even the belief underneath it. You don't have to fix it. You just need to start by naming it. This is my wound analysis framework. When I say the first thing that we need to do is

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acknowledge the hurt. We just need to acknowledge the fact that there's a wound there. And maybe you can even open up and go a little bit farther and say, you know what? I'm going to answer this question. I'm going to journal it and I'm going to sit down with a friend and I'm going to talk about it like I did with one of my good friends this morning at breakfast. Um, so that, that, that, that's stepping into this, um, idea, this challenge. And we have to be so careful because if we quietly carry these wounds, trying to just build around them, it, it's only bound to get worse. And as I said, some men, they take a dangerous step forward and it's not even going deeper into the

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sin, deeper into the struggle. It's actually trying to build on top of it. This is where things get so, so dangerous. Success will never, success will never heal identity. And as a matter of fact, if you have a broken or distorted identity, or even an unknown one, you don't really know who you are. Success will only amplify the problems that that is creating. In the book of Ecclesiastes, which is a phenomenal book of the Bible to read and study. I'm just starting a new devotional that I've worked to create for myself, nothing fancy, but just very helpful for me. And, um, going through

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Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the book of James, uh, books of wisdom. And so Ecclesiastes is this wonderful book. Solomon writes, right? He's the wisest guy in the world. Um, and, um, and by way he becomes the wealthiest and he just has all this stuff. He's achieved everything he could possibly ever want. And if you've ever read the book of Ecclesiastes, you'll know that in Ecclesiastes chapter two, Solomon looks at all that stuff and he says, it's just vanity. I did all that to look cool. I did all that to hide how broken I really am. I did all that to cover. I did all that to protect all for vanity's sake, all of that achievement, any success, any award, any amount of money, the relationship that you think is going to fix the brokenness inside of you,

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whether a friendship or a marriage, whatever, excuse me. All it does is magnify the brokenness that's already inside of acceleration without restoration. All it does is multiply instability. If you've ever, so I used to work in the wheel and tire business, uh, many, many years ago, decades ago now. And at one point I was actually, uh, and I was doing some installation. And so you would, uh, mount a tire on a wheel and before you put the wheel on the car, the wheel and the tire on the car, you'd balance it. Right. And so you put it on a machine. It would tell you where it was out of balance because the tire isn't perfect. The wheel's not perfect. And so you'd put weights to counterbalance, right. And you'd make everything straight.

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Well, sometimes, you know, it would be the slightest bit out of balance, but you know, some people would let those things fly and you'd put it on the car and you would drive away and, you know, putzing around the neighborhood, pulling out of the parking lot. It felt great, but there was this interesting point at somewhere between about 55 and 75 miles an hour. And, um, I don't exactly know why this was always the speed, but at that speed, it would amplify the instability. It would amplify that out of balance wheel and tire combination. And you would start to feel a shake in the seat of the car. 99 out of a hundred times that customer came back.

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And it was fascinating because it was like, Oh, it wasn't that big of a deal at three miles an hour. 55, 60, 65, 70 miles an hour. Man, you could feel that thing like crazy. Same thing applies here without completely dialing in at zero. All you're doing as you accelerate, all you do, all you're doing as you succeed, as you think you're growing, as you think you're developing, as you think you're getting better, is you're amplifying what's about to happen, which is an absolute disaster of a shake and an explosion. And I see this all the time. Guys get promoted. Insecurity that they have with themselves that they think is going to be fixed by promotion

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actually just becomes control. They start controlling things more because they don't want to let go of that promotion. Other times I see, I have many friends like this, where revenue grows. They're like, man, if I just get more revenue, all the problems are going to go away. So revenue grows and then anxiety comes right along with it. And it doesn't even grow in parallel. Anxiety seems to outperform the revenue growth. You think that, man, you know, I'm just, I'm not being seed enough. I'm not being heard enough. I just don't have the following that I wish that I had. So I need to grow my platform. So your platform grows. And you think that now, now I've arrived. Now I'm good. I don't, I don't, I don't feel inferior

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anymore. And all you do is look farther up the ladder because comparison increases too. Performance-based identity says, I am what I achieve. But the gospel identity says, I am who God says I am. 2 Corinthians 5.17 says, you are a new creation created in Christ Jesus for good works. You don't fight for your identity. You fight from it. That's what the Bible says. That's what Christ has done for us. We don't fight to try and earn an identity, to try and achieve an identity. We are given an identity that then we then go out into the world and fight with. And so very practically, I would say, if this resonates with you, I want you to consider where your peace in life depends upon your performance. In the gym, at work,

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in bed. If you find yourself saying some version of, if this works, I'm secure. I want to encourage you to pray hard because what God wants you to say is I am secure because I'm a son. So if you're like, Ryan, I'm jiving, I'm getting this, I'm feeling this. Great. So I want to talk about then what this means for how you lead, how you lead in your home, how you lead in your business, how you lead in your relationships, how you lead in your friendships, how you lead in your church, how you lead in your community. Leadership ultimately flows from identity, meaning that restoration must precede acceleration. You've got to heal before you go. You've got to heal before you grow.

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Paul talks about the fact that our leadership must be modeled on Christ, the Apostle Paul, that is. The Apostle Peter in 1 Peter says, we're a chosen race and a royal priesthood. If we are not whole in Christ, our authority that we gain, this leadership, this influence will become either harshness or passivity. Harshness because we've arrived and so now we're going to start lording it over other people. Passivity because if we are ever found out in this higher elevated role, we are in deeper and deeper trouble. I just, I see this all of the time, you guys. If I was rejected

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at a young age, like I felt I was, then I'm going to strive for overachievement to show them. This is why, by the way, revenge-based success is evil and destructive and you should never pursue it. Unhealed shame will often cause you to withdraw more and more and more. You will not let people in because you are going to be, you are afraid of what they will see, what they will know. If you have unhealed fear, this will often show itself in micromanagement. You are going to hold on to everything for dear life, meticulously putting every single piece, twist and turn together yourself,

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because if you don't, you fear you're going to be right back in the position you once were. If you try to accelerate as a wounded man, you will not get the impact you desire. You will get the damage that you fear most. I mean, you guys have to understand here, God wants so much more for me and you. But he looks at us and he says, I need you to know who I am. He says, I need you to know who you are. I need you to be faithful with little before you can be faithful with much. Do you have the space to process these types of thoughts? I mean, imagine being in a room, being in a space where you could

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slow down long enough to confront what's shaping you. Intentional, focused, not getting hyped up, not going through therapy, but truly being in a biblically grounded environment where restoration is prioritized before strategy. This is why, by the way, I haven't read ahead in the book yet. I'm really looking forward to it. Our pastors recommended it and I trust him so much. And so I'm sure we're in for some amazing, amazing thoughts and ideas and growth through this book. But when I was in study this morning, one of the things I feared was we are about to build a strategy

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on brokenness. And it ain't the book's fault. It's ours. Because that's what we as men tend to do. We're builders by nature. But I challenged them in the room this morning, and I want to challenge you thinking about this. Strong men do not need louder motivation. They need honest restoration. You need honest restoration. So here's my final challenge to you. Block out 90 minutes this week. If you can't do that, 60 will do. But block out 90 minutes this week with no phone. Ask God directly, what am I carrying that you never

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asked me to carry? And then open up your Bible and read Psalm 23, specifically verse 3. David says, he, meaning God restores my soul. And then just sit with it. Pray, talk to God. Nothing crazy, nothing formal. And then if you want, just write down what you feel, what you hear, what you desire. God has so much more for you and I, but it's going to require us to understand who he is and who he's created us to be. So in recap, three things that I just want to drive home for you. Number one is if you do not confront your wounds, you will compensate for them. The second thing is, success cannot heal a fractured identity. All it will do is magnify it. And the third thing is,

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is restoration is not weakness. It is the foundation of stable leadership. So my question to you is, is are you leading from wholeness or are you leading from a place of compensation? If this episode resonates with you, I want to encourage you to share this with another man who carries responsibility well, but may also be carrying more than he should. This is a great conversation to have with a buddy. And if you don't have anybody to talk to, find your way into our community. These are the discussions that we have. We just had a men's hangout yesterday, uh, uh, virtually and man, there were just four of us in there and it got deep. All four of us were crying at one point. Just so, so powerful. Uh, that's our men of greatness

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community. It's private. Um, and, uh, and that's a space that you can do that, but find a way to process. And if you need more than content, if you need space to confront what's been shaping you, I want you to pay attention to what we're building. We've got something coming soon called the Restoration Initiative. It's going to be happening in April. One day live event, men growing in this desire to be restored to who God created them to be. And I just want to leave you with this. Steady restored men don't just succeed. They build legacies rooted in faith, rooted in clarity, and rooted in authority. You do not need

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any more strategy or any more acceleration. You need restoration. And that starts with you telling yourself the truth.