Heart of a Tender Warrior : Becoming a Man of Purpose

by WEBER, STU

• ISBN13: 9781590520390
• ISBN10: 1590520394
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-08-16
• Publisher: Multnomah Books

Summary

It takes a warrior to stand tall and strong in an age of cynicism. Today, Stu Weber's ringing affirmation of godly manhood reestablishes a man's highest priorities. Brief chapters, salted with the author's stories, present the characteristics of tender warriors -- including watching out for what lies ahead, keeping commitments, and learning to speak the language of women. In his warm yet straightforward style, Weber shows how a man's strength can be tempered with tenderness, grace, and submission to God's Son, the ultimate Tender Warrior.

Author Biography

Stu Weber is senior pastor of Good Shepherd Community Church near Gresham, Oregon. He is a much-in-demand international speaker and the author of the popular Four Pillars of a Man's Heart, Tender Warrior, All the King's Men, and Along the Road to Manhood. He and his wife, Linda, have three children: Kent, Blake, and Ryan.

Table of Contents

Wake-Up Call	p. 9
The Scout	p. 15
Staying Power	p. 24
Beneath the Breastplate	p. 34
Under Orders	p. 44
The Aloneness Fighter	p. 51
Take Hold, Dad!	p. 58
Real Men Stand Together	p. 70
The Ultimate Tender Warrior	p. 79
Take It to Heart	p. 91
Notes	p. 95
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Wake-Up Call

HOW MANY TIMES can a man hear a wake-up call without waking up? Some men, I suppose, never do. This man almost didn't.

I've had two major wake-up calls at two crossroads in my life. Neither was much like the gentle ring of an alarm clock. Both were more akin to the crack of a two-by-four across the back of my skull.

The first call came in the heat and terror of Vietnam. I was the Group Intelligence Officer, serving the Fifth Special Forces Group. My responsibilities included briefing "the old man," Colonel "Iron Mike" Healy, on the enemy situation around our A-Team camps from the Delta in the south to the DMZ in the north. Very few young captains had access to the entire country as I did. Very few could grab aircraft when needed. It was heady stuff for a twenty-five-year-old from Yakima, Washington.

My wake-up call came one spring, on a hillside. We were at Dak Pek, at the northern end of the Dak Poko Valley in the central highlands. My face was pushed into the muddy banks of a small trench at the perimeter of a Special Forces A-Camp.

Something was out there. Something big. And we knew it. All the indicators were there. We'd been picking them up for days-consistent "hostile" contact with our patrols, increased radio traffic (only "big boys" had such radios in the North Vietnamese Army), and a real upsurge in other tactical intelligence in the area. Even the informant "agent nets" began to pick up abnormal numbers of clues.

They were out there all right. And we were their target. Overrunning a Special Forces A-Camp was a prime trophy for any NVA big shot.

In some ways the waiting was almost as bad as being under attack. Just knowing that several companies of crack North Vietnamese regulars were out there on the perimeter-waiting for the right moment to come screaming out of the forest-turned life into a waking nightmare. There in that muddy ditch-reeling from the fears and threats of imminent combat-it finally caught up to me. I finally heard the wake-up call. In that moment, I faced up to the very real possibility that I would never go home. That I might not beat the odds. My life might indeed end in that faraway place. It might not be "someone else" leaving that valley in a body bag, flying home in a silver flag-draped coffin.

I could actually die. Within hours. Possibly even minutes. As I grappled with those thoughts, a question burned its way to the surface of my mind. After smoldering in my soul for months, the question now burst into hot flame.

What matters? What really matters?

If a young captain by the name of Stuart K. Weber died in the Dak Poko Valley, what would he have accomplished during his quarter century on earth? What was life all about, anyway?

Called back to Nha Trang, I caught a helicopter out of Dak Pek, missing the worst of the battle. Our little camp was virtually blasted from the face of the planet. Eventually the siege lifted, and the NVA crawled away to lick their wounds. Our guys loaded up the wounded, collected the dead, and began to build the camp all over again. Somehow, for some reason, I'd been handed yet one more chance to wake up and open my eyes.

And this time I did. I began rethinking my life. Again I went back to duty. But I was never the same. The spiritual roots of my childhood, long abandoned during the social and intellectual turmoil of the sixties, began to take hold in my heart. The faith of my father and grandfather sent pilings deep into my soul. I realized that Jesus Christ was exactly who He said He was. He became very real to me, and life changed from that day.

A SECOND WAKE-UP CALL

If you're a married man, you'll understand my second life-changing wake-up call. If you're still single, take my word for it: This was a moment every bit as intense as that first wake-up call in the muddy trench at Dak Pek. This one didn't come out of the sky like a mortar shell, but it did come "out of the blue." Actually, it flashed out of Linda's eyes. For the first time in our fifteen years of marriage, I saw anger there. Deep, hot anger. It wasn't like Linda, and that made it unmistakable.

It was absolutely clear-there would be changes in our relationship, or our relationship would change. Things were never going to be the same.

I began to realize some things. It seems I had been taking our relationship for granted. Looking back, I realized I'd been treating her more like a trophy (conquered and on the shelf) than a companion. More like a contractual partner than a friend with whom to share my insides. The signals had been there, but ... I hadn't seen them. Typical guy.

How had we come to such a morass? Why did marriage in those early days shape up more like combat than companionship? Over time I came to find out it had to do with manliness -or the lack of it. Finally understanding how the living God put me together as a man has helped us grow as a couple.

And-whether you are married or not-manliness is what this little book is all about. Real, God-made, down-in-the-bedrock masculinity is something men in our culture struggle to understand. Tough? Tender? Strong? Sensitive? Fierce? Friendly? Which is it? We're frustrated. Often confused. Sometimes irritable. But determined. Determined to discover our manhood and live it to the hilt.

Maybe you've already experienced a couple of wake-up calls in the course of your life. Listening to the whistle of incoming mortar shells or looking into the furious eyes of the only woman you've ever loved can certainly open a fellow's eyes.

Chances are, you won't need the kind of alarm bells it took to pry me out of slumber. As a matter of fact, our gracious God might even choose to use a little book like this to accomplish something very big in your life, without all that trauma.

So let's just consider this your first wake-up call....

Take It to Heart:

Along the way, every one of us will find ourselves in situations that shake us to the core-and cause us to think about the critical issues of life. But why wait until circumstances crush us? Now is the time to wake up and seek God's help, wisdom, and direction.

Excerpted from The Heart of a Tender Warrior by Stu Weber Copyright © 2002 by Stu Weber
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.