Men enjoy fixing things. Men feel a need to fix things. When not fixing something, men are brainstorming on how fixing something. Men talk as if they knew exactly how to fix something even when they don’t know how to fix that something. Men will convince themselves that they will figure out how to fix something. Interestingly, it seems that men fail to fix themselves. They will try to fix someone else, but not themselves very often. In which ways is it possible that men engage in fixing things as a way to compensate from fixing themselves?

In the movie The Karate Kid (not the old one, but the new one, which still confuses me with the kung-fu thing instead of karate, but that is not important right now), Jackie Chan’s character, Mr. Han, fixes his car through the year to destroy it at one specific date. There is no spoiler. The movie came out in 2010. If you didn’t watch it yet it is not my fault. Mr. Han’s wife and son died in a car accident while he was driving. Every year on that date, Mr. Han gets drunk and destroys the car he has been fixing for a year. It is a very moving scene. Men engage in breaking things very often, too. So many things in society could be so different if men fixed themselves instead of fixing things or breaking things.

Last summer I spent a great amount of time reading and learning about sex trafficking, the victims, the pimps, the men who pay for sex, the trauma, the abuse, the rescuing and treatment of victims, their fallback into the life, and the testimonies of survivors who turned their lives around away from the horrors that come with the experience. It stroke me that the common denominator was a broken man; a man who destroyed the dignity of a child, a man who as a father failed to protect their kids, an absent man, a perpetrator, a man buying sex from underage children, a man buying sex in the streets and online, a man who delights in abusing women and children, a man who won’t think twice to sell or buy another person for personal gain, a man… Even in the healing process of the survivors, a man who could present an example, a role model, a representation opposite to the broken man was not often found.

This summer, I am dedicating a great amount of time to study, learn, and practicing how to reclaim the God-given identity of a man. I am doing this for myself, for my wife, for my kids, for the people I come in contact with, and for the survivors we are going to help recover in the near future. I am too a broken man in need to understand and accept my identity as a man. Looking back I see that broken man, his pain, his flaws, his shortcomings, his scars, his many mistakes, and can see how his identity got lost in a society where very few knew who they are under all the labels they take in their journey.

I am loved by God, forgiven in Christ, restored and guided by the Holy Spirit to show God’s glory. My value as a man, my validation, my affirmation, my morality, my destiny, and my hope are founded in this truth. Do I come with a baggage? You bet! However, my past will no longer define who I am. Society’s labels will not define me anymore. What people think will no longer define me. I learned the secret of victory and freedom in surrender. I gave up on myself. I surrender to God and who he says I am, and his love for me. If I fix something now, I do it for Him, for love, to show his glory, and not to compensate for not being able to fix myself. I let God fix me.