One Man Who Knows

Here's a strange fact about the worst years of my life. I was surrounded the entire time.

Business partner. Church rows full of people who shook my hand. A phone full of contacts. Men knew me everywhere I went. And not one of them knew me. My old business partner came the closest, he knew more than most, and even he didn't know how bad it was overall. That's where I had everyone parked: close enough to know something, far enough to never know the weight. I was known of by a hundred men and known by none.

I would have told you that was strength. Handle your own load. Keep your business your business. A man doesn't spread his problems around like a woman at a book club. I ran that program for years, and I want to tell you exactly what it bought me.

I thought being solo was strength, and I was wrong. All it did was let me fall into the pit alone, with no one close enough to catch me on the way down or help me climb out of the bottom.

The Bible said that would happen. It's not subtle about it. "Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, NASB 1995). Woe to the one who falls with no other. That's not poetry. That was my address. Every man falls sooner or later; Scripture takes that for granted: "Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12, NASB 1995). What Solomon adds is the variable that decides what the fall costs you: whether anybody is close enough to lift you up.

You already know from chapter four that I'm alive because the truth got out of my mouth within hours, to my wife and to one close friend. I want to slow down on that friend, because who he was matters more than the fact of him.

Why him? I've thought about it a lot since. I knew he would handle it. Not flinch, not panic, not make my crisis about his feelings. I knew he would make sure my family was safe, and make sure I was safe. I knew he wouldn't judge me for it. And I knew he would make sure I got help.

Read that list again slowly, because it's a spec sheet. Handles hard things without flinching. Protects your family. Protects you. Doesn't sit in judgment. Drives you to help instead of pretending he is the help. That last one matters more than men think. A safe man is a bridge, not a savior. My friend didn't fix me. He made sure I got to the people and the God who could. Because no man can carry your sin. One Man did, on a cross, and it is finished. What a brother can do is make sure you never sit alone with something Christ has already paid for. If you're taking inventory of your own life right now, asking which of your guys fits that list, and coming up empty, that's not information to sit on. That's this chapter's assignment, and we'll get there.

Some of you are running my old program right now. Lone wolf. Solo operator. You've got the same speech I had about handling your own load. So let me hand you the sentence that dismantled mine: God didn't create us to be lone wolves. He created us to be with other brothers. Even Jesus, and I need you to actually think about this instead of nodding past it, even Jesus gathered men around Him, and the first reason Mark gives is not usefulness. Mark says He appointed the twelve "so that they would be with Him" (Mark 3:14). Before the sending, before the preaching: with Him. The Son of God, who owed no man anything, chose not to walk His road alone. And I decided I was tougher than that. That's not strength. That's pride wearing strength's jacket, and the darkness loves a man in that jacket, because a solo man is an easy target. Solomon saw that coming too: the one who is alone can be overpowered, but two can stand against it (Ecclesiastes 4:12). Nobody sees him wobble. Nobody hears the excuses getting taller. Nobody's close enough to smell the bourbon or catch the lie. The wolf that leaves the pack doesn't become the strongest wolf. He becomes the one the dark picks off first.

Brotherhood got me to the door. Counseling is what was behind it, and I owe you the truth about that too, because I know what some of you think counseling is. I walked in that first time with zero expectations. None. What I had instead was a decision: I was determined to listen and do what I was told, to work on getting better. That's the whole posture, and I'm convinced it's why it worked. I didn't go to be validated or to prove the counselor wrong. I went the way you go to physical therapy after you've torn something: show up, listen, do the reps, even the ones that hurt. Especially those. A man who'll take coaching on his golf swing but not on his soul isn't protecting his manhood. He's protecting his wound.

And here's what all of it, the friend, the counseling, the brothers, made possible. It turned me outward.

Because now I see it everywhere. The truth is, most men are carrying something. I have not had a man cross my path who isn't carrying some unnamed weight. Not one. The guy quoting stats at the counter, the loud one, the quiet one, the one whose life looks perfect on the feed. Now that I've been the man carrying it, I can see it on other men the way a carpenter sees a bad joint from across the room.

So I talk to them. Freely, no preaching, no lecture. I've never once opened with a sermon, because I remember what sermons felt like when I was the one carrying. I ask questions and I listen. And here's the part I want to teach you, because it's the whole method and it fits in one sentence: while I'm talking to a man, I'm praying in my head the entire time, asking God for the words and for compassion, giving the conversation to Him while it's still happening. Two conversations at once. One with the man in front of me, one with the God who loves him. I've watched God do more through one asked question and ten minutes of shutting my mouth than I ever saw Him do through anybody's lecture.

That's what a rescued man does with his rescue. God pulled me out through somebody. Now I get to be that for the man crossing my path. That's not a program. That's just how the pit works once you've been pulled out of one: you can't walk past the hole like you don't know what's down there.

Today I have what I hope every reader of this book finds: a strong brotherhood. Men who are there for me, who keep me accountable, who ask me the hard questions, the ones that can't be answered with "fine." I won't name my brothers, they know who they are. But I'll tell you this plainly: I need them every day. Not needed, past tense, back when I was broken. Need. Present tense, today, sober and rebuilt and doing well. The strongest season of my life is the one where I finally stopped pretending I could do this alone.

So here's the work, and it's got two directions, because you're somebody's falling man and somebody's catcher, both, whether you know it yet or not.

First, get known. This week, take the spec sheet from this chapter, the man who handles it, protects, doesn't judge, gets you to help, and find your closest match. Then tell him one true thing you've never said out loud. Not the whole pit. One true thing. "I've been drinking more than anyone knows." "My marriage is in trouble." "I'm not okay." One sentence to one man is how every brotherhood I've ever seen actually started. It's also a command with a promise stapled to it: "Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed" (James 5:16, NASB 1995). And if the list turns up empty, then your one true thing goes to a pastor or a counselor this week, and that counts, that's not the consolation prize. Walk in like I did: no expectations, determined to listen.

Second, be the man. Sometime this week a man is going to cross your path carrying his unnamed weight, and now you know it's there. Ask him one real question. Then close your mouth and listen, and while he talks, pray. Ask God for the words and the compassion. You don't need training for this. You need ten minutes and a willingness to let God run the conversation.

Woe to the one who falls with no other. It almost had my name on it.

Don't let it have yours, and don't let it have his.