Today's message comes from the Renewed Man Boot Camp. Renewed Man is a systematic teaching and coaching series designed to help men grow emotionally, relationally, and spiritually ... developing the essential character quality of "self-mastery." Even though this community is created for men, the principles are universal -- women will benefit from these insights
as well.
We build this teaching around 12 Keys. This week is a transition week -- we're getting
ready to start another round where we'll go through the 12 Keys again, going deeper. During a transition week, we remind ourselves of the big picture, and WHY we're doing this work. One way of doing that is to remind ourselves of the Mission of Renewed Man:
The Mission of Renewed Man is to help men grow in self-mastery (1 Cor. 6:12) in response to four pressing challenges for men today:
- Disconnection: finding deeper connection with friends and spouse
- Distress: maintaining mental/emotional health in the face of today’s stress
- Disillusionment: developing an honest and meaningful spiritual life
- Desire: increasing our capacity to resist the distractions and temptations of today’s overly-sexualized world
Here's one of the daily messages from this week's teaching series during the "transition week" -- this one has
to do with the core concept of SELF-MASTERY. I hope this will help you:
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Any and every day in this program is a good time to remind ourselves of the core of this program: We offer reminders and encouragement to strengthen your commitment to self-mastery. That's what we're about.
To me, one of the greatest exemplars of this commitment is the Roman philosopher Epictetus. He was born a slave in ancient Rome, and served in the Emperor Nero’s court. His character and wisdom developed to such a degree that he won his freedom, and became a famous teacher.
As you’ll read below, when he was a slave, he was struck by the reality that in many ways he was more
free than the freemen he saw around him. This was because, while he had worked to master himself, they were slaves to ambition, lust, and envy. These men would sell their soul to get more attention from Nero, and were essentially slaves to him in a more fundamental way than Epictetus was to his own “master.” Listen to how Ryan Holiday describes
it, when he was writing about self-mastery:
Think of
the emperors of Rome. They had enormous power. They controlled immense territories. They commanded large empires. They had endless fortunes.
Yet one can’t read about an emperor
like Nero and not be struck by how powerless he seemed to be. Not politically, but in the personal sense. As Seneca notes, Nero and his peers were slaves to ambition, to attention, to pleasure, to whims and impulses.
Epictetus, working in Nero’s palace just as Seneca was, noticed the same thing. He realized that the free men of Nero’s court were actually less free than he was. A slave, Epictetus might have been in chains, his name literally meaning “acquired one,” but he was certainly less of a slave to ambition or lust or fame than the people who owned him or ruled over him. And freedom? That would be far easier for
him to earn than breaking free of temptations would be for the wealthy and powerful—then and now.
In the book "The Girl Who Would Be Free," Epictetus’ father advises his young child to stop trying to control the whole world and instead conquer the empire between our ears. That is, to get a hold of our mind, our desires, our aversions, our fears, our passions, our emotions. His admonition echoes a line from another Stoic slave, uttered in real life (and not in fable):
“Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself.”
That’s what the journey of Stoicism is about. That’s what we’re trying to rule. Not other people. Not armies. Not territories. But ourselves first. If we can do that, we’ll not only wield great power than few possess, but we’ll actually make ourselves worthy of having power over others too.
NEXT
ACTION
Today's action step is to reflect on the question of personal freedom. How free are you? What "enslaves" you? Ambition? The need to be noticed? Appreciated? Your appetite for pleasurable food? Erotic fantasy? Fear? Anxiety?
Ask for God's help to grow in the ability to control the one thing God calls you to control … yourself (I Cor 6:12).
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Would you like to go "all in" and join the Renewed Man Boot Camp? It's a 12 Week Immersion in these principles. You'll get these daily teachings, a weekly video on one of the 12 Keys of Being a Renewed Man, and access to a support group and/or a
coaching group that I lead.
Find out more about the Renewed Man Program here.
