The Masculine Desire for War

“a time for war and a time for peace.”

Ecclesiastes 3:8b

“You are my war club, my weapon for battle— with you I shatter nations, with you I destroy kingdoms.”

Jeremiah 51:20

“Contend, LORD, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me.  Take up shield and armor; arise and come to my aid. Brandish spear and javelin against those who pursue me. Say to me, “I am your salvation.”  May those who seek my life be disgraced and put to shame, may those who plot my ruin be turned back in dismay. May they be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the LORD driving them away;  may their path be dark and slippery, with the angel of the LORD pursuing them. Since they hid their net for me without cause and without cause dug a pit for me, may ruin overtake them by surprise— may the net they hid entangle them, may they fall into the pit, to their ruin.  Then my soul will rejoice in the LORD and delight in his salvation.”

Psalm 35: 1-9

Weak men in the Church have a habit of denying reality.

They deny the innate need of man to wage war against something – against anything – to raise his sword and utterly destroy an enemy that stands before him, even if that enemy is himself. The desire to kill is in the nature of man. 

The Church wants to repress the warlike nature of man in the same way they have repressed the sex drive of men for hundreds of years. They fear both because it takes away their power and control over the younger generations and over the “uncontrollable” drives of man. This is incompetence at its finest. 

What happened when the Church repressed sex and refused to even mention its existence? Did it successfully suppress men’s sexual urges and increase overall sexual purity or did it cause men to push back even harder saying, “I am not listening to this blithering, the men in the Church are just as miserable as I am. I’m not waiting for sex”. 

KEY: Every time the Church wants to suppress some alleged “evil”, that same evil grows even faster. 

Not only does it grow, but it becomes dark and all consuming in the minds of those who suppress it until the Church loses the war against that evil. Waitingtillmarriage.org shared some data that suggested only 20% of the members of highly religious communities are successfully waiting for marriage. Does it look like sexual repression is working for the Church?

Repression does not work with sexual drives, and it will not work in subverting your warlike nature. If you are not a man who is going to engage in a real physical fight, the best you can hope for is to find a personal war into which you can channel your barbaric desire for bloodshed. 

Fight your evil nature. Wage war in your work and destroy mediocrity. You must have something to fight, so make your war result in the construction of positive qualities of character.  

Mantra

I Destroy whatever stands in opposition to me with strength.

Application

The internal anger you feel and the desire to go to war are incredibly powerful forces that you must channel into a constructive pursuit. If you do not channel them somewhere, they will destroy you from within. The easiest way to redirect your warlike nature is to channel it into something physical, such as training. Get your lazy, weak minded self into physical exercise. You cannot fully be a man if you do not possess some level of strength. There is no excuse for a man to be weak. It doesn’t even matter what kind of training you do, just do something. That physical training will then spill over into mental fortitude.

Wage war in the workplace. When you begin to tire and mentally accept mediocre work, call upon your aggression.

This emotion will override the desire to quit or to be lazy. When you are typing that essay for school and you want to stop, conjure your warlike nature and type as if the words you are writing are weapons. When you are exercising and approaching muscular failure, call upon your internal warlord. If you cannot channel aggression with something as simple and silly as typing an essay or training the body, you will not be able to channel it at all. Then that extreme energy will force an outlet in some unproductive endeavor like promiscuity or drugs. 

Practice controlling and directing your internal energies on small tasks, and you can then easily apply it to large tasks.

References:

Mike. “4 Cool Statistics About Abstinence in the USA.” Waitingtillmarriage.org, 30 Nov. 2012.