Episode 5: Your Boys Need Battle Buddies

Erin Davis: As parents of four boys, we take seriously our responsibility to be our boys’ first teachers. We recognize the importance of training our boys in godliness and in helping them with other subjects—science, reading (I can’t help them at all in math but fortunately their daddy can!). But we also want to raise well-rounded boys, and we hope that they will have mastery of other kinds of skills, things like: household chores and basic construction and problem solving. Thus, the Jason Davis School of Awesome was born! (laughter)

My husband Jason leads this charge in teaching our boys skills that he hopes they’ll use when they have their own homes. So far in the Jason Davis School of Awesome, they’ve built a chicken coop, they’ve learned how to forage for mushrooms, they’ve tied fishing flies, they’ve all learned to build an outdoor fire. It is, as the name implies, awesome!

Above all, the Jason Davis School of Awesome is about teaching our boys to rely on each other.

Joy McClain: You’re listening to The Deep Well with Erin Davis. I’m Joy McClain. We’re in a series called Lies Boys Believe. Throughout this season we’ve been learning biblical principles we can apply to our lives, no matter our stage of life. Today is no different.

As Erin describes the need boys have for community, we’ll all be reminded: we need each other!

Erin: Boys who rely on other boys become men who rely on other men, and this can be one of the qualities that sets godly men apart from those who identify manhood as going at it alone. Godly men recognize that who they are is rooted in the character of God and the authority of Scripture, not in what they can accomplish in their own strength.

To illustrate this concept I’m going to take us to an obscure little verse in the book of Jude. I just love it when I get to take us off-road to the places in our Bibles we may have missed before! I want you to listen to the book of Jude, verse 11, and as I say it, if you think I’ve lost my marbles and this has nothing to do with Lies Boys Believe, I’ve got you right where I want you!

Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion. (Jude 11)

You should have some questions, “Who is them?” Verse 6 tells us that Jude wrote about those who rebelled with Satan, the deceiver. In verse 8 he transitioned to those people who operate under a similar deception. 

So there’s a question embedded in this book: “What are the hallmarks of deceit?” Well he tells us right here in verse 11. He says that they “walked in the way of Cain, and they abandoned themselves to Balaam’s error and they perished in Korah’s rebellion.” 

When you know and love your whole Bible, it gets so exciting to connect the dots! So let’s connect them! Cain, of course, killed his brother in Genesis 4. Again, there’s that flesh and spirit. Cain’s flesh said, “Look out for number one and get rid of all of the relationships that expose your selfishness and need for God,” and Cain listened.

Balaam’s error was using the gifts of God for individual profit, not the good of others. He had a talking donkey who dealt with him on that. This goes back again to the fact that good boys, good men, do good for others and to others, and Balaam was interested in what he could gain for himself.

And then there’s Korah. Korah’s rebellion is recorded in Numbers 16, and Korah led that rebellion. He caused division among the people of God, not unity, not shared mission. You have to read Numbers 16:32 to find out how that worked for him.

But the point, I believe, of bringing it up here in Jude is that one of the evidences that we are building our lives on the lies of the evil one—or the truth of God’s Word—is whether we are dependent on other people or intent to live independently.

The Lone Ranger, Batman brooding in his lair, Superman saving the world single handedly . . . those can never actually be the poster children for godly masculinity. Consider Jesus’ interactions with His disciples while He was preparing them to go forward and take risks for the gospel.

One of the things Jesus did, if you read through the whole gospels and pay attention to the way He was training up His men, is He taught them to have a pack mentality. Now, God certainly could have built the entire kingdom on the preaching of Peter.

He could have built the entire kingdom on the zeal of Paul, but that’s not how He did it. He didn’t call any of those early disciples to a one man show. Jesus Himself chose to surround Himself with other men during His time on earth. That’s pretty amazing!

He lived with them. He walked with them. He worked with them. He ate with them. They were training to function like in The Jason Davis School of Awesome, but they were a pack. And if they were going to take on the evil one—which they would—and if they were to build the church that we are a part of—which they did—if they were to prepare the way for His return—which they have—they were going to do it together. Imperfect, impatient men, every single one of them, but they learned to depend on each other. And it says something about the value of living intentionally connected to other wise Christian men and helping our sons understand the value of that.

I’ll take us to Titus 2 where the Bible gives us this model for discipleship, and the model is this: older men teaching younger men, older women teaching younger women. Now, can we never talk about the things of God in a mixed group? Of course we can!

But the model for discipleship is good, and it still works! It is we are training our boys to look ahead to the men ahead of them that are walking this out, and function in a pack. We’ve talked some about sports in this series, and so what I say next might surprise you.

We’ve actually encouraged our sons to play sports. Now boys, if you’re listening, I’m sorry about what I say next. But, realistically, my boys are not going to be professional athletes. Anything could happen, and they may or may not even be collegiate athletes.

We spend a lot of time going to practices and going to games and practicing free throws in the driveway. If that’s not going to result in a future career, what is the point? For us the point is learning to be a part of the team, because learning to be a part of the team is essential for the Christian life!

There’s a little game we play in our family. In fact, as I was thinking about this. I was thinking we haven’t played that in awhile. I’ll say, “Who’s on the team!?” And one of the boys will say, “I’m on the team!” And one of the boys will say, “I’m on the team!” And one of the boys will say, “I’m on the team!” And one of the boys will say, “I'm on the team!” And Jason will say, “I’m on the team!”

 

And the point is, we’re not just a family, we’re a team! We are an elite fighting unit pushing back against the darkness. And occasionally, you need to be reminded who’s on the team. I want you to take what you’ve learned about Satan, about the way that he works, about the power of lies, and the fact that he has his sights set on your son’s life. 

I want you to look at that truth through the lens of Ecclesiastes 4:9–12: 

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! 

Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. 

This is wisdom language, it comes from the book of Ecclesiastes. Though this should be common sense, I’m not sure it always is. And the principle here is, you should not go at it alone. Because when you fall—and you will—who’s going to help you up?” If you come up against an enemy and it’s man-to-man, you might win.

But with Satan, it is never man-to-man. He doesn’t play fair. And Scripture is teaching us, as it’s teaching us we’re in a battle, as it’s teaching us we’re to live for Jesus, it’s teaching us that we fight that battle together.

One of the best ways you can help your son fight lies is by encouraging and fostering his friendship with other boys. It’s going to take intentionality. It’s going to take a whole lot of pizza rolls! (laughter) It’s true! Buy them in bulk! 

But I’m not just feeding boys! I’ve been feeding boys for years now, and they’re getting big and they are eating a lot! But I’m fostering that my house is the house where boys come. My house is the place where, “Sure, bring your friends!” Because I can see the stakes rising every year.

And it’s not just my boys I want to lead to Jesus. They are my first and most important mission field, but it’s the boys that are attached to my boys, because I love them and I want them to come to Christ. Also it’s good for my boys to be surrounded by other boys who stand for truth.

So your boys don’t just need other boys; they need boys who follow Jesus! Let me read us 2 Corinthians 6:14, another wisdom principle. I’m going to read it this time out of the New Living Translation.

Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. [You’ve probably heard that as being unequally yoked.] How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? 

Consistency throughout the whole Word of God, we’ve already talked about. We live as families of the light. And here we’re being reminded that if you live in the light you can’t be partners with darkness!

 

I remember this from when I was growing up. I didn’t always make wise choices in this area. I remember my mom questioning me on my friend choices. I remember you could probably see the eye roll from three states away! But I get it now. She was right. I needed Christian friends.

Moms, I think this might be one other area where we have to take our unique wiring as women and avoid letting that become our expectation for our sons. Because Christian friendships—boy to boy, man to man—will probably look very different from your own Christian friendships.

I ask my husband all the time, “How come there are not men’s Bible studies?” He’s like, “Well, we don’t sit in a circle with our Bible open and talk.” 

I’m like, “You should! It’s great!” 

But they do go trout fishing together, they do play golf together, they do have meaningful conversations over bacon!

It looks different than my Christian female friendships, and it doesn’t mean they’re doing it wrong. That’s true for our boys, that’s true for our husbands, that’s true for our pastors. I think it looks a lot more like a battle buddy—someone your son can fight side-by-side with to push back the darkness.

But don’t ever take my word on anything, always expect me to back it up with God’s Word. And one example is the friendship of David and Jonathan recorded in 1 Samuel. I’ll read 1 Samuel 18:1–5.

As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt.

And David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him, so that Saul set him over the men of war. And this was good in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants.”

Imagine a Christian friend of yours handing you her sword, her bow, her arrow. We don’t know what to do with that. But this is warrior language here. This is one warrior uniting his life to another warrior. That “knit together souls” part is important, it speaks to intentionality. 

But the rest of this passage speaks to warfare—the passing of the armor, passing swords and belts, these were gifts from one soldier to another.

I don’t believe Jonathan was saying to David the sentiments that we might say to each other, ladies, like: “I love you! I’ll always be there for you!” Although he was saying that, he was saying, “I’ve got your back! We’re going to fight this battle together!” And they did. 

The rest of this story in the following chapters finds these friends fighting together against wickedness, back-to-back, side-by-side, swords drawn together. And that’s what your son needs. He needs battle buddies. He needs you to give him permission for those friendships not to look like your friendships look. He’s unique, made in the image of God. He will demonstrate that differently than you at every crossroad.

Your boy—however old he is—he needs battle buddies. What he needs and what we need is for them to wield the Sword of Truth together.

Joy: We all need each other in the body of Christ. That’s true for us as women. It’s true for our sons and our grandsons. Is there someone you need to reach out to after hearing this episode? I hope you’ll take the time right now to stop and do just that.

Erin, how do you address this topic of community in the new book Lies Boys Believe? 

Erin: Well as I’ve shared, it’s a fiction book, and so there’s this story. There’s a family in the story that looks a lot like my family. There’s the dad and two sons that take this journey, and all of the things that happen in our own families happen in this family.

The boys struggle to get along. They don’t always want to obey their dad. There’s a flat tire on the side of the road and Dad loses his temper, and he has to come back to his boys and apologize. So we model that in the story.

But they also meet lots of other godly men along the way. There’s Pastor Ralph (you’ll have to read it to find out about him) but he’s a cool character. There is the man that leads the trail ride that they go on—they go on a cattle drive. And there are just other people they meet along the way that are constantly reinforcing this idea that God’s Word is true and following Jesus is a grand adventure. 

I hope that models our actual lives. We bump into people all along the way that God sends into our lives to remind us of His truth.

But then at the end the boys kind of catch a vision for what it means to be truth tellers in their own lives. And you can just see, as the book comes to a close, that they are going to be boys who surround themselves with other godly boys who are part of a church and of course part of their family.

So, it’s not a perfect family in the book, because there are no perfect families. It's not a perfect church community; there are no perfect pastors. Everybody has flaws in the book because that’s reality, but it models in the story that, “We need each other!”

Jason and I can’t wait to share this new book! In fact, this month you can get a copy as a thank you for donating any amount to Revive Our Hearts. Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com, click on Lies Boys Believe, then follow the prompts so you can give a donation and request your copy. Again, that’s ReviveOurHearts.com.

Erin Unscripted

Joy: It’s time for Erin Unscripted. Erin, I want to tell you, “battle buddy” really resonated with me! My oldest son happened to have a pack of battle buddies! 

Erin: Boys like to travel in packs. 

Joy: As a matter of fact, he had an “army”—a basketball team, a football team, whatever you call it. It started with Nerf wars in my backyard.

So every spring we’d have all these boys over, and they would get out the Nerf guns. They’d shoot each other silly and run around without their shirts.

Erin: I can picture it!

Joy: It’s so simple for a mom: all I had to do was feed them, and that never changed until the day they graduated from high school. So, it started about sixth grade and by the time they were sophomores, juniors in high school, they practically camped at my house! 

As a matter of fact, one Christmas Eve I had to say, “Boys, it is time for you to go home to your other families.” 

Erin: Go home to your mamas! 

Joy: But it’s so true. We were the house (I was the house) that the boys liked to come to. 

I think a lot of it had to do with the property behind the house. It was a great place to play. And maybe it was the food I made—maybe not like you said, the pizza rolls. But I want to tell you, that pack meant everything, and it was because those boys were grounded in God’s Word.

So that started about their freshman year, maybe eighth grade. There were several believers in that group of boys, and there was a gentleman who took them under his wing and invested in them. They started meeting at his house. It stayed about ten or twelve core boys, and they got into the Word together every single week!

A lot of these boys had played from Little League all the way up to high school ball, and so they had a lot of common ground. Not all of them. Some of them were quiet, some of them were the ones that “colored in the lines” with bright colored crayons. Some were the more, the “out of the line” kind of wild.

But they had one another, and it was a beautiful thing. And here’s what I saw. At the time I was operating really as a single mom. You know, my husband was an alcoholic. He was in and out of the house a lot. It was a traumatizing time, honestly, for us.

That pack of boys—or the buddy pack, the battle buddy for my son—became my battle buddies. I have in my possession notes, letters that some of those boys wrote to me. It is moving to read them, to see how they were watching me.

I did so many things wrong, but their encouragement to me—and that was many years ago. To this day those battle buddies get together every summer and take their own epic journey. It could be to Colorado, sometimes Michigan, but they’re still together. They’re still cheerleading one another; they’re still encouraging.

They’re husbands; they’re fathers, some of them are pastors. The point is they’re not doing it alone. They win it together, up and down, through the valleys of this world. So, the battle buddy. Your son needs those.

Erin: Absolutely! I love that picture. And it can feel like, “Oh, what good can a Nerf war in the backyard do?” But I think that is something that Jason and I have gotten right. We’ve intentionally surrounded our kids with Christian community because we know the moment’s coming when they’re going to need a community to fall into. We all do, Christian or non-Christian.

But if your battle buddies are not ones that are going to point you to Jesus in that moment of crisis, they’re going to do a lot more harm than good! We’re going to all look to somebody to affirm us and help us walk through the hard, but you’ve gotta have those relationships in place.

And I love that trajectory, that story you just painted for us, of being available. And then watching you go through the hard and the consistency you showed, and the impact that’s had on their lives for a really long time!

Joy: Exactly. And you know what it cost me? Groceries. That’s something small. Not every boy came from a solid believing home. There was one boy in particular whose dad was incarcerated. He had no siblings. He was a single child, and his mom had to work a lot. I only saw her maybe twice throughout this entire season of our life.

But he became a solid rock believer and just such an integral part of that buddy system! I just want to encourage moms, I don’t care if you don’t have a backyard, I don’t care if you have a little bitty living room, make it a fun place. If groceries are an issue, make some cookies. Boys don’t even care. Salty crackers!

Erin: It could be popcorn! Popcorn is pennies on the dollar!

Joy: Exactly! A jar of peanut butter and some saltine crackers. As long as something is going down the hatch, they’re happy! The thing is, just make it a place where they want to come, where they feel welcome, where they’re not going to get yelled at—“Take your shoes off; you’re making a mess! Don’t spill that on the couch!” (which happened a lot at my house). But it was worth it, so worth it!

Erin: Looking back, is there anything you would do differently in the ways you encouraged your sons to have battle buddies? 

Joy: No! 

Erin: That’s okay. I don’t want us to always act like we’re getting it wrong.

Joy: I know. I opened my house day and night, and you never knew who you were going to step over when you’re walking out in the middle of the night. It could be somebody sleeping on the floor.

But seriously, I never will forget Christmas Eve: “Go home, young man, go home!”

Erin: Yeah, that’s part of the vision that I hope this series casts. I think we can become . . . the image that’s coming to mind is circling the wagons. We can become that way about our families, like, “This is my family unit.” Certainly, we want to take care of our family unit, but the language of Scripture for the children of God is that we’re a big family, and that our families extend into each other’s families and a little bit of that. I want us to think beyond our own family group and take responsibility that the boys belong to us (and the girls do, too, but this series has been about the boys).

Like, we all have a responsibility. I’m not everybody’s mother in the same way I am to Eli, Noble, Judah, and Ezra. But I do hope that God will use my home, my life, my van, my backyard, my family in ways that extend out beyond just the four kids that God’s given me.

Joy: Yes, I think that’s the key: use what you have. At that time what I had was brokenness, and I needed those boys in my living room, in my yard, in my bathroom, all over my kitchen helping themselves. I needed that, because I needed the laughter. I needed the lightheartedness, and boys can be a lot of fun! 

But I had brokenness. But I want to tell you, years later when my husband and I were reconciled, we had a wedding ceremony, right?

Erin: I didn’t know that. 

Joy: Yes, we had a beautiful wedding ceremony. We didn’t really truly divorce, but we wanted to reconcile, and we wanted to be a testimony that people could see, that people could come to as a testimony for the faithfulness of God.

And you know, when you get married how you choose your ushers and your little things like that? Well, guess who mine were? It was really just me, my husband and our children at the time who stood up with us as a proclamation that, “God is good, holy, just and He is faithful!”

But the other roles, like lighting the little candles and putting people in their seats, it was those boys. It was the battle buddies who essentially became my battle buddies. They not only shared in their friends’ sorrows, they shared in mine! And to this day, I have a deep relationship with these boys.

I always said, “The time I come to die, guess who my pallbearers are going to be?” It’s going to be those boys, who were little with little shirts off running around in my backyard with Nerf guns, who are now grown men.

Erin: That’s really beautiful! Even as you were telling that, I loved that thought of, “What I had to offer was brokenness.” Something that rises up in me, if I’m just being honest, is some of my boys’ friends’ houses have a refrigerator stocked with Gatorades—which by the way costs a lot of money!—or have an inground pool or have just name it, a really cool basketball court. 

We just kind of have a janky basketball goal in the driveway, you know. We all have those kinds of reservations. But I don’t think my kids care about that. I don’t think their friends care about that (they might care about it on some level if we’re honest), but we’re all ultimately looking for a place where we experience love and feel accepted.

Your preteen and your teenage boy especially, part of the way God designed our development is there’s a season where they’re really looking for a place of acceptance, and it should be our Christian homes. 

There are going to be other places that will offer that to them that are not going to take them toward a path of freedom, and so I just want to affirm what you said. Isn’t that the Christian life? We show up as we are. We bring what we have, knowing that it’s not sufficient, and we ask the Lord to do more with it than we could have ever done on our own . . . and He will!

Joy: Absolutely, Erin, He absolutely will!

The Deep Well with my mom, Erin Davis, is part of the Revive Our Hearts podcast family. 

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