Into His Image - Part 4 - Walk the Walk

One of the most telling and powerful sentences I ever read in any Door of Hope Graduate's testimony...

"I can now be what God intended - a man!"

Remember from the introduction to this series - the three men who voluntarily went into the fiery furnace instead of bowing to Nebucadnezzer? Those were God's Men! And you too are on your way! Today, let's work on getting rid of some more smoke (i.e. remnants of your time in the fire of homosexuality).

More about transformation...........

Hopefully you are practicing writing, speaking, sounding and looking more manly. Now it's time to learn to walk the walk.

As with other things in these articles, I understand that what I say, today, does not apply to everyone who ever struggled with homosexual sin. But if it applies to you, then you will want to change your body language so that your Christian witness will reflect Christ to all, and so that you too will feel more manly in your walk. And when the above Scripture talks about a Christian's "walk" being "upright" it simply means that our habits of life are godly, not carnal; we are not fallen down into the ditch of sexual impurity anymore, we are "walking uprightly." So this passage is not referring to how we actually walk, as in step by step, but rather our whole lives lived in holiness, moving progressively more toward Christ.

However, we do want to consider today that we are to walk like a man, that is, to do away with all effeminate gestures and movements-including how we walk. The thing about this is that we have simply learned or self-taught ourselves to walk, move and otherwise tell others about ourselves by the way our body behaves. How our moves got that way is not as important as changing them to some more manly.

A heterosexual walk? Now that's hard one to grasp. But I urge you to observe such men and practice copying their walk. You'll likely find that they have some shoulder swagger, they take longer strides and their feet are apart, meaning that they never put one foot exactly in front of the other as many women do. In practice, one way to match this is to do some military style marching. Keep your fingers cupped and facing your body, the thumb touching your index finger, and let your arms swing naturally as you stride, taking about 30 to 33 inch steps - 33 is better, unless you are not tall.

Variations: Suck in your gut and tuck in your butt. High heels help women walk swaybacked with their butt sticking out. That is designed to attract men. Men do not walk that way. So make appropriate adjustments.

Arms and hands: Keep them down at your sides, close in. If you are in a hurry or running, make a fist with each hand, bend your elbows 90-degrees and keep them that way, firmly,, elbows near your sides, allowing your arms to swing with your gait. The arms and hands of God's men do not flail or flop loosely. No, this not in the bible. It's me, Neill, explaining to you what I know about how heterosexual men move, because I am convinced that you want to stop smelling like smoke, that is, to find freedom in genuine and thorough repentance.

Hiking is another good way to practice a more manly walk. That's because on hikes we have to watch the ground and place our foot in the next best spot. So we don't get to walk the way we've learned and done for so long. When hiking, make sure to take long steps, terrain permitting.

Sitting: Sit with your legs apart. If that does not come naturally, then make yourself do it. Women keep their knees together because they have been taught feminine modesty. Men are more relaxed, and don't care. When crossing your legs, do it the wide way; e.g., with your left ankle on your right knee, and your left knee at a wide angle, leaving air space in the middle, between your calf and your body. You know the look. Women have to protect their modesty, so they cross their legs tightly. Heterosexual men do sometimes cross their legs in a way similar to that of women. But I encourage you to avoid that altogether. If you want to cross your legs, do it the way I described first.

Hand signals: Talking with our hands is done by both sexes. But there is a feminine way to do it and a manly way. I cannot describe to you the difference. But it is visible. So I encourage you to practice NOT talking with your hands. One way to do that would be to hook your thumbs in your side pockets, and curl your fingers against the cloth and thumb so that you are sort of holding your hands in place. That will help you to avoid talking with your hands until it becomes a habit.

Touching. Men don't touch each other. They shake hands on greeting. Learn how to do a firm handshake, and avoid touching a man in any other way. Squeeze the hand firmly when you shake hands. That's manly. You can do that. Practice. Don't touch!

If you think that any of these things are silly, weird or over-kill, I want you to listen to Mike Cleveland's own words when he encouraged me to write these articles:

Gone are their ways of looking at other men, dead is their "same sex attraction", buried is their old forms of communication. And now, as Jesus rose and we rose in Him, we learn to walk entirely different.

Student, I encourage you to practice walking, talking, smelling, sounding, looking like God's man!

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