Some families decide that toy guns (or toy weapons of any kind) won't come into their house. I respect that and have never wanted to offend any of our friends who have made that decision. My stance has been that little boys are hard-wired to be warriors. God did that. What do little boys do when they have no gun or sword to play with? You know what they do. They find a stick or a toilet paper tube or their fingers. Hard-wired. With that, comes our responsibility to teach them that "shooting" their mother in the head is dishonoring their mother. And there's the whole gun safety/respect for guns training that can never be over-emphasized, but I really want to address a different issue here.
Grandpa Nelson was a Veteran.
Little boys are really little men. And men are powerful creatures, as God designed them to be. Boys long for the power, the adventure, the heroism that should come with manhood. But for all of that to happen, boys have to learn how to attain those things honorably. Aren't we all sickened by what angry men do with guns? Don't we cringe when we see men abuse their power by taking advantage of those who are physically or emotionally weaker than they? Even a child recognizes these things. So, our knee-jerk reaction is to say that power, and strength, and risk-taking are bad or dangerous things. What follows is a world, a nation, a society, a church, a family full of men who are... pansies. They are weak and passive and think that it's wrong to fully be a man. Ouch. I know I may step on toes when I say that, but look at the converse of that man. Have you ever recognized a man who used his power to help someone who was in real need? Or who heroically laid down his life to save someone else or defend his country? What part of that power, or strength, or risk-taking would you be willing to strip away from one of those men? Not one iota! Our hearts swell with admiration for men like that! Do we not want our family, our church, our society, our country and our world to be FILLED with those kinds of men? Of course we do!
We live in a fallen world, but God gives us reason to hope that men can indeed become everything God wants them to be. He gave us Scripture, full of stories of great men of God, proverbs about raising sons, letters about how a young man ought to live, and examples of the life of His perfect Son, Jesus Christ. Our Maker doesn't want harsh, ruthless, arrogant men; nor does He want effeminate, shut-down, disconnected men. So when we raise our boys, or when we attempt to encourage the boys around us, we want to esteem all of the virtuous character traits we see in them. We want to teach them what it means to be noble and honorable and forthright. We want to give them examples of heroic men of virtue. We can actually help them desire these traits by telling stories of their great-grandfathers, uncles, church elders or great missionary men who were heroes in their families, or churches or countries. We should teach them to first notice and then defend the "underdogs" they come across. We can find admirable qualities in their fathers (especially if they are our husbands) and point them out in front of our boys.
Our little men need to be loved strongly and also with gentleness and compassion. We encourage, we train, we disciple, we mentor our boys. Then when it's time to unleash them as young men, no one will fear what they hold in their hands, and this world will feel safe being held by them.
