Book Review: The Hidden Value of a Man (1992) by Gary Smalley and John Trent

The Hidden Value of a Man: The Incredible Impact of a Man on His Family (1992)
by Gary Smalley and John Trent

As a man, the authors writes, whether you realize it or not, own two “swords,” two form of power – a silver-handed sword called man’s positional power, and a gold-handed sword called man’s personal power. Positional power is “the clout, control, prestige and authority that come to a man because of where he works or what he does. It’s his job title, his resume… it’s the number of academic degrees he has earned… it centres on an image… and doing whatever it takes, to whomever, to increase and maintain the image of excellent.” Personal power on the other hand is “the ability to develop meaningful, fulfilling relationships; a willingness to do whatever it takes to strengthen our families and find the help we need to overcome any strains in our marriages.” Both are important, but men today lack personal power, the gold-handed sword, said the authors. “When you speak of a man’s personal power, you immediately think of words reflecting character like warmth, sensitivity, dependability, determination, genuine compassion and caring.”

Deep down, men may realize something of the power they have to touch the lives of their families, wives and children. But because we don’t understand how does it work and when to use it, we stumble along the way. We sometime have no real concept of the damage caused by our actions, our words, our absence, even our silence (just like my dad). As with smoking or alcohol abuse, we don’t see the damage immediately. So it’s easy to think that because everything looks fine on the outside, problems aren’t building up on the inside. Both authors are counsellors tell real-life-stories about how a child’s heart is within a man’s reach, the strength of a fulfilling marriage is within a man’s reach, and the destruction of our society lies within a man’s reach. “When will we realize we’re so powerful that we can’t ‘do our own thing’ without affecting everything and everyone around us?” For good and bad, for better and worst.

I’m not married yet, but I read this because I want to change my way of using my silver and gold swords, to equip myself in Biblical manhood, to improve my family relationships, and as preparation for marriage life. Successful in the world of work is important, but men also need to be successful at home. This is even more important. This remind me of 1 Timothy 3:5, “For if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?” Great question!

This book is divided into 14 chapters, namely:

#1 The Hidden Value of a Man

#2 The Two Swords of Value in Every Man

#3 When We Fail to Pick Up the Gold Sword

#4 Creating Your Own Gold Sword

#5 Seven Reflections of the Gold Sword, Part 1

#6 Seven Reflections of the Gold Sword, Part 2

#7 Being Male May Be Hazardous to Your Family’s Health

#8 The Little “e” Can Spell Big Trouble

#9 Women Who Hide Our Swords

#10 Healing the Hole in Our Hearts

#11 When Actions Don’t Measure Up to Words

#12 The Hidden Power of Friends

#13 What to Do When Nothing Else Words

#14 Master of the Gold Sword

I love how this book end with Jesus Christ, the Master of the Gold Sword. Wow! I bought this book at second-hand book fair at The Hill, Kuching for only RM3.90.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Date Differently: (3G) Guys, Girls, Do it God's Way

I confess that I plagiarized and modified this article from Winkie Pratney’s Doorways to Discipleship (Communication Foundation Publishers, 1975), page 141-143. I also modernized the language and edited some ‘old’ words to familiar ones for easy reading and understanding. Yes, I will be responsible for any copyright laws suit – and for making this valuable message available online.  

[I think the title of this article is brilliant. Thank you]. God made us different. We can have friendships of many kinds that are shallow of the friendship of God. Some of the loveliest friendships of all are those that can develop in early years of getting to know the complimentary sex. It is wise to know the differences God has put in men’s and women’s personalities so we can understand how to date God’s way and understand how the “other” thinks. Based on this book that I read and my own personal experiences (mostly my failures to understand), I divided our differences into two categories: physical and mental.

Physical

Apart from fairly obvious sexual differences, God has made most men physically stronger than women. Now, I know there are exceptions, I know all about the woman who weights four hundred pounds, has a black belt in karate and can climb up mount Kinabalu with heavy luggage on her back. But usually, God made a man stronger physically so that he can protect his girl and take care of her. Now, girls turn physically into woman sooner than boys turn into men. When most guys are playing video games, running in gangs, and flying kites, girls their age are desperately falling in love with their math teachers! This mean a girl can have a woman’s body but a little girl’s mind. It can lead you girls into dating older guys.

It can also lead to trouble unless you know what’s happening and get ready for it. That’s why some fathers freak-out when they discover their little girl is going out somewhere with an older guy (Nicholas Spark, my favourite novel writer, know this). Dad have been around. They may not understand the reasons. But most probably they care about you, or even sometimes because they remember something of their own past with some guilt and regret. I do too.

Mental

There are usually mental differences between men and women. Now wait! Don’t judge me quickly. This has nothing to do with intelligence. A lot of woman are smarter than guys I know. If you realised, the Book of Proverbs is filled with warnings to men about the wiles of the strange women, but never feels it necessary to warn women about strange men. Girls can be every bit as brilliant as any man around, as far as thinking is concerned. The difference has to do with the ways God designed us to use our intelligence. There is a basic difference between the way a girl thinks and the way a man thinks.

A man operates like a computer. He is matter-of-fact. He is line-on-line, precept-by-precept person. He think logically in straight lines, adding fact to fact to get a conclusion. His thoughts go like this: “1… 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… and therefore, ‘bing!’ …7!”

A girl on the other hand thinks less like a computer than she does by a feminine form of ‘extrasensory perception’ (or can I call it ‘sixth sense’?). Her thoughts come in bundles from all over the place, as God has made her to be intuitive and inspirational. She has her ‘vibe’ collectors out everywhere, and she prefers to run by ‘their’ messages than by ‘normal’ channels of logic. Her thoughts may go like this on the above problems: “1… ah… 4… 3… ah… Bing!.. Therefore, 7!” This, of course, totally blows her boyfriend’s mind as my girlfriend did to me! He can’t even understand how she got from one place to another, how she came up with the right idea from all the wrong reasoning and all the wrong sources, or how in the world she can get the right answer from all the wrong logic. Give up, brothers! You’ll never do it. God probably didn’t intend for us to understand. He just made us so we can enjoy it, and be amazed and amused at the mystery of a girl.

Now This is Important

God made us different. We are equal to God, but we are different. These two basically different ways of looking at things make each sex superior to the other in the role God has given them. The girl is superior to the guy in her way of thinking when problems of life require an inspirational, intuitive, unstructured approach. She is good at seeing the whole picture, even if she isn’t sure how to put it together. The guy is superior to the girl when a problem needs logic, fact, analysis, and detail to solve it. He is good at putting a lot of little bits together in the right place. The girl tends to see the whole forest at once; the guy tends to go in and explore each tree. If each stays in the roles God gave them, He can bring maximum blessing to their friendship or later – partnership.

Right through the Bible, beginning at creation, God has set up two roles for both sexes: the girl must INSPIRE; the man must LEAD. Each one needs the other, and both need the Lord Jesus. This is God’s pattern. When we do what we were designed to do, we will find maximum happiness in our friendships with each other, in our courtship, and in marriage (as the original author thought it should be).

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.