Throughout this series about 2025 as The Year for Better Male Friendships, I’ve highlighted experts’ concerns about the growing epidemic of loneliness. Some point to The Decline of Friendship as a key factor, while others argue that social media has made staying connected easier—even as smartphones contribute to Male Disengagement from the Real World, leaving men with fewer close friends. However, I believe the real issue isn’t the number of friendships we have today but rather their quality. This post explores the biggest challenges men face and how cultivating deeper, more meaningful friendships can help us overcome them—ultimately making us better men.
The Root of All Our Problems: Pride
If you ask any man what he considers to be his biggest challenges, you’re likely to hear a multitude of issues such as financial struggles, job stress, marriage and raising children, time management, anger, and lack of confidence, among others. The list could go on and on but I believe all these challenges fall into three basic categories:
- Managing Work-Life Balance
- Reordering Priorities
- Resisting Temptations
These struggles are not new. They have existed since the beginning of time—since Adam and Eve first disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden. And at the core of all these struggles is one central issue: pride.
Dangerous Opportunities
In his book, Living in the Light: Money, Sex, and Power, Pastor John Piper writes about how pride is the root of everything. The book’s subtitle: Making the most of three dangerous opportunities suggests that money (a cultural symbol to exchange in the pursuit of what you value), sex (one of the pleasures that people value and their pursuit of it), and power (the capacity to pursue what you value) are not evil in themselves since each was God’s gift to us. However, Piper says all three are dangerous and evil when they are misused. And some males (i wouldn’t call them “men”) too often misuse their money, sex, and power. These are all rooted in pride.
Too often, some males (I wouldn’t call them men) abuse money, sex, and power, all driven by pride. Likewise, the struggles of work-life balance, misplaced priorities, and unchecked temptations become overwhelming when pride takes hold—causing us to misuse God’s gifts.
Our Toughest Challenge is Maintaining Sexual Purity
While I’ve grouped the challenges men face into three areas (work-life balance, proper priorities, and resisting temptations), I believe there is one more that deserves special attention: maintaining sexual purity.
Several years ago, I read a book called Every Man’s Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker. The book is widely praised for its man-to-man tone and practical advice about what many men grappled with— lust, unchecked sexual desires, wandering eyes, and self-gratification. Published in 2000, when Internet-based pornography was just beginning to run rampant, but was not widely acknowledged, the book sold briskly and exceeded one million copies by 2013. Its success led to several related titles including Preparing Your Son for Every Man’s Battle, Every Man’s Marriage, and similar books for women: Every Woman’s Battle and Every Young Woman’s Battle.
A few years after reading Every Man’s Battle, I led a weekend retreat for our church’s men’s group focused on sexual purity. We examined God’s design for sexuality, discussed why sexual impurity is so pervasive today and explored how Satan uses deception as a weapon against us. The retreat provided a biblical foundation for sexual integrity and practical strategies for overcoming temptation. It was a powerful weekend that helped men replace impure desires with a clearer understanding of what it means to be a godly man in this area.
It was also a weekend that helped me realize that men need friendships with higher-quality men who gold us to higher standards for manhood.
Overcoming Pride through Quality Friendships
So, how can we as men begin to overcome these challenges—especially the challenge of pride? By building deeper, higher-quality friendships.
Men, we are not meant to do life alone. We need brothers in the battle. We need strong friendships to help us fight against the struggles of managing work-life balance, reordering priorities, resisting temptation, and maintaining sexual integrity.
In my next post, I’ll explore the type of friendships that I believe every man needs. Stay tuned.
[Feature Photo by Roman Kirienko on Unsplash]
