Why do you suppose that when a boy learns to ride his bike with no hands or do his first back flip on a trampoline or hit his first home run, he wants his dad there to see it? And all the crazy things young men do—cliff jumping into rivers, racing motorcycles, all the sports competition—what is fueling all that?

Our search for validation. A man’s search for validation is the deepest search in his life. Even if he can’t quite put it into words, every man is haunted by the question, "Do I have what it takes?”

Every man feels that the world is asking him to be something he doubts very much he has it in him to be. That’s why a man’s greatest fear is exposure—to be found out as a poser, an imposter, and not really a man.

Our search for validation begins with our fathers; a boy is meant to learn the answer to his core question from his dad and from the key men in his life. And here is where tragedy strikes. “Do I have what it takes?” Too often, the response back is silence, scorn, or ridicule: “I don’t know...I doubt it...you’ll have to find out for yourself...probably not.” In the case of violent fathers, the question is answered in a devastating way: “No. You are a failure, a @#%& idiot.” It gets worse from there.

And so the recovery of a man’s heart begins with coming to see the way in which his deepest question got answered and how that has shaped his life. More importantly, it comes with the healing of the wounds that brought those answers and finding a new source of love and validation in his true Father.