Focus on How Guys Are Different

Over the weekend we visited with some friends named Jenny and Brock. We've been pretty tight with them for many years. About two years ago, they moved to Michigan for a job. Obviously, we don't see them much anymore so it was cool that they were in town. We met at another friend's house. However, despite not seeing each other much, what did Brock do the whole time we were together? Watch the Ohio State/Michigan game. A little background: Brock loves sports and used to watch a ton more of it, but chose several years ago to not watch as much so that he could focus on his wife and family. Despite this, my wife Beth admitted that she was at first annoyed that Brock couldn't enjoy talking and catching up and just occasionally check the game. But, she said, since she had been reading this book about men called Keys to the Kingdom, her perspective quickly changed. In Keys to the Kingdom, Armstrong points out that women often assume men are immature, selfish, and inconsiderate. Some of this is simply because men are different. In large part, they focus. Armstrong writes that, "It is what men do naturally--they focus. And they focus on one thing at a time. It's the way they were designed to think....It is a remarkable quality. It is one of the things that make them able to remember details, like all of the statistics of a ballgame or an entire season. They are utterly focused on that one thing when they are participating." A few weeks ago I was at a wedding of a really sweet couple. However, about a year earlier they broke up while dating. The guy was a very successful high school wrestler and it was really hard for him to focus on his sport and also a girlfriend. So, he broke it off. You can imagine how distraught the girl was. Yet, it wasn't because he didn't love her; it was because he did! He knew she deserved his focus and he felt he couldn't give it. What had to happen in their case was that they needed to communicate about how to respect his need to focus on his sport, but at the same time learn how to give to their relationship. They eventually figured it out, and now they're husband and wife. But it would be easy to see the guy as being immature or selfish. Instead, it demonstrates that men focus and that should be respected. On the other hand, as the story also illustrates, guys sometimes have to learn how to share or shift focus when they need to. With all the differences between guys and girls, I wonder how much the Lord chuckled when He was making them.