My wife had just given birth to our third daughter, Anna Marie, who was isolated in a hospital room, surviving on a ventilator, fighting for her new life.
Friends from our parish community, wanting to help us, decided to clean our home. We were a young family, with three children under the age of three. I had recently lost my job, and with Anna Marie’s recent hospitalization our life was out of control.
After the dust settled, our friends who cleaned our house confessed that there were rooms that they wouldn’t dare to attempt to clean because they were in such disarray. One room was so packed with junk that a person could barely open the door to enter.
It was embarrassing to say the least. Our life was chaos and that chaos was reflected in the way we kept our home. The truth was that our home wasn’t the only thing that was a mess. Our marriage was hanging by a thread. I was failing at keeping a job. My health was digressing from an undetected cancer.
I was desperate to establish order in my life.
Establishing order in one’s life is the most overlooked, but essential, God-given duty of every man, and is the very foundation of a virtuous, sanctified, accomplished life.
After God established order in the six-day creation account, He commanded Adam to follow His example by exercising dominion over creation, to fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over all living creatures (see Gen. 1:28).
Our Lord counsels us that those who are faithful in small responsibilities will be granted greater ones. In other words, to live a life of greatness, it is imperative to begin small by establishing order in our daily life.
After realizing that I desperately wanted a better life, I spent the next decade fumbling through countless attempts to establish order in my life. Now after a quarter of a century of trial and error, I have discovered a rule of life that has empowered me to accomplish more, have better relationships, and most importantly glorify God and live in union with Him.
Spiritually speaking, a man’s life consists of seven areas in which he can and should establish order, and by doing so, he can experience transformation, sanctification, and fulfillment:
1. Sonship
Trustworthy fathers must first become sons who trust God the Father. Unfortunately, many men practice religion but have little to no relationship with God their Father. The greatest battle for every man is to embrace and live his identity as a son who trusts God the Father—even and especially amidst crises. He wins this battle by establishing practices that draw him more deeply into relationship with Jesus’ Father.
2. Vocation
How do we discern God’s call for our life? Vocation comes from the Latin word vox, which can be interpreted as voice. We hear and discern God’s counsel and direction when we embrace our true calling. It is imperative that we establish ways to discern when the evil one is leading us from this path, as well as how to remain resolute in this noble calling.
3. Authority
Men typically fail in their role of leadership by either abdicating their responsibility to lead or by dominating those who they are to care for. A great man leads by loving and loves by leading. He establishes daily practices that help him set the pace of self-giving love, while opposing and overcoming threats to his spiritual leadership.
4. Marriage
A man’s most important human relationship is his marriage. As marriage goes, so goes the family. When a husband intentionally chooses his wife over himself, his work, his hobbies, his addictions, he communicates to her that she is the most important person in his world. To accomplish this he establishes daily, weekly, and monthly practices that demonstrate his love to her.
5. Devotional Life
A man’s interior life gives his exterior life form. Personal transformation is the foundation of relational transformation. Therefore, a man establishes his devotional habits and builds his day around God, rather than God around his day. Our Lord promises, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all will be granted to you” (Mt. 6:33).
6. Fatherhood
St. John Paul II said that the human father’s mission is to reflect and reveal God’s fatherhood. This is perhaps the most challenging “job” there is. The human father is to be the face of God the Father that his child can see; the voice of God the Father that his child can hear; the touch of God the Father that his child can feel. He establishes daily, weekly, and monthly practices that enable him to become a father on earth like the Father in heaven.
7. Work
One of man’s greatest purposes is to glorify God, and work is a God-given context to pursue honor and excellence. However, work can become a mistress that robs our family of our attention. A man’s occupation is at the service of his vocation. He is not identified by what he does for a living but who he is living for. By establishing a proper order for work, he not only provides for his family, but also honors God.
When we segment our lives into these seven areas, filling them with spiritual practices, and striving daily to fulfill them, we establish personal order, and consequently God establishes our rule and fills us with His peace and joy.
Does this mean that the chaos will cease to exist?
No.
The man of order does not think he can vanquish chaos. However, the well-ordered man knows that when his house is in order, chaos cannot cause it to crumble.
Editor’s Note: For more on establishing a rule of life as a lay person, as a husband, as a father, read this author’s new book, The Rule: Counsels and Directives for Husbands and Fathers, available from Sophia Institute Press.
Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash
