The Young Men We Need – Brant Hansen

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The Young Men We Need

Guest:Brant Hansen

From the series:The Young Men We Need (Day 3 of 3)

Air date:March 5, 2025

Brant:“Man, with words you can build people up; you can destroy, even in your own family. Your job is to build them up. If you’re a keeper of the garden, you want people to bloom; because you’re there. They flourish because you’re there—that’s your mom; that’s your dad; that’s your brothers and sisters; that’s your neighbors; that’s other people at school—that’s your job; you do actually have a mission here.”

Dave:Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Dave Wilson.

Ann:And I’m Ann Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Ann:A video was recently sent to us of the top ten least attractive men’s hobbies. Okay, sorry; nine.

Dave:It says ten, but there’s only nine.

Ann:Yeah.

Dave:I can tell you what number ten is.

Ann:I wanted you to guess; have you looked at all of them?

Dave:No, I haven’t;—

Ann:Okay; what do you think?

Dave:—I saw the title.

Ann:Yeah.

Dave:At least, I’ll try. Let’s ask Brant Hansen; he’s in the room.

Ann:Okay.

Dave:He’s the manhood guy; he’s written a couple books on manhood.

Ann:That’s right. We’re going to be talking about that today.

Least attractive, Brant.

Brant:Well, it’s going to be stuff I like; I know that.

Dave:Is this by women, or by men, or both?

Ann:I don’t know. Let’s see; I’m not sure. I’m guessing this is from women, actually. I’m looking at the list; I’m like, “Oh, I bet these are—

Dave:One of them, I would think, would be watching football.

Ann:No, that is not one.

Brant:I feel like we’re playing Family Feud here. Good answer, Dave.

Ann:Okay, Brant; what’s your answer?

Brant:Well, it can be video games. Next can be—

Ann:Yes; number one: video games, number one; number two: collecting figurines.

Brant:Now, that’s not fair.

Dave:What does that mean?!

Brant:If people are into Lord of the Rings; you paint a little—

Ann:I know; our son did that. It was kind of cool.

Brant:Right!

Ann:But he showed his girlfriend, and I don’t think she thought it was very cool.

Brant:Man, that’s just shortsightedness on her part; because that could pay off big time.

Dave:—collecting figurines?

Ann: Okay; what about number three?—magic tricks.

Dave:I think they’re cool!

Brant:I think they’re cool too.

Dave:I wish I could do more.

Brant:Yeah; “Let’s do this.”

Ann:If a guy can do them pretty well; I don’t know.

Online trolling.

Dave:That’s a hobby? That’s pretty bad.

Brant:“I enjoy long walks on the beach,” “I enjoy online trolling.”

Dave:“I want to date that guy!”

Ann:That would be very unattractive.

Brant:“I collect figurines.”

Ann:Gambling—yes, that’s not—

Building model trains.

Brant:What?! What’s not cool—

Dave:Where did this come from?

Ann:I don’t know.

Taxidermy is number seven. Eight: comic books. And nine: birdwatching.

Brant:What? Really?

Ann:I kind of would like birdwatching with you; I like birdwatching myself.

Dave:Ornithology; I know what it’s called.

Brant, we’re back. Yesterday, you said there’s six decisions that will set you apart as a man.

Ann:As we’re talking about Brant’s newest book—(Young) Men We Need: God’s Purpose for Every Guy and How You Can Live It Out—great title; great subtitle.

Dave:Yeah. As you said two days ago, there’s overlap between The Men We Need and (Young) Men We Need; there’s a nuance that it’s starting earlier.

Brant:Yeah, it’s the same basic material: trying to give guys a vision for what masculinity actually is and why it’s awesome.

Ann:God’s idea of—you’re giving a biblical viewpoint of—manhood.

Brant:As best I can. I think it’s being a keeper of the garden; I think that’s it: allowing people around you to flourish and thrive, who might be vulnerable—protecting them, being a source of security—that sort of stuff.

You talk about that to guys, they get it like, “Oh, that’s who I’m supposed to be”; but there are things that will stop you from doing it. I try to address that with some of these decisions, especially for younger guys. It’s the same material as The Men We Need, but I scaled it down; I edited it down so that the chapters are really short. I think it’s better for the guys to find it more readable, younger guys.

Dave:Yeah. Okay, so the first one: “Forsake the fake; relish the real.”

Brant:This is a huge thing, obviously. There is a spiritual enemy, and he wants to fake you out. He wants to give you something that seems real, feels real; and in the end, it’s just a punch in the stomach. Pornography is an obvious example. It’s like you get the dopamine hits—your brain gets fooled—but that’s not, obviously, a real woman. A real woman will challenge you and help you grow up; but now, you’re not going to grow up because of this; and you’re left with nothing.

When I’m writing about that—by the way, I’m not doing a guilt trip for guys—there’s enough guilt that we struggle with and shame. I didn’t feel like that was what we needed as much as being able to look at this, and go, “Wait a second. See how we’re being faked out all the time?” The same thing with video games—and again, video games—I’m not against them.

Ann:They’re fun.

Brant:Yeah, they’re fun; but you’re essentially doing things that are fake. Even if you do well at a game—and six hours later, you’ve been playing it, doing really well—you get done; you feel meaninglessness, and it’s because it’s meaningless. You didn’t actually accomplish anything in real life. We’re made to accomplish things.

I try to flesh that out for guys, to go: “Look, there’s all sorts of stuff that feels like it’s real to our brains. You get the dopamine hit; you get the good feelings. In fact, it feels better than real life because you don’t have to go through the trials of real relationships with a fake woman; you don’t have to go through the trials of actually learning training to become Navy SEAL. You could just start playing Call of Duty, or whatever; it’s like you can skip all of the stuff and just start with the dopamine payoffs; that will ruin you. You don’t want to wake up, at age 70, not having lived. All your accomplishments were virtual—you don’t want that—but that is how the enemy works.”

Ann:Well, guys, talk to the women right now. I talk to a lot of young married women, and they’re saying, “This is a deal.” Video games—this is what a mom might say—“I have three kids, who are seven and under: baths need to be taken; the kitchen needs to be cleaned up; the house is a mess. And my husband is playing video games,” or “My husband is addicted to porn. He’s tried to stop; he’s a good guy,” and “He’s a good guy; he’s playing video games, and all I’ve done is complain. I tell him, ‘You need to stop.’ I don’t know what to do because nothing gets through to him.”

Brant:Well, obviously, I can’t give you two steps; and now, everything’s taken care of. But I can give you some ideas; and that is, a lot of times, when guys are struggling with that stuff, it’s a lack of a bigger vision for their lives.

There’s a couple things I talk about: schedules in The Men We Need. For teenage guys—if you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, or young guys a lot of time on your hands—that’s a problem; unfortunately, it makes it a lot more difficult.

I took a group—I can’t remember if I told you this—but I took a group to Mexico on a mission trip, years ago, a bunch of high school guys, a bunch of guys I was discipling. And the other kids in the youth group—they’re girls—everybody’s teenagers. These guys have always confided with me, and with others, that this was a big struggle—the lust thing and pornography—and all that.

It just occurred to me, at the end of the week—we’d been working, working, working all week long, alongside these girls—we’d have dinner in the evenings. We were camping out in the middle of nowhere. It was hot; it was a lot of work, but we’re having a great time. We’re worshiping in the evening.

I said, at the end of the week, I was like, “Hey, you guys struggle with lust a lot this week?” They were quiet for a little bit; and then, they just started laughing: “We haven’t had time.” I thought, “That’s really interesting. We’ve been working so hard. It’s like your circumstances, if they’re changed—even your calendar; your schedule changes—it can make a big difference with that.” I would tell guys that.

With women, I would remind: it’s very difficult to control; and it’s tough not to want to, especially when they’re being super immature.

Ann:—or nag.

Brant:Obviously, genuinely talk to God about it. Ask Him to—because God’s not into usurping their decisions and forcing something—but I always think a practical prayer is to say: “Surround him with other guys who will give him other stuff to do and encourage him to help him grow up.”

The other thing I would do is, very proactively, when he’s not doing that—when he’s doing something else that you do respect—to make it a point to say you find that attractive when he’s doing that thing: where he is being a good dad; when he’s accepting responsibility. Find him doing something right, because you’ll start to get more of that.

I remember this experiment they did in college on a college professor. I can’t remember exactly where it was.

Ann:Oh, yeah.

Brant:You remember this?

Ann:Yes; I thought it was in Dallas Seminary, but I might be wrong.

Brant:Really?

Ann:Go ahead.

Brant:As he’s lecturing—as he walked towards the windows—everybody starts smiling. As he’d walked over towards the door, on the other side of the front, and everybody acted dis-interested and apathetic, and not care, and frown. Well, pretty soon—it’s like ten minutes into the lecture—where he’s pinned up against the windows, delivering his—unwittingly.

It’s not manipulation; it’s just being honest. Make sure you say: “Man, it’s really attractive when you do that to give me a break from the kids. I just can’t tell you: it’s just manly man,” “When you talked to the neighbor that way, and told him that that was a problem for us—and you were kind, but direct—there’s something really cool,”—find that, because it shapes his behavior more than maybe you realize.

Dave:Yeah. In some ways, it’s like we men are still little boys. When somebody sees what we’re doing, and says, “Good job, son”; we do it again. We do it better. We keep doing it. It’s like—

Ann:I share in this newest book that will come out in May, that we’ve just done—How to Speak Life to Your Husband—when all you want to do is yell at him. I share that I’ve nagged Dave for years about: he needs to spend more time with the boys, pouring into them spiritually—you get that “You need to..”—and that didn’t always fly very well. And then, I’d compare him to other dads that were doing that; and that really didn’t fly very well.

Dave:It didn’t work.

Ann:So Brant, I did exactly what you said—I felt like God was prompting me—“See and say the things that he’s doing well and right. Encourage that.” One night—I shared this before—he put the boys to bed; I watched him. He came out, and I said, “Man, I’m jealous of the power you carry.

Brant:Wow; okay, there you go.

Ann:“You say something positive, or you just say things; and they’re clinging to your words. They’re not even hanging onto any of my stuff. But for you, you’ve got so much power.” That’s all I said.

Dave:And then, the next night—

Dave:—I was running up to that bedroom.

Ann:I didn’t do it to be manipulative.

Brant:No!

Ann:I just noticed.

Brant:But you know what? People need a blessing at the deepest level—man, woman—my wife needs to hear words of blessing from me, and I know that.

Dave:It brings life.

Brant:I’ve gotten better at it. It’s like it does. And the human soul is made for blessing. And like Dallas Ward says, “It dies without it.”

Dave:I would say, as well—and before we get to the second one—when you “Forsake the fake,” as a man—especially, as a young man—I try to help us, as men, say: “What are we escaping from that we keep going to the fake?” We know porn’s bad, eating too much is bad—all the things that we do—there’s a root. There’s something you’re avoiding—maybe, as a man—or you’re escaping from. It takes a real man to step into the hard issues of your life, and say, “I got to look this in the face and deal with it.”

Brant:I think that’s true for young guys too. I’ll tell them: “There’s hope here.

Because as these things are squeezed out of your life—don’t let shame keep you away from God—do not. That’s the real loss. He understands that we’re sinners; He wants to change us. So you keep talking to Him. Do not slink away in shame, which is what Adam did.” Adam failed as a keeper of the garden; and then, he slinks away in shame. God shows up, and says, “Where are you, Adam? What happened to us? We used to walk together; but now, he’s gone.”

I’m trying to tell guys, too, and I also want them to know this—again, not to make this about guilt and shame—after Adam blows it, and we’ve all blown it—when he’s leaving the Garden of Eden, God makes clothes for them. I always thought those clothes were like Flintstones-type stuff; I don’t know; it’s going to be, “I’m just trying to get you covered here.” The word there is kethoneth in the Hebrew for their clothes; that means royal garments. The only other time that word pops up in Genesis is to describe Joseph’s coat.

Ann:What?! I have never heard this.

Brant:I just learned it recently.

Dave:And that’s for two sinners.

Ann:Oh!

Brant:Okay; right. And so it’s used later on in the Old Testament for royal priestly garments.

They blow it; God doesn’t kick them out and say, “I’m done with you”; He goes with them, after dressing them up as a king and queen. I want you to know you don’t slink away in shame. You’re caught up in this—you listen to this—don’t be: “Oh, I’ve blown it again; I’ve blown it.” I’m trying to give you hope here.

The other thing is: as God changes you, these things get squeezed out of your life; but things get really better. They’ve done these studies of younger guys, who get off of pornography—or older guys—and their firsthand testimonies, after they’ve gotten rid of it for a few weeks even: “I’m more confident,” “I have more energy,” “I’m less negative,” “I’m not as acerbic; I can get things done,” “I can think more clearly,” “I’m more confident with girls.” There’s all of these things that we’re walking around with—this extra surliness—that is lifted when that is crowded out of your life. To me, that’s just, “Hey, there’s some good news here. Things can get better.”

Ann:I’m still stuck on that. He makes us priestly garments after this huge fall that will affect every person. As a woman, I carry/have carried so much shame in the past. I watch young men, who have struggled in this area—I’ve heard from them—that’s a thing: they leave God because they feel like God’s so disappointed.

The gospel and grace is compelling: He draws us back. So this picture of Him giving us priestly garments, as He ushers us out to protect us from eating from the tree of life, it’s the beautiful grace and love.

Brant:He still wants to be with you; do not walk away in shame.

What’ll happen is you’ll feel shame. You’ll feel like: “I’m disconnected from God,” “Who is God anyway?” “What is God?” And they are on the internet, and it’s just default atheism and sarcasm. No, no, no, no, no; He loves you. He’s not giving up on you. You keep talking to Him; you keep being loyal.

This is one of the other decisions I talk about is: “Take responsibility for your own spiritual life.” This is not a guilt trip; this is an opportunity. When I say that, I’m saying: “That’s what God is looking for—is your loyalty—yes, He knows we sin. He’s got it; He’s not shocked; He knows. He wants to move us past it. He has paid the price for it, but be loyal. Keep talking to Him. He’s looking for partners. God is looking for partners; He always has been. And He wants to partner with you in your life. So you talk to Him about what you’re doing together in life.”

That prayer takes on a different dimension—it’s not as hard anymore—it’s more like we have all these Zoom meetings with bosses or colleagues. Here’s your meeting with your Partner in life, who can do anything for you, who loves you; He’s more on your side than you are.

Ann:And this is true for men or women.

Brant:Absolutely; “Why would I miss that meeting?”

Ann:Exactly.

Brant:“I don’t want to miss that meeting.” That loyalty is everything. We equate spirituality, in this country, with emotion; because we’re all about emotions in this culture. That’s not what spirituality is in the Bible. Consistently, it’s a believing loyalty. You keep coming back, guys, and He will change you. And when He changes you over time, He’ll change your desires a certain way. A lot of that stuff gets left behind.

Dave:I think it’s when you say, “Take responsibility for your own spiritual life,”—which is Decision 6—like you said, they’re not in a certain order—but I think a lot of us guys—I’ve seen guys draft off their wife’s spiritual walk.

Brant:A lot of that though is because of this misunderstanding. You feel less than because you’re not as emotional in worship services; or you’re not getting goose bumps. We set up the Christian experience, a lot of times, basically experiences. We want to create an emotional experience, but that’s not spirituality. It’s not bad to have an emotional experience—of course, it’s wonderful—but if you’re more analytical, even as a woman, you may not relate like that to God. You shouldn’t have to feel guilty about it. You should be able to go, “Yeah, that’s cool; but I’m not feeling it.” But that doesn’t mean God’s left me; it doesn’t mean He doesn’t exist because I’m not feeling it. You’re still loyal. Well, this is a huge burden-lifter for a lot of men, in particular. So that’s why I wrote about this.

But this is how you’re going to grow: you continue to pay attention to Him, even while you’re caught up in stuff. You keep talking to Him—there’s where your hope is going to come from—He’s going to make you a different kind of person.

Ann:That’s good.

Dave:Alright. Here’s a couple others. We talked quite a bit—you have—about “Protect the vulnerable.”

Brant:We’ve talked about this before. I remember reading a guy, saying [deep voice], “I will defend my wife if there’s an intruder. I’ll take care of the intruder. I’m a good defender of my wife.”

Dave:Is that how they say it?—deep voice?

Brant:[Deep voice] They always talk like this.

Dave:[Deep voice] They always talk like that.

Brant:[Deep voice] When I’m talking to anybody I don’t like, I talk like that.

But he was poking fun at himself. But he said, “You know what I realized? I used to pat myself on the back for that, and I realized that doesn’t happen very often.” He said, “Most of the time the intruder is me. It’s my words, or my lack of words, or my sarcasm, or my tone of voice that’s injuring and making my wife feel insecure.”

Now, again, this is true—I’m saying this to young guys, too—it’s not about marriage; it’s about everything, like, “Man, with words, you can build people up; you can destroy, even in your own family. Your job is to build them up. If you’re a keeper of the garden, you want people to bloom because you’re there. They flourish because you’re there—that’s your mom; that’s your dad; that’s your brothers and sisters; that’s your neighbors; that’s other people at school—that’s your job—you do actually have a mission here.”

The tone of voice thing is what I’ve been learning about. Carolyn’s talked to me about that many times over the years. I don’t know why it didn’t dawn on me that it’s a bigger deal than I wanted it to be, because the male voice is made to bark out the door. I remember doing that one time at neighbor kids, who were setting off fireworks or whatever. I was like [deep voice], “This ends now!” Carolyn was like, “That was really attractive when you did that.” See, I remember that.

Dave:But when you say it to her, it doesn’t always go that way.

Brant:Right; women are very audible/auditory, and even to pick up on vulnerability—like a newborn crying—there’s certain nuances that they pick up on. And men lack that nuance. We can come in and sound threatening when we don’t mean to be.

I’m just thinking—I’m just making my case here—I’m making a logical case about why I’m right. But she’s saying something about my tone of voice. I’m realizing: “I want to make you secure, not insecure. It’s not that my voice is bad, but I do need to adjust the tone.” I’m a musician, and I’m on the radio. So you would think I would be thinking about tone of voice all the time; I’m not. But that’s a great thing for guys to be aware of: “Look, your role is for her to feel secure.”

Ann:Oh, Brant, this was a big fight for us, early on.

Brant:I think it is for most.

Ann:Dave would talk to me; and I’d say like, “I’m not dumb. You’re talking to me like I’m the dumbest person in the world,” “What are you talking about?!”—and it was just the tone. It was like—“What are you…”—and that could be what you say: “What are you doing?!” And that’s when I would say—

Dave:—“There it is.” You go, “Exhibit A”; because my tone would be—

Ann:But he didn’t even hear it.

Brant:This is really good to talk about. It’s also true that we’re like, “Well, what’s the big deal, even if my tone isn’t perfect?” But when we understand, again: “Oh, wait; masculinity is being a keeper of the garden. She’s supposed to feel secure. I’m making her feel insecure; I’m not being masculine right now. I may think I am, but masculinity is about this other thing.” Once we have a concrete idea about what masculinity really is—

Ann:—it’s the foundation.

Brant:—“Oh, wait a second; I’m supposed to make her feel secure.”

Dave:I’ll tell you this—watching you and Carolyn—she feels secure.

Brant:Good!

Ann:Totally.

Dave:You can see it.

Brant:Well, good. She has built me up so much, and I could go on and on about that. We got married young, as I mentioned; so it’s hard to imagine any other existence, honestly. But a lot of this stuff is hard-won, over time. There’s things I wish I could go back and tell my son, at ten years old, that I should have said or could have done more. We all have regrets and stuff, but it’s good to share what we have learned as a mercy.

There’s a lot of stuff that I have gotten—a lot of guys, who have said—and this is very kind, and I appreciate it: “Man, I wish I would’ve read this book a long time ago.”

Dave:Yeah, let me just say this: marriage is wonderful; but it can be really, really hard and difficult at times. We know that; we’ve shared that many times here. But we would love to help you: go to FamilyLife.com/MarriageHelp; we’ve put some of our best tools there for you to get some help. We would love to help you: FamilyLife.com/MarriageHelp.

Ann:Let me just end with saying: “There’s something, Dave, I’m just going to tell you—the way you love me; you lead me; I can be in the car and feel like, even when you’re driving crazy—I can still feel like, ‘I really trust this man, with not only my life, but our kids and our grandkids.’”

I talked to somebody, I didn’t even tell you this, when you took our two grandkids to the movie by yourself—the five- and three-year-old—all by yourself.

Dave:That was fun.

Ann:He took them to Steak ‘n Shake. I heard one grandmother, who was a friend of mine, say, “I would have never let my husband do that, because he wouldn’t even know what to do,”—the fact that you’re like, “I’ll take everybody out; let’s go!”

Brant:It was Saving Private Ryan; I don’t think that was a good idea.

Dave:I don’t know why they kept flinching at the gunshots.

Ann:You guys are so funny!

But I’m just going to say, “You’ve done that.” And Brant, I’ll say this;

because I’ve talked to Carolyn enough to know that you do that.

Brant:Oh, good; thank you.

Ann:It is attractive. And so for you wives, who are listening to this—thinking, “My husband, I can’t say that,”—I would pray; pray that God will give you eyes to see your man the way God created him to be, and your sons. Oh, I know—it’s the temptation to see all the negative things your sons are doing: the video games are playing and the kids they’re hanging out with—but start speaking life into the man that you see they can become, and they will rise up to that.

Dave:Yeah, I would say: “Get the book.

Ann:Yes!

Dave:“Get both books.”

You know this, Brant, your sons, especially, are watching you, as a dad, more than they’re listening to you. They are watching you be the keeper of the garden. But man, this is truth. You say, “Use that term, ‘keeper of the garden.’” Started a succession with your 12-year-old, 8-year-old, 10-, 15-—that is going to bring a vision to them they’ve never had before—that will set them on the course to become the man God’s called them be.

Brant:They need it so badly; they need this vision. So it’s good to give the example. It’s also good to put some words behind it. This is what I think my role is; and yours, too.

My brother wrote the discussion questions; did a great job.

Ann:Did he?

Brant:They’re in the back of the printed book. If you do have a youth group of guys or whatever—I honestly/normally, I would feel sheepish about saying, “Please get this book, and do it,”—because it feels self-promotional. Honestly, I feel like this is such a crisis.

Dave:Right.

Ann:Me, too.

Brant:And if there’s another book just like this, get that one; I don’t care. But please talk about this with young guys—even in churches—they do not know what is specifically great about masculinity and what they’re called to be. And this would be so life-giving for everybody around us.

Dave:Well, I tell you what, Brant: we are going to help people do exactly that. He’s right.

Ann:We’re in a crisis; I totally agree. I get passionate—because I had three sons, and I’ve got four grandsons—there’s a crisis, I feel like, in our culture of what it is to be a man.

Dave:Yeah, Brant; we are so thankful you wrote The Men We Need and, now, (Young) Men We Need. We want to help get this out into the hands of our people. I would just say, “Man, if you want this, we want to get it to you. Here’s how this can work: give us a donation to FamilyLife of any amount; and we will send you this book as our ‘Thank you,’ to you for donating to Family Life.” You can do that at FamilyLifeToday.com. Just go there; make your donation. Or you can give us a call at 800-358-6329. What is that, Ann? That’s F as in Family—

Ann:—F as in Family, L as in Life, and TODAY.

Dave:You did that like a cheerleader. You had your little F, L, TODAY. Send us a donation. We will send you Brandt’s book, (Young) Men We Need.

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