What will you do with your strength?

Jonathan Edwards was a New England revivalist and leader during the First Great Awakening in the US in the early 1700’s. He was a renowned preacher, scholar, and author. He was the third president of Princeton University. A man of deep faith, prayer, and conviction, he left an indelible mark on the life and culture of early national America.

Whether you’re familiar with him from church history or not, you may at least recognize the name from High School English classes where his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, is regularly read as a classic of early American literature.

But what you may not know is that he was a devoted husband to his wife, Sarah, and an intentional father to their 11 children. Over the next 150 years, his family line would include: 1 U.S. Vice-President, 1 Dean of a law school, 1 dean of a medical school, 3 U.S. Senators, 3 governors, 3 mayors, 13 college presidents, 30 judges, 60 doctors, 65 professors, 75 Military officers, 80 public office holders, 100 lawyers, and 100 clergymen.

That’s some legacy.

As I was thinking about Edwards the other morning, I came across three articles in the Wall Street Journal. The first was about the streaming company Netflix. Their ambition is that, by 2030, they will increase their market cap to $1 trillion (almost unfathomable) by hitting 410 million global subscribers, increasing ad revenue to $9 billion, and cracking down on password sharing (long a plague to its business model).

I don’t have anything against Netflix, but the reality is that in order to hit it’s goal, Netflix is looking to leverage YOU the consumer. It’s your budget that will be affected by price hikes and your attention that will be commodified with ads.

The second article was about the current economic state of the US. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanely all saw huge revenue increases in the first quarter of 2025. The majority of their revenue increase was due to fees from consumer trades and earnings off consumer credit. While many Americans are feeling the pinch of stagflation, three of the biggest banks in the US are having record years.

The third article was about Ashley St. Clair, a 26-year old woman who believes Elon Musk is her child’s father. I say “believe” because while she’s confident, it can’t be confirmed because Mr. Musk doesn’t want to take a paternity test. To quote the journal, “Musk has had at least 14 children with four women… Multiple sources close to him said they believe the true number of children is much higher than publicly known.”

How is all this connected?

Our focus for Better Men this month is on Strength. The core premise is that men were made to give their strength away to the world around them in sacrificial love. The central question for a man then becomes, “what do I do with my strength?”

The system of this world will always, always, push us to use our strength for our own consumption – more money, more revenue, more power.

The world’s invitation is to acquire more (of everything) at all costs. The invitation of Jesus is radically different – give away your strength at personal cost to yourself. It’s the contrast between the legacy of Jonathan Edwards and the three articles I read in the Journal…the world flourishes when a man gives his strength away in sacrificial love.

You can’t fix macroeconomics, government policy, Elon Musk’s kids, or Netflix. But you can make a difference in your world. You can bring life and blessing and flourishing into the people and places around you today by giving your strength away with intention, purpose, and love.

Make a great day out there folks,

Steve