A Few Good Men

By Robin Caldwell

“…while I was still searching but not finding-- I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.” (Ecclesiastes 7: 28)

Three friends of mine, Maurice, Terrance, and Derek, are on a mission to evangelize the good news of the ordinary brotha, the nice guy who rarely receives credit for being everything women dream of but do not seem to really want or recognize.

God only knows we women don’t make their evangelism of the good guy easy.

I’ve come to the conclusion that most of us women who say we want godly men wouldn’t recognize him if he walked up to us with a glass of water. But I’m thinking that we wouldn’t recognize Jesus either if came bearing a glass of water in the hot desert.

Good guys who don’t beat or cheat, cuss at or in reference to a woman; who make commitments and keep them, change our flat tires, paint our houses, mow our lawns and shovel our snow, take out our trash, listen to us complain ad nauseam about the men who have done us wrong are not exciting enough! I’ve heard some of us say so.

“He’s nice but he’s boring. I need some excitement, girl. He just does not do it for me.”

Pookie, the bad boy who has more women than the law allows, is worthy of the wait, the time, and the energy it takes to hope for a transformation, and a choice that could potentially lead him to the altar – for marriage – is more exciting.

His cousin, Ray Ray, is another exciting story. Ray Ray goes to church every Sunday, in fact, he is even on the Deacons Board, sings in the choir, and washes the pastor’s car. His problem is obviously not church attendance; it’s abiding by the Word of God. He hadn’t read that part of the Bible that mentions lying with a harlot or anything remotely dealing with accountability to women in general.

And Ray Ray isn’t in a hurry to get married because he already reaps the benefits –meals, prayer, the laying on of hands in the middle of the night, and no commitment. He, like the women in the congregation, is waiting on the Lord to deliver his mate, however in the interim – until she comes – he’s having a good old time at the expense of the desperate women who accommodate him in their endeavors to get a man.

Let’s not forget exciting J. J. who is a very nice guy. He’s one of the nicest guys a Christian woman would ever want to meet. He comes awfully close to being the Dream. He doesn’t date a lot of women and is very discriminating in his tastes and tactics. J. J. won’t paw all over a woman, he’s a gentleman. He will treat a woman like a queen and make her feel so special. He’s the dream date for the woman committed to keeping her virtue until her wedding night. Unfortunately, for all of his virtues, there is one small problem. You feel like calling him “girl” during your long-winded conversations about shopping, decorating, and the movie Dreamgirls. Still, he introduces you to his mother as his “girlfriend” and you see his father’s face light up with a glimmer of hope … He has potential.

Nah, we don’t make it easy for nice guys, the few good men. But I’m thinking that maybe that’s a good thing. The problem is not in them being nice or good, it’s in our recognizing it, and then desiring it for ourselves. I suppose the longer we take to recognize a good man or even learn to appreciate one, the better off they are – they don’t have to deal with a lot of drama.

Most importantly, they don’t have to get their feelings hurt by someone who isn’t necessarily into quality or who cannot recognize the quality in another human being. It even boils down to not fully recognizing the quality in ourselves as women or daughters of God.

Been there, done that.

The question I had to ask myself was: Will any of my shallow preferences attract the man I need to me? Will Ray Ray, Pookie, and J. J be there when the chips are down or know what to do when I need a spiritual solution to a natural problem? Or will they merely be the cause of many more problems?

At the end of the day, I need to be accepted, adored, and treated with the utmost of respect. And only a man who is yielded to Christ can provide all of that.

The Word states, “He who finds a wife, finds a good thing and obtains the favor of the Lord.” (Proverb 18: 22) The “good thing” is the God thing, a godly wife or one who lives by and accepts the standard of God as her own. To recognize, and accept a good man, a woman has to be good and godly too. Ray Ray, J. J. and Pookie are not good or godly choices, and that leads me to wonder about those us who choose those types or equally not-good types of men over the nice guy or a good man.

Oh well…

I really don’t know how Derek, Terrance, and Maurice are going to pull this mission off. They’ve got a long row to hoe, but I have faith in God to guide them and direct them in their effort to show women that the nice, good, godly man is the desirable man – Mr. Right.

This Valentine’s Day I’m showering my hearts and flowers on the good guys in my life and even the ones I don’t know. Those few good men deserve to receive heartfelt platitudes for being the ones to put up with our inability to recognize their worthiness in general.

Here are my roses, fellows. Mad love to a few good men … the nice guys.

My prayer is that if there are a few good women out here who have received the memo, then the Lord will somehow connect them with a few good men for the heavenly hook-up. Now, wouldn’t that be nice?