Father’s Day is coming up and most of us are wracking our brains to think of an original gift for Dad. Our minds check off the standard ideas: hamburgers or steak on the grill, a meal out, a tie, a T-shirt or sports jersey, more tools …

But even more than tired, stereotypical gifts, men need to know that they’re needed, and respected … even more than they need to know they’re loved.

Servicemen earn ceremony and medals. Boy scouts work their tails off to become Eagle Scouts, because they gain respect. Businessmen climb the corporate ladder to gain admiration. And dads need respect just for being husbands and parents … and we usually DO respect them … but we don’t SAY it very often. We’re more likely to send a funny card.

But it can be a tragedy if we wait to say the important things until it’s too late.

My husband was one of the fortunate ones. His father died of an unexpected heart attack. For years the two of them had been estranged, but a few years before we lost him, an important phone call took place that involved sorrow and tears and healing. When Dad passed on, the words had all been said.

It often takes some kind of tragedy for us to speak up and share what someone means to us, but really, if we’re practicing Planned Purity and guarding the door of the breath, it shouldn’t be that way. We should be saying how much we appreciate each other every day, because tomorrow isn’t promised. And most of all, we should be saying so to our family members.

A friend of mine who says he has spent “way too much time telling a body in a casket how much that person meant to him” started an effort called Honor Someone Now, and I would encourage you to take advantage of that free service for Father’s Day and for many other occasions to do just that.

Tell your dad what he’s meant to you. Tell your mom what she did that made you who you are today. Tell a teacher, a friend or a mentor that they changed your life forever.

Obviously, no one is perfect. But if you want your own heart to be honorable, choose to call out the honorable deeds in your dad and others. It won’t just change them, it will change you. The way you honor life and breath is a venue to the formation of your own heart, and as you honor, you become honorable yourself.

So for Dad’s Day this year, really surprise him. Give him the gift of respect.

Then make a list. There are a lot more honorees in your life, and a lot more than needs to happen in each of our hearts. Imagine what the world would be like if each of us honored just one person a month. Yeah. Pretty different.

Give it a try. Visit www.honorsomeonenow.com - now.

The first question that comes to mind may be—“What IS that?” After all, innocence is something we associate with children. But adults actually stand out when they intentionally practice innocence. Not that it doesn’t take hard work, and it certainly isn’t all about sexual innocence alone.

Innocence isn’t about never making mistakes, either, but about receiving grace to begin again, knowing that second chances are available.

Think about adults you know that display this super-attractive quality. What is it about them? And how do you get the same innocence yourself? Here are five suggestions based on the Five Doors of the Heart:

1.  Evaluate what you watch. Do you assess your screen time and content? Do you look at others with respect and compassion, or as objects for your use and benefit?

2.  Think about what (and who) you listen to. Do you listen to hours of negative or sad song lyrics? What are friends or family saying that helps or hurts you?

3.  Treat living things with kindness. Are you intentional in practicing kindness and in habits of giving, protecting or nurturing? Or is life mostly about you?

4.  Control your mouth. Are you speaking positively and steering clear of vulgarity and blaming? Or do you speak to get attention and power?

5.  Touch with great care. Sexual integrity is far from out of fashion. Do you treat touch as a privilege or as a right? Do you touch out of kindness or selfish gratification? Do you consider the families involved, or just you?

Innocence is beautiful in a child and in a grown-up. Take some time to review your adult habits today and think about how you might return to some more innocent practices. You and the world around you will be a better place because of it—guaranteed!

A number of moms have commented that they want to raise “nice” boys, and although I get what they may mean, the statement always gives me pause.

Do we need more nice boys? Or do we need men who can handle conflict, get dirty, ask hard questions, command respect, even fight? 

Can a man do the hard stuff that makes him the pillar of a family and of society?

Not that women aren’t strong, or that men don’t need to be courteous or sensitive. I agree that women need to recover their femininity, but that by no means makes us weak. But we’re not men. And men don’t have a license to be boorish. But they’re not women, either. Even though we might push them in that direction.

Men and women are not the same, in body or in emotional makeup. Science proves it. No matter how our culture tries to convince us to pursue androgyny and perfect equality, we need manly men and feminine women, or we’re missing something.

Our kids are missing something.

The lack of present fathers is epidemic now in America. The boys we raise will have to be strong enough to take fatherhood back, and to know what it means and how it looks even if they haven’t seen it in their homes. How?

You can start with The Squire and the Scroll storybook I wrote and follow up with the Life Lessons for ages 8-12. Better yet, get a group of dads and sons to do the study together, and finish out with the suggested rite of passage ceremony. Build a community of boys with men to follow.

Make intentional efforts to return to nobility. Take a look at Raising a Modern Day Knight on Amazon. Let your boys skin their knees and get dirty (let them EAT dirt, for that matter), and encourage them to work hard, physically and intellectually. Get the older guys into Wild at Heart and similar studies/activities. Scouts or Trail Life can help, too.

And maybe watch the movie Open Range, or The Greatest Game Ever Played, or Second Hand Lions. If they’re more the creative type, let them watch Switchfoot’s Fading West, with surfing and songwriting. Those movies start great conversations about what a man should be.

And remember, if you’re raising boys, to consider the grown-ups they’ll become. 

After all, boys won’t be boys—boys will be men.