ORANGE — Over the course of my adult life I have heard the same hook to the song “there are not enough good men.” The ladies are not expressing the fact that there are not enough men; it’s not enough good men. This is partly because of the number of young men that are being enticed by the false success of selling drugs, the false perception that going to jail brings manly status. The generational misconception that manhood is based on the number of conception/children he can plant not the level of protection, provision and preparedness for the children that he has planted. What does it mean to be a man? Just because a male “reaches” the age of 18 or 21 does not mean that he is a man. Manhood is something that is achieved. We have adult males who believe they are men or obtained manhood when they really have no clue as to what the requirements are for achieving manhood. In some cultures at a certain age a male has to go through a journey, a series of test and trails, testing his ability to properly use knowledge and wisdom in situations that could be the difference between life and death. It is his age that starts the journey but it is the aftermath of his journey that confirms his status of manhood. In our culture we have the tendency to breast feed our male children deep into their twenties and thirties thus they look to go from one nipple to the next. In Genesis chapter three God clearly lays out the basic foundation for achieving manhood. As God is entering the garden the bible records God calling out to Adam, where are you? He does not call for the serpent who was the one, who initiated the temptation. He did not call to the woman who gave to Adam. He calls to Adam the one who was responsible and accountable to ensure the rules and regulations laid down by God is to be adhered to. It is my belief that if Adam had not partaken of the fruit, disobeyed God that mankind would not have been infected. There are three areas that I believe make up the foundation of the building of manhood. First there is “position”. Shepherds and Kings govern with a symbol of a rod, staff or scepter. The one thing that denotes the difference of the gender of a child at birth is a rod, staff or scepter. Having a rod, staff or scepter automatically places the mandate of the development into manhood upon the male. The second area is posture, the state or condition of the position or attitude with respect to circumstances or attributes. Manhood requires the man to be able to handle the exposure of his development. The development into manhood comes with others looking, watching and unfortunately criticizing, trying to find something that can disqualify the male out of the process. The beauty of this helps us to clearly define one of the differences between male and man. Males will run and hide, men will stand. The third area is possession. Males will look to put the blame on others or throw others under the bus. Men accept the consequences of their choices and look to make things right. Because we are not perfect we are going to make mistakes. However a man will make a mistake in trying to do what is right for his family and the evidence of the mistake will confirm it. But males will choose to make the mistake by not doing what is in the best interest of his family and himself. How do we fix this? Love through education is the key. Defeat is not an option. We have to fight for the survival of our community. The enemy is looking to destroy, eliminate and annihilate men by destroying the process of manhood. Males don’t scare satan, Men do. If you have a son or a daughter it is in your best interest to help with the development of our boys to men, thus stopping the development of a community of missing men. Leaders are born but leadership is developed.  Adam, Where are you?