I know a number of men in my church who are trapped. The cost of being trapped results in broken marriages, distant relationships with children, poor mental and physical health, and eventual middle life ruin. The answer seems obvious to all but the men trapped.

The answer is to resign and find another job, even to the degree of taking a financial hit and even retraining. Too many men move up the pecking order and in their thirties and forties find themselves in positions which they deem too important to let go. Having spent the better part of 15 years working towards this point, they cannot see a way out. As they have risen up the pecking order the demands are indexed to the increase in salary and rewards.

Although they see others ahead of them burn out and clearing their desks after 20 years in the company without as much as a farewell or a “thank you”, they can’t see that happening to themselves. You can recognise them on a Sunday. They walk about 5 metres behind their wives and children, stand aside from them after church and wait impatiently dying to leave and escape. They are the walking dead.

One trapped man told me a few months ago that he had decided to live his life in 3 stages. The first stage was to work himself to death rising up the ranks of supermarket management. Stage 2 was when his kids left school and that would involve travelling around the world. Stage 3 involved retirement.

Another trapped man told me last year that he wanted to leave his wife because he felt that when he was away and he called back home it seemed as if “what was happening in my world was not important to her”. He spent about 8 months out of every 12 oversees. I told him to go figure.

I guess I myself am in danger of being just like these men, and many pastors will feel the same. I do wonder if I have the courage to walk way before I fall into the same trap. It is sometimes complex to weigh up God’s leading along with some rather basic logical calculations about the effect of your working life on your health, marriage and spirituality.

Another man who has been trapped for the better part of a decade, finally cracked and realised that his mental health would suffer far more if he stayed than if he faced the terrible reality of resigning. People fear that there will be nothing after resignation. He finally resigned, and now has another job [which involves working oversees!!!]. As a family they left our church citing amongst other things that they ‘needed a change’. I suggested politely that what they needed far too many years ago was the husband to have the courage to leave his abusive workplace and build a better lifestyle for the family. I think they projected the dissatisfaction with life and work onto the church. Now they have left and pitched their tent somewhere else it will be good for a while but the harsh realities of the new job and the loneliness of being away from home so much will kick in again. I predict a ‘need’ to move churches again at sometime in the future.

I have had one success story. I challenged a trapped man to ‘resign by faith’ [there's a verse somewhere about that...], and honour God by placing his marriage and children before work. He did and and has gone on to a few other industrious and entrepreneurial successes. Sadly, most of them will walk obediently and inexorably towards their own destruction.