The Men Behind the Mission Part 3: Why The Small Things You Protect Matter

Everybody ran, and the “field” looked laughably small. That’s why Shamma’s story hits so hard. We’re talking about 2 Samuel 23:11–12, where one man stands in the middle of a field of lentils while the Philistines attack and the soldiers flee and God brings the victory. If you’ve ever wondered whether the quiet things you protect and maintain actually matter, this conversation is for you.

I connect Shamma’s stand to real life for men today: showing up for your marriage when it’s tense, staying present with your kids when you’re tired, guarding your integrity when nobody’s watching, and taking your mental health seriously instead of masking anxiety, depression, grief, and exhaustion. We also go after the subtle way the enemy works, not always by saying you can’t win, but by whispering, “Is this battle worth it?” That’s how “just one” compromise turns into drift, whether it’s porn, DMs, alcohol, missed prayer, or choosing silence over a hard conversation.

We draw a clear line between protection and control, because biblical leadership creates safety rather than fear. Sometimes defending your field means counseling, accountability, rest, boundaries, and confronting the unhealed behaviors that make you the danger inside your own home. You’ll walk away with three questions to identify what’s attacking your field and one practical action you can take today to stand your ground.

If this challenges you, share it with a brother who needs it, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next, and leave a review to help more men find the show. What field has God entrusted to you, and are you protecting it?

Transcript

Intro And Series Setup

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You're listening to Excellence Above Talent, a podcast where we have the hard conversations about the lives of men and what leads us to achieve greatness and suffer defeat. Hear from other men's journeys as well, as we all learn and grow together to become inspirations to ourselves and those around us. And now your host, Aaron Thomas.

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What's up, my beautiful people? Aaron Thomas with excellence above talent. We are on part three of the men behind the mission. And today we're going to be talking about Shah Ma, the men, the man who defended what everyone else abandoned. In his primary scripture, again, a lot of these men don't have stories or Bible verses all up and down the Bible. Usually these men have one or two scriptures in the Bible, and that's it. Shamaz comes from 2 Samuel 23, 11,

Two Mighty Men Lessons

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and 12. So part one, we talked about Beniah. He was the man who chased a lion in a pit. He was the man who had killed two of the champions of the Moabites. He was the man who killed a giant. And Benia taught us that courage does not always wait for the fight to come. Sometimes being courageous is running towards what you know could kill you. And in part two, we talked about Eliezer, the man who stood his ground when everyone else ran. And he fought until his hand was so cramped that he could not move his hand from his sword. And Eleazar taught us that God might not be counting all the victories that he's giving you, but he is counting your faithfulness. When he asks you to show up, will you show up? Are you being obedient? And he also shows that sometimes the greatest victory you'll ever have in life is refusing to quit. And these are all men connected to David. So when we have a conversation about who is surrounding you, who is speaking life into you, it matters. Because David was a man after God's own heart. These men, I feel, have the same tenacity to be men after God's own heart. And I'll tell you this: there were a few. For some odd reason in this world, we make men who seem big, who seem like they got their stuff together, who has money, who has some level of influence. We we we build these men up to think that they are just higher and mightier than most. But in these in these stories, the first two, and also in the one that we're going to be talking about today, most men ran. Most men was not about that life. Most men abandoned their post when they felt like their life was on the line. And to me, I think the saddest part for a person to be in is when they put so much faith in a man because of what they think he can do. And when it's time for that man to protect and serve, he runs. And there's a lot of men who act tough, but when it's time to be tough, they run. There's only a select few of men who will stay and fight to the death because they're not, because they believe in something more than just running and trying to save their lives. They believe in themselves. They believe in themselves. They believe that even if they fall, there are men looking at them to maybe give them inspiration and motivation to keep moving forward. They stay because they believe that God has given them the power to not be afraid and to continue to fight, even when everyone else around them is running. Pay attention to the men in your life that you believe are tough. Because if there are 10 men in your life that you believe are tough, sadly, eight of them, eight of them are probably not. You probably have that one to two, maybe three, that are willing to die for what they believe in. And there's a lot of men who are wishy-washy because they don't want to die. They'll believe any and everything in any season and every season just to live. And that's not manhood. At least to me it's not.

Shamma And The Field Of Lentils

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So today we're talking about Shamma. And Shamma defended something that everyone else decided was not worth fighting. Again, men running. Men thinking it's not worth fighting. And for Shamma, it was a field of beans, lentils. The enemy showed up to take their beans. Everyone ran, except for one man. Shamma stood in the middle of that field and defended it. And because he did not run, because he believed in God, God brought him a great victory. This episode is for every man who has ever questioned whether the small things he protects, builds, and maintains really matters. Men, listen to me when I say your home matters. Your integrity matters. Your children matter. Your mental health matters. Your fate matters. The small fields God's placed in your care, they matter. 2 Samuel 23, 11 and 12 says, or tells us, that the Philistines gathered at the field full of lentils. The Israelite soldiers fled. But Shamma positioned himself in the middle of the field, defended it, struck down the enemy, and the Lord brought about a great victory. I want you to pause and think about that. Everybody else saw a field of beans. Shamma saw something worth protecting. Everybody else saw something replaceable. Shamma saw an assignment. Everybody else ran from the pressure. Shamma planted his feet in the middle of what had been entrusted to

My Confession About Running

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him. There are times I feel less than a man when I think about my previous marriage and the type of man I was. I was a coward. I was afraid. Not because I didn't want to be, because I wanted to be a good person. That's just who I am as a person. I want to be kind. I want to be nice. I want to be good. I want to be the best version of a man that I can be for me, not for anyone else. And there are times where I get super depressed because I sometimes think about the pain I cause people in my life that I said I loved. But now looking back, I did not love myself. So I questioned could I have ever loved these people or that person? Was I convicted? Yes. I was always convicted. I knew what I should be doing. I knew the assignment that God put on my heart. He gave me something that was precious. And instead of positioning myself in the middle and fighting, I ran. So in having a conversation earlier about men who run, there's beauty in life. You can be a man who runs from the pressure, and then you can stop running. Sit in that field and fight to the death. That's the beauty of life. You don't always have to run. You can stop running. And I think I'm at a place in my life where I'm not running anymore. I'm willing to die on the assignment that God has given me. I'm going to be dead anyway in the next 40 to 50 years. That's my mindset. I'm already going to die. I'm not dying running from what God has placed in my life to do. I am on an assignment. We are on assignment. Men, you are on an assignment. Stop running. Face and fight whatever it is that God has placed in your life. And sometimes I don't feel I feel like I don't deserve the life that I have now because of the life that I lived before. But God is a merciful God. He listens and he does judge. But he loves, he corrects, and he strengthens. And I'm in a place now in my life where God has is strengthening me to be a better man, to call out the weak man that was inside of me before, and slowly start working to get stronger and better for myself and for the people in

The Ordinary Man’s Hidden Battle

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my life. So Shamma's story is the same story of a man that's living in 2026. This man wakes up every morning, goes to work, pays bills, takes his children to practice, checks on his mom, tries to be present in his marriage, tries to pray, tries to stay disciplined, tries to manage stress without taking it out on everyone else. No one's applauding him, no one's posting about him, no one's calling him successful. His life doesn't look impressive online. He's not famous, he's not wealthy, he's not standing on a stage. He's simply trying to protect what God placed in his care. His family, his character, his peace, his fate, his health. But some days he wonders whether any of it matters. He watches other people get recognition. Other people make money. Other people build bigger platforms, and he starts to think to himself, maybe I'm not doing enough. Maybe my life is just ordinary. Maybe this little field I'm protecting doesn't matter. Then the pressure shows up. His marriage gets difficult. His son starts to pull away. Money gets tight, work becomes stressful, old habits begin to call his name, and suddenly walking away feels easier than standing. That man is standing in Shama's field. Different year, different enemies, same decisions. Will I abandon what God entrusted me because it looks small? Or will I stand in the middle of it and defend it? The Bible tells us everybody ran. Again, this is the third mighty man who we've studied and we see a similar pattern. Pressure arrives, people retreat. It doesn't mean that those men are bad. It just means they were afraid. Maybe they ran because they were tired. Maybe they ran because they convinced themselves that the thing under attack was not valuable enough to defend. Maybe they ran because they didn't believe that God could help them get the victory. And that's how the enemy works. He doesn't always tell you that you can't win, but he will say, is this battle worth fighting for? Do you want to die here? It's just your marriage. You can always start another family. It's just your reputation. Everyone lies. Cheats. Drinks. Steals. It's just one drink. It's just one pornographic video. It's just one missprayer. It's just one social media like of the big booty Latina girl that then creates her like in your page. And then now there's messages and DMs back and forth. And then four months from now you find yourself in her bed. It's just one miss prayer. You don't pray one day. Then you wake up six months later and you haven't prayed for six months. And you're angry and you're frustrated and you're confused and you're lost because you don't have that connection anymore off just that one prayer. It's just your mental health. Men are supposed to deal with it. It's just a field of beings. The enemy, the enemy, wants you to abandon the field before you recognize what it can produce. And I'm going to be 100 with y'all. When people hear this story, they start to question, why would someone fight over a field of beans? Why would you risk your life fighting for beans? Why not let the enemy take it? They're beans. You can grow beans somewhere else, right? But the field represented more than just beans. It represented provision. Food for your family. Work that you've already invested. Seeds that's already been planted. The harvest that people need. So the enemy isn't just stealing your crop. It's stealing what sustained the community. And Shama understood something that other people missed. What looks small can still be scarce when God has placed it in your care. Your children may not seem important to the world. Raise them anyway. Your marriage may not get an applause. Fight for it anyway. Your private integrity may never go viral. Protect it anyway. Your recovery may happen one day at a time. Stay committed anyway. Your prayer life seems ordinary. Keep praying anyway. Not everything valuable looks impressive. And I think that's one of the issues that a lot of men are facing. They equate value with impressiveness. And a lot of times, people aren't going to be impressed by what you do. How you do it, how you say it, when you say it, who you love, how you love. And so you have to ask yourself the question: am I doing it for other people? Or am I doing it to be the best possible version of myself? For me, for my family, for my kids, for my wife, for my community. Who cares if people don't think that what you do isn't impressive? Because you're changing lives. You're inspiring, you're motivating, you're pushing the needle forward. And sometimes pushing the needle forward doesn't impress people. But you are leaving a ripple effect that has the potential to change the next generation. That's impressive. And no one might never see it. And that's okay.

Standing In The Middle Is Leadership

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The Bible says that Shama stood in the middle of the field. And I love that detail. He didn't run to one side or the other side. He went to the middle and said, Here I am, come get me. He did not defend it from a distance. He did not post about it. He did not complain about how nobody else was helping. He positioned himself in the center of the assignment. That's leadership. Leadership is not only telling people what matters. Leadership is standing in the middle of what matters. Men, you are standing in the middle of your family. You're not just paying bills. You are present. You are listening. You are teaching. You are loving. You are correcting. You are apologizing. Are you standing in the middle of your mental health? Not pretending, paying attention to what happens inside of you. Are you standing in the middle of your faith? Not borrowing someone else's relationship with God, but building your own? Are you standing in the middle of your purpose? Or are you watching your field get taken while waiting for somebody else to protect it? Now I want to make an important distinction. Protecting your family does not mean controlling everyone in it. Some men confuse leadership with domination. They think protecting means making every decision, demanding obedience, silencing disagreements. That is not biblical leadership. Protection creates safety. Control creates fear. Protection listens. Control demands. Protection serves. Controls uses people. Protection takes responsibility. Control avoids accountability. Shama stood against the enemy, attacking the field. He did not attack the people inside the field. So do not become the danger. You claim to be protected from your family. Defending your home also means confronting your own anger, your own pride, your manipulation, your emotional abuse, your emotional absence, your addictions. Sometimes the greatest threat to the field is not outside of us. Sometimes it is the unhealed behavior we bring into it. And a lot of men protect everything except themselves. We protect our house, the vehicle, the money, the children, the jobs, the reputation. But we neglect our minds. We ignore anxiety until it controls us. We ignore depression until we cannot feel anything. We ignore exhaustion until we become angry at everyone. We ignore grief until it turns into isolation. Your mental health is part of the field God has entrusted to you. Taking care of your mind is not selfish. It helps you remain present for the people who need you. You cannot protect your family while refusing to acknowledge that you are falling apart. Sometimes defending the field means scheduling counseling sessions. Sometimes it means calling a brother. Sometimes it means resting, sleeping, sleeping in, and not feeling bad about it. Sometimes it means saying I am not okay. Sometimes it means leaving a destructive environment. Standing your ground does not mean remaining in abuse or unnecessary danger. Faithfulness is not the same as allowing people to destroy you. Wisdom knows the difference between a difficult assignment and a harmful situation.

Small Choices Build Lasting Legacy

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And for some odd reason, we live in a world obsessed with big moments, big launchers, big promotions, big platforms, big accomplishments. But most lives are built through small decisions consistently. A five-minute conversation with your kid, prayer before work, turning your phone off before dinner, choosing honesty when lying would be easier, walking away from temptation, keeping your word, getting up after a bad day. These things look like lintels, small, ordinary, unimpressive. But over time, those small acts become character. They become trust. They become legacy. Big lives are usually built by men who took small responsibilities seriously. So I want you to ask yourself, what field have you abandoned? And this is where the conversation gets uncomfortable. What field have you stopped protecting? Your marriage, physical health, mental health, relationship with children, integrity, fate, purpose. Maybe you did not walk away physically. Maybe you're still there, but emotionally you have left a long time ago. You come home, but you're not present. You say you believe in God, but you're not seeking Him. You say your marriage matters, but you refuse to make and have the difficult conversations. You refuse to stop watching porn. You refuse to stop left after other women. You say your health matters, but you continue feeding the habits that destroyed it. You say your calling matters, but fear keeps making your decisions. Being near the field is not the same as defending it. Shamma stood in the middle. And you have to understand that when you make that choice to stand in the middle, you're most likely going to stand alone for a little bit. But that does not mean as a man you should isolate yourself. Because we need brotherhood. We need community. We need accountability. There will be moments when doing what is right feels lonely. You may be that first man in your family to go to counseling, the first to apologize, the first to stop drinking, the first to become emotionally honest, the first to lead your children differently, the first to break generational cycles, and people may not understand it at first, but stand anyway. Your courage may create a path others eventually follow. Sometimes you just have to be the first one to do it. Just like Eleazar's story, Shamma's account makes one thing clear the victory came from God. Shamma stood, Shamma fought, Shamma defended the fields, but the Lord brought the victory. That means your responsibility is not controlling every outcome. It is faithful obedience. And we keep coming back to this. You have to be obedient, you have to be faithful. And God will lead you to the victory. You cannot force your children to make every right choice, but you can lead them faithfully. You cannot guarantee that every relationship will survive, but you can show up with honesty and integrity. You cannot control what everyone thinks about you, but you can protect your character. You cannot guarantee success, but you can refuse to abandon your assignment. Stand in that field and trust God with your harvest. First Corinthians 15 and 58 tells us to remain steadfast and immovable, giving ourselves fully to God's work because our labor in the Lord is not wasted. That fits Shama perfectly. His field did not look glamorous, but his work was not wasted. Men, your faithfulness is not wasted neither. The prayers that no one hears, the sacrifices that no one sees, the conversation no one celebrates, the temptation you resisted, the anger you controlled, the apology you gave, the boundary you set, the child you encouraged, none of it was wasted. God sees what the world overlooks. And sometimes we need to stop worrying about what the world sees and worry about what God sees. Because what he sees is way more important.

Identify Your Field And Act

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So this week, identify your field. You don't gotta choose ten things. Choose one. What has God clearly entrusted you that you have been neglecting? Then answer these three questions. Or ask these three questions. What is attacking my field? Why have I been tempted to abandon it? What is one action I can take today to protect it? Maybe that action is calling your spouse, deleting that app, scheduling therapy, having breakfast with your kid, opening your Bible again, returning to the gym, asking another man to help hold you accountable. Don't wait for a perfect plan. Take one faithful step. Shama did not defend a palace. He defended a field. He did not defend something impressive. He defended something that was entrusted to him. And because he stood, families were fed, provisions were protected, the enemy was pushed back, and God received the glory. Not every assignment will put your name in lights. Some assignments simply require you to stand in an ordinary field and refuse to let the enemy take what God placed in your care. So here's my question to you. What field has God entrusted to you? And are you protecting it? Men, stand in your marriage, stand in your integrity, stand in your faith, stand in your healing, stand in your purpose, stand in your responsibility, not with pride, not with control, not by pretending you're never struggled. Stand with humility, stand with wisdom, stand with help from your brothers, stand with God, because what others call small may be the very thing God uses to sustain generations.

Final Encouragement And Subscribe

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So if anyone has told you today that they love you, let me be the first to say I love you. You are awesome. You are amazing. You deserve the best that this world has to offer. Do not give up, do not quit. The world does not get easier, but y'all get stronger. Have a blessed weekend. Bye bye.

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Thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And for daily motivational and up-to-date content, follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Excellence Above Talent. And remember, keep moving forward, never give up, and you are never alone in this battle. We'll see you next time.