What if the man you became to survive is hurting the people you love?

You promised you would be different.

You would not repeat your father’s anger, absence, control, or emotional distance. You would work hard, provide, protect your family, and become the man others could depend on.

But determination alone will only get you so far.

As a husband, father, leader, provider, and protector, you know how to carry responsibility. You solve problems, push through exhaustion, and hold everything together. Yet the strength that helped you survive may now be creating distance from the people you most want to love.

Your family does not need you to try harder.

They need the man God created you to be.

The Outrider: Become the Man You Needed is a discipleship journey for the Christian man who loves his family but knows that good intentions, spiritual knowledge, and greater effort have not healed his anger, isolation, striving, or need for control.

Through raw stories of grief, failure, family wounds, healing, and redemption, Joseph D. Mize confronts a difficult truth: a man can awaken to his strength and spiritual purpose while continuing to operate from old training outside of love. He can even begin posing as the hero and unintentionally wound the people he is trying to protect.

Jesus never asked you to be the hero. He invites you to ride with Him.

Within the painting that inspired this book, My Bunkie by Charles Schreyvogel, the wounded soldier is the Downed Rider. Jesus is the Rescuer. The Outrider does not take His place. He stays close, protects the space around the rescue, and helps wounded hearts focus on Jesus.

In these pages, you will discover:

• How childhood wounds continue shaping your adult relationships

• Why responsibility without belovedness becomes a crushing burden

• The difference between protecting your family and trying to control them

• How spiritual knowledge can become another pose when healing has not reached your heart

• Why healthy authority begins with receiving the Father’s love

• How to live as a beloved son instead of striving for approval

• A pathway toward becoming a safe, loving, and trustworthy presence at home

This is not a formula for becoming more powerful, impressive, or successful. It is an invitation to surrender your strength to Jesus and let Him father the places determination alone could never heal.

Guided reflections, honest prayers, and original songs from The Outrider’s Ballad create space to slow down, listen, and encounter Jesus along the trail.

Your first mission field is your heart and home.

You cannot change what happened to you. But through Jesus, you can change what flows through you to your children and your children’s children.

Become the man you needed.

Not by becoming the hero.

By riding with Him.