The parking lot was mostly empty now, just a handful of cars under the streetlights. The meeting had wrapped up a while ago, but Ethan, Nate, Ben, and Will lingered by Ben’s truck, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched against the cool night air.
Ethan kicked a loose pebble, watching it skitter across the pavement. “I just don’t think I have it in me,” he muttered. “Not like you guys.”
Ben leaned back against the truck, arms crossed. “Like us how?”
Ethan shrugged. “I don’t know. The way you all just… carry yourselves. Confident. Solid. I still feel like I’m waiting for someone to tell me I’m actually a man, you know?”
Nate exhaled, shaking his head. “Man, you really don’t see it, do you?”
Ethan frowned. “See what?”
Will clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You remember two weeks ago in small group, when Alex opened up about his dad walking out?”
Ethan nodded. “Yeah. What about it?”
Ben tilted his head. “Who do you think he was looking at when he told that story?”
Ethan blinked. “I don’t know… all of us?”
Nate shook his head. “No, man. He was looking at you. You didn’t say much, but you sat there, locked in, not looking away, not filling the silence just to make it easier. You made space for him to be real, and that’s why he kept talking.”
Ethan opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Ben smirked. “And what about last month when James came in pissed off, ready to tear someone’s head off over work drama? You didn’t try to fix it, didn’t tell him to calm down—you just let him be mad for a minute. Then you asked one question—‘What do you think God’s saying in this?’ And boom, the whole room shifted.”
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck. “I was just—”
Will cut in, voice steady. “You were just being you. And that’s the point.”
Ben tapped his knuckles against the truck bed. “You think strength has to be loud. That leadership means standing up front, making speeches, calling the shots. But brother, look at Jesus. Look at the way He saw people. The way He spoke to them in a way that made them feel known.” Ben met Ethan’s gaze. “You got that in you, man. And you don’t even see it.”
Ethan swallowed, shifting where he stood.
It wasn’t the first time someone had said something like this. But tonight, outside this meeting, standing with these men—men he respected, men who saw him in a way he couldn’t yet see himself—it landed different.
Will squeezed the back of Ethan’s neck, giving it a firm shake. “You’re already walking in it, brother. Just gotta step fully into what God’s put in you.”
Ethan let out a slow breath, nodding once.
Ben opened the truck door, but none of them moved to leave just yet. They stood there a little longer, under the quiet hum of the streetlights, the night stretching wide around them.
CovenantRoad 
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