It has been really cold here as it has in many places. The other day Deb was getting one of my heavier coats. She stuck her hand in the pocket and found this surprise.
Yes, it is a very rare find. It was the last playoff game that we attended by the Browns in 1994. Yes, playoffs and Browns rarely go in the same sentence. We would be happy just to win a game. But then I digress. It caused us to remember the game and the details of it. One little factoid - the Browns head coach that year was one Bill Belichik and the defensive coordinator was one Nick Saban (now longtime head coach at Alabama).
On the last day of the year, we love to look back. But then tomorrow, we start to look forward. We make our plans and New Year's resolutions. I have been fond of using something I called Be Goals which I have written about before. It is the concept of setting personal goals of internal change and transformation. But as I look into next year, I also want to be content in just living day to day. I want to approach each day with a fresh set of eyes and expectantly looking forward to just what God is doing that day. I also want to be thankful. How much God has indeed blessed me and how much I take for granted. I am talking about blessings of family, relationships, and most of all faith. God has indeed been good to me all year and I know, no matter what he is a God fully worthy of my trust.
I love those Sports Sciences videos that break down the athletic marvels like this block by Lebron James into incredible science nuggets.
For example, in this video it talks about the reaction time of the block being .20 of a second, about the same amount of time to pop a champagne cork (not sure why they picked that one).
Do you ever marvel at the wonder of Christmas? If I were going to script it out, I would not script out the way God did. God, the infinite creator of the heavens and earth enters our finite time and space, He enters the birth canal of the same woman He created. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords comes into a completely impoverished family and born in abject poverty in a non-descript town (Bethlehem). He is raised in a town that is not known for much of anything (Nazareth). He takes on a trade that is reserved for the common man (carpenter). He is obedient to fallible parents. He is an itinerant, homeless preacher for three years. He suffers tribulation and trial just like we do. He suffers a ghastly execution reserved for the worst of criminals. He endures hell for three days. That is just a sampling. The highest of the high becomes the lowest of the low.
I can't get my head around this. And that is a good thing. If I got it, it would lose its amazement. But what I love is, I can't say I am deserving. I marvel, I wonder at the perfect sacrifice of Christ. And that is worth celebrating.
I am old enough to remember when Jimmy Carter infamously said to Playboy magazine in 1976, "I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times." It was ranked on Time Magazine's Top 10 Unfortunate Political One Liners. Carter has been ridiculed many times for that comment. Some just think it was goofy (of course men lust) and others thought just too information. But I appreciate Carter's honesty and being honest with ourselves and before our creator is the first step towards transformation from lust.
Last week I talked about the problem with sexual dysfunction in our society. It is not at all a shock to me that accusations against prominent men are coming out of the woodwork. There is a problem in the male community that rarely is spoken of. How we view women is a byproduct of many things. If there is a root problem, there has to be a root solution.
Do you see that you actually have a problem with how you view women? If you don't think you do (which is a very small percentage of men), then read no further.
Are you committed to a relationship with your spouse? Again, the answer has to be yes. You have to believe that marriage is a covenant.
Do you view that lust is damaging to that relationship? And I am talking about just viewing other women in that manner. BTW, this is damaging also to friendships you can have with women.
Commit to taking it to the Lord and asking him to change your heart. This has to be done daily. You see, there is an adversary that would long to see you mess up your life. Ask God to protect the sanctity of your marriage. Paul says "No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man, and God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape so that you may be able to endure it." (2 Cor. 5:17).
Aggressively guard against that which comes into your eye-gate. Deb and I love movies and we know that part of our movie watching process is to avoid any movies with erotic stuff and fast forward through parts as they pop up. There is a reason Paul says to flee immorality. Put that into the vernacular of our modern Internet society and it means we must be fiercely resistant.
Step 5 is precarious without Step 4. Humans are notoriously weak. I know some well-meaning Christian men who have accountability groups. This is in and of itself a good thing, but absolutely not enough by itself. A man cannot be transformed by other men and he can't will himself out of this problem. I find that if I am on the right track, I am naturally looking at women differently than if I am on the wrong track. I also know it does not take much to get on the wrong track.
In the past, allegations of sexual misconduct might occur maybe a few times a year. Now, it is seemingly several times a week. Matt Lauer, Al Franken, Trent Frank, John Conyers, Roy Moore and the list goes on and on. What is going on?
To some level, much of what has occurred happened in a much earlier time and women are increasingly emboldened to speak out when in the past they might have been afraid to. I wonder how much of this has occurred that we don't know. But I happen to think the insidious nature of how we look at sexual relationships goes way beyond specific situations to a society that is absolutely saturated with the wrong images of sex.
As much as 20% or more of Internet searches involve pornography. It is so readily available and so easy to get. Free and paid T.V. also glamorize sex as casual and fun. Virtually none of this occurs in the context of traditional marriage. The goal in pornography is self-satisfaction. The other party is simply the means to this end. It glamorizes how women can exist to pleasure men. Men in particular are really good at storing these mental images in their computer brain and the images intensely cloud how they look at the opposite sex. The can no longer look at them as people but as pleasure makers.
I participate in a number of close knit men's groups and the vast majority of them have struggled with exposure to Internet porn. One pastor I spoke with said 90-95% of the young men (as early as middle school) are purveyors of Internet porn. No wonder we have dysfunction with women, and especially our wives. Sex in the form of marriage is all about other-satisfaction and complete transparency. I wrote about this in my previous blog on intimacy in response to the death of Hugh Hefner.
There are damaging consequences to this behavior. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians says that we are to flee immorality. The word used here is the word porneia which is where the word pornography comes from. He goes on to say that every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body (1 Cor. 6:18-20, emphasis mine). In other words, no other sinful behavior has the capacity to wreck a man physically. I believe that is what David was dealing with in Psalm 32 when he said, "when I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long". The woods are full of people who have messed themselves up. And the list of those that could mess themselves up is the vast majority of us.
Fortunately there is a solution and I will explore this in another week.
