Beauty

Being your typical male, I think about women a lot. Unfortunately, I admit that I think about them sometimes in very bad and sinful ways. I've objectified them, and in my mind have slowly turned them into soul-less beings. Why? Because I'm sinful, and there's no other way around it. I might be a pastor, but that doesn't mean I'm immune to the clutches of sin and how it distorts my heart.

Why am I bringing this up? I just recently caught up with my oldest sister, who is the proud mother of two awesome girls, and a son baking in the oven. My nieces are 8 and 3, and they are more fun than finding Bigfoot. I joked with my sister about how they were going to be when they become teenagers. Needless to say, she was a little reluctant to acknowledge how fast they were growing, much less that her oldest daughter is already being hit on by mindless boys.

Now that I think about it, I don't blame her. More and more girls are being bombarded by the media (it's stereotypical, but don't deny the truth) to be "attractive," powerfully controlling, and sexually "not slutty." When I first babysat my first niece when she was only 1, I couldn't help but cry out in my heart "please, Lord, protect her from the lies of this world" as I held her sleeping, vulnerable body. 

What makes it worse is that girls are being taught to use their bodies to get what they want from men. I'll admit that as a guy it doesn't take much for an attractive woman to request something from me to get something she wants. 

As Joshua Harris pointed out, women these days are performing acts of pornography, though they are not actually in that horrid business. What he means is that the ways women dress and behave very much gets the attention of men, because just like the adult industry, they are understanding that men are physical, visual beings who feed heavily on these aspects. 

With that in mind, men are seen as despicable, perverted monsters. As Christians, men are expected to take full responsibility of where we look and how we act. Sorry, but it's a two-way street. 

Some of my best friends in high school were good-looking, athletic guys from my church. They didn't try showing off their bodies like high school jocks, but nonetheless, I knew that some gals in my youth group definitely did not mind seeing them with their shirts off during summer trips with swimming involved. Gals were not allowed to wear two-piece suits (seriously, THANK YOU), which was understandable. However, my friends and I realized that gals had the same problem that guys had with promiscuously dressed gals. I'm not one to brag, because I have extra baggage hanging around the waist, but some of my friends were determined to not take their shirts off during the summer activities to protect their sisters in Christ. 

After this past summer, I can't help but realize how many times my eyes have wandered wherever I went. Girls, please, there is a difference between dressing attractively, and dressing to attract. I'm not trying to put blame on you, because that's not my point. God has told all of us, not just men, to not even have a HINT of sexual immorality. It's something all of us need to work on. I know it's hard in our society, but then again, God tells us we are in this world, not of it. That means we shouldn't worry about what others think of us. Period. Only God should be at the forefront of our minds. 

I like women. As Paul said, if I burn with passion, I should (and probably will) get married someday. God made them beautiful to look at. I think women should realize that they were created by God to be beautiful by His standards, not ours. For instance, I know that there have been girls I've fallen for in the past whom I was greatly attracted to because they put God and others first. The wisdom and love they had for our Lord and the humility they show was WAY more attractive to me than just their looks, though they helped, because God intended it that way. My pastor once said to his former youth gals "If the guy you are dating or want to date does not put God first in his life, he's not worth it. Period." Obviously, this can be flipped around to guys. 

This summer, I went to a few weddings. Two of them in particular were outdoors on absolutely gorgeous Pacific Northwest summer nights. My favorite of the two was at Tilikum Retreat Center just outside Newberg, Oregon. The couple met while they were counsellors for the summer kid camps a year or so back. Their wedding was on a grassy hill, with the sun setting behind them. Needless to say, it was perfect. 

I love weddings, not because they remind me of my singleness (which I'm currently fine with at the moment), or that it's a party. I love it because I think God is there celebrating with us, dancing with the guests, tearing up next to the parents, giving the bride away at the alter, and joining the couple in holy matrimony. I can imagine a huge, fat smile run across our Lord's face when the couple kiss! :) That's the picture God has for each of us who will marry one day.

Too many times I see couples in public who look perfect; hair, body, physique, face... everything you can picture as "perfect." Yet as they walk, not hand in hand, not side by side, they seem lost, uncontrolled, and unhappy with something. The union was not unified. We see this in celebrities, who look perfect, but we hear stories of the brokenness and destruction of marriage not based on Christ, and end in nasty divorces. 

This is a commentary on Proverbs 31:

"Above all, she fears the Lord. Beauty recommends non to God, nor is it any proof of wisdom and goodness, but it has deceived many a man who made his choice of a wife by it. But the fear of God reigning in the heart, is the beauty of the soul; it lasts forever."

The women I described to have the attributes I'm attracted towards has this. I know her physical beauty will only last a short while, but her soul will last forever, and I like to know that one day my future wife will last forever :).

Like it was yesterday...

Everyone has a story, and with every story a part of your soul is exposed.

Just like everyone else in this country, I, too, remember where I was and what I was doing on September 11, 2001.

I was waking up, just a few days into my junior year of high school. My alarm clock went off around 6:00 am Pacific time that day. I usually like to get up earlier because I don't like rushing my mornings. The alarm was set to station 103.3, a soft-rock station I grew up listening to in the morning while being whisked off to school. Craig & John, the hosts of the morning show at the time, said something about a plane flying into the World Trade Center. Being a non-morning person, I vaguely heard those words and just assumed a puny prop plane crashed into it, and went halfway back to sleep, shortly after the radio hosts casually mentioned their own memories of the WTC bombing nearly a decade earlier. Little did I know that I woke up 15 minutes after the first crash into the North Tower.

As I gradually got up, I heard the seriousness on Craig and John's voices climb steadily. I was all ready for school, and I went down to the kitchen where my dad was sipping his morning coffee and reading his newspapers. 

"Hey Dad, did you hear?"

"Hear about what?" he asked.

"A plane crashed into the World Trade Center."

"Sounds like an accident."

We flipped on the small television in our kitchen, and sure enough, every channel had live coverage of the North Tower pluming smoke and fire around it's upper mid section, the chatter of news reporters throwing fact and rumor in every direction as reports and tips came streaming through. That's when I realized it was more serious than I thought, but still considered it an accident. 

That's when the second plane came. I was probably in the bathroom, but I didn't see it happen. My dad told me about it. Then I knew, mostly because the news reporters were saying it, that this was no accident. 

My dad said all we can do right now is pray. So on my way to school, I did that, but I still wasn't emotionally affected by this disaster. It wasn't in perspective to me yet.

I got to school, and every TV available was plugged in to some random classrooms throughout the school watching the news coverage. Every teacher was late to class because we were all watching. By the time I got there, they were replaying coverage of the South Tower collapsing, the damage at the Pentagon, and shortly the news of Flight 93 crashing in Pennsylvania came in. Then I saw the North Tower collapse live, and the skyline of NYC was changed forever.

Already the reliable grapevine of any high school, fellow classmates were saying they heard the White house had suicide bombers holding the staff members hostage, and the State Department was hit by a car bomb. Obviously, none of that was true, but you couldn't help but wonder on a day like that.

When I first heard about the damage and the potential amount of people who died, I didn't feel anything. Don't kill me, but I originally thought that the victims were lucky, especially those who could have been Christians. I was like "dude, they get to go to heaven!"

Yes, I lacked some tact as I mentioned this to a few of my classmates. But as the gravity of the situation permeated into each class session, the discussions, the tears, and the great cloud of sorrow started hanging over every person in this country, I realized how wrong I was to think such things in a great tragedy. Yes, I know it to be true that if there were some Christians in those buildings or in those jets, they are celebrating eternity with our Heavenly Lord as I write this. Yet, the sudden impact of human loss in this country united us. Historians were saying how this made Pearl Harbor look like minor in comparison. In my English class we wrote down our thoughts and prayers, as a few of my classmates cried tears of worry and sorrow for family and friends living in NYC. 

I did come to my senses, and the emotion did start running through me as I went to youth group the next night, hearing the casualty count continue to rise throughout the days and weeks. 

Each American has this memory of human loss, yet I find it ironic. I remember discussing this with a dear friend of mine shortly after the attacks, and he gave me a slap in the face with this:

"Now we know how the Middle East feels with all the violence they see every day."

He wasn't trying to justify the attacks. No justification will ever make these attacks seems remotely good. He was trying to make me understand that we do live in a bubble here in America, and the freedom we do enjoy is abused, neglected, and taken for granted on a daily basis. The invulnerability of this country was shattered, just like the egos of the builders of the Titanic, or the creators of the Tower of Babel. 

Maybe these attacks happened because this country needs a wake up call; that we aren't the only ones on this planet that matter. The international outreach of the country was strong, but it needs to be stronger as the world gets worse. We keep slapping the snooze button, unaware of the rotting that is happening, and not looking out for each other. Instead, we choose party sides, bash each other, horde resources, and spend money like it's going out of style. Are we the rich fool of Luke 12, thinking that the success we have is ours? Do we forget that this is unofficially (and hopefully stays that way) a Christian nation, and that what we have is just on loan from God?

We love claiming the good for our own, and place the bad as God's fault. How much more so is to realize the importance of God's love? His love isn't set by our standards. His love doesn't have an agenda. His love doesn't require a contract. For better or for worse, He loves us. As a nation, if we realize this, God's kingdom would soar, like our symbolic bald eagle.

I'm usually full of crap. And I had a long day at work.

Don't worry about it.