It's Day By Day

-QUALIFIERS-

(1)  Since the very fact of male and female was a creative act of God and saturates the whole of Scripture and reality to this very day, this article is wholly and without apology Christian. Mutual attraction of the sexes toward love, marriage, and the bearing of children is a creative fact predating and superseding all peoples, all religions, all classes, all history, all continents, and all ages, until it is patently absurd to compare it to modern Hollywood models, which rarely has anything to do with purposely favoring Judo-Christian morality.

(2)  Readers whose minds are pregnant with the Hollywood model may deem this article worthy only a good laugh. So be it, but if such a reader thinks that model will bring enduring happiness, the laugh is on them instead, and not funny at all because of this indelible rule: Only the Christian model has ever worked properly, but only if it was faithfully followed. All other models are guaranteed one or all of the following: Marital unhappiness, regret, mental anguish, troubled children, verbal or physical abuse or both, bondage, ill health, separation, divorce (with all its unbelievable confusion of right and wrong in re-marriage), and perhaps even the loss of one’s soul.

(3)  The topic here is not a teen toy to be treated frivolously or recklessly, if one’s aim in pursuit is to enjoy a life of marital happiness. Just one youthful fling cannot begin to equal the many decades of regret for having squandered the first two. Needless to say, of all the twists, turns, and decisive landmarks of life, one had better get this one right the first time!

(4)  Contrary to Hollywood, any guy whose hormones drive him after girls as his primary pursuit is likely to be in for a self-inflicted beating! God never created His females with a view to have males put them before Himself. (Girls should also remember that). No, in fact God openly admits that He is a “Jealous” God and will not share His glory with another. ( Deuteronomy 5:9, 6:15). Guys, if you get that reversed even a little you are in for some unhappy reaping. Putting God first in your pursuit of a mate is not optional, but a requirement with guaranteed consequences. The simple plan of God is that men pursue  God first, then, in supplying their needs, He in His infinite wisdom and ability sends along a worthy candidate for their consideration. No other rule applies! Get that wrong and you will go wrong—every time! Again, men, if you are in a hormonal drive after skirts you should brace yourself for a great deal of trouble.

(5)  The modern generations, in a society catapulted out of the Hippie Anti-establishment generation, which is heavily promoted by Hollywood and the public school environment, has made heroes and know-it-alls of our children and reduced parents and elders to “out-of-touch” and “old-fashioned” unimportant relics of the past who should “get with it.” Such youth think they have all the answers and that everyone else is just in the way. Consequently, they foolishly engage in their own counsel as they cold-shoulder and spit poison at those whose years of experience in a brutal world has made them wise. Instead of humility, today’s youth possess egos in which pea-size wisdom is inflated to the size of a beach ball. How foolish is that? Such was not the case in former generations. Our mighty America itself was built brick-by-brick by parents and elders who commanded their children after them, not by an undisciplined, disrespectful, bratty generation.

The point is this: Christian guys, if you want to escape a world of hurt in your pursuit of a girl, you’d do well to make it a point to shut your mouth and sit open-eared at the feet of those who have been there and done that and are able to give you insights into how to avoid a Titanic disaster in your young life. Do not be like king Rehoboam and go to the counsel of the youth for answers ( I Kings 12:6-11), but to the counsel of the elders where you can be directed to wisdom. Take heed, young men, come out of your ego-driven, self contained, know-it-all world and ask questions. Lots of them! Especially of those adults in your life who love you, but most especially of God. There is wisdom. If you would be wise, then heed the Lord’s counsel and that of your godly elders and no others, especially your peers, who speak the same language of inexperience of your own little world. King Solomon said, “With all thy getting, get understanding,” (Proverbs 4:7), and the Apostle James said, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God.” (James 1:5).

Now, with those qualifiers in place, we can deal very pointedly with how Christian guys should pursue girls.

-THE RULES-

RULE 1.  Make it a point to carefully study the Scriptural Genesis model. Get that first rule wrong and you are off to a flying crash dive on the rocks of life. God set the man’s created stage by providing him a female helper equipped for that purpose, and then He set the female’s stage by giving her a male provider equipped for that purpose. That Divine arrangement is the touchstone of humanity which Hollywood hates. Guys, be very careful and cautious to understand this clear base of pursuit, and the logical guidelines it entails. Adam was designed in every way to be the strength, head, and comforter of his family, not the head-ache! Note carefully, that it is his logical place to inspire his chosen female to be his “helper,” exactly the same way a corporate head must inspire his employees to give him their very best. He cannot, must not, brow-beat them into it. He must wisely “inspire” it! He dare not attempt to attract, recruit, and hire an employee by showing and telling them the work is lousy, the boss is a self-centered tyrant, and the pay is not worth it. The word, “inspire” is vital to the entire corporate goal. A better word for our purpose is “courting.” Guys, if you think to pursue that special girl for the purpose of making her your helper, you should understand that to “court” her is indeed the process of “inspiring” her to be your helper, and not someone else’s. And that is exactly what guys do quite naturally. The whole idea is to turn her head your way. If then she says yes to your proposal, SHE THEN BECOMES YOURS TO LOSE! But most guys seem grossly ignorant of the fact that, if after the marriage they stop the “inspiration” that won her in the first place, that lack of inspiration convinces her that you either don’t want or don’t care to have her as your “helper” anymore. If that happens, guys, you’re going to know about it from an unhappy wife! Want proof? Just you let your boss stop the pay raises, becomes unhappy with your work, never inspires you to work for him anymore, and you’ll get a full load of what that helper of yours is feeling. That’s pretty simple to grasp. God made it simple. You’d do well not to start up anything during the courtship that you do not intend doing from then on, and then just see if she’ll agree to be your helper. Don’t blame her, she’s simply being the female God created. Stop watering your rose and it will simply wilt and die right in your hand while you’re holding it—unless she decides to change jobs, if you get my drift.

Your role then, guys, in your pursuit of the girl of your dreams, is to aggressively turn on the inspiration! This is done many ways: Cards, letters, flowers, words of praise for her beauty and abilities, showing intense interest in who she is, her family, and things all about her. Do not talk about yourself unless she asks you. You should persist in this with a view of turning her affections toward you and no one else, and to keep them there. If she shows the tiniest spark of interest in you, even if she is serious about another guy, you are on your way. Remember, unless she flatly tells you to get lost, or she marries the other guy, she is fair game for winning. “All’s fair in love and war” is a true saying. Don’t hold back and be shy, be aggressive. Girls respect that, and are even attracted by it, especially if she’s currently interested in a deadbeat. When you are trying to turn her interests your way, pay no attention to the other guy so long as she responds even a little to your overtures. It is her attention you’re after, not the other guy. Listen carefully, guys; even of that girl is wearing an engagement ring while she is definitely responding to you positively, you are not violating honor to attempt to win her affections. If she is supposed to be yours and not his, you could be saving her, and him, some future heartaches. The guy might not like what you’re doing, but hey, if she were yours now, he’d be watching her, not you, especially if she used to be his. If he threatens fisticuffs because “she’s mine!,” but she is responding to you, tell him to convince her of that. Don’t worry about his fists. All he’s going to do is turn her head more your way. After all, if he makes such threats because he isn’t a Christian and she has lowered herself to date such a man, you should ask if you should pursue this girl in the first place.

RULE 2.  Ask yourself how much it is worth to you to find that dream girl “helper” with which to spend more than half a century. Which would you rather have, the right girl to bring you both joy, or the wrong one to bring you both regret? Or perhaps none at all, to leave you unfulfilled? Well, there is only one way to be assured of finding the right one. LOCK YOUR FULL ATTENTION ON THE PURSUIT OF GOD FIRST, not second or third or not at all. If you by slim chance wind up with the right one without making the pursuit of God first, then you will be one of those extremely rare guys who became the object of God’s mercy. Always, “a marriage made in Heaven” is one where both boy and girl were pursuing God first, whereupon God simply stepped in and beautifully merged them toward a blessed end. Yes, you can be reckless in your pursuit; God will simply allow your own choice to freely function, but you will run blindly into the negative side of the law of sowing and reaping. It’s a law you cannot escape. You simply reap what you sow. All of us do, with absolutely no exceptions. Not even God will prevent the consequences of your stubborn foolishness.

RULE 3.  Give serious, earnest heed to the counsel of your elders who love you. Remember, they are the only ones besides God Himself whom you can trust to tell you the truth! Frankly, ignoring them for the counsel or philosophy of  your young peers is the very height of childish frivolity. You will find no quicker shortcut to sowing, and reaping, bitterweeds. Such reckless behavior can literally end generations of a family who  have traditionally served God. Parents know their own children and what makes them tick. If that is ignored, you have sentenced yourself to discovering it the hard way. Guys, seek counsel about that girl who lights your eyes. Check you pursuit until someone besides yourself evaluates her. If you fail at that, you should brace yourself for some jolting surprises. The biggest fault in today’s youth is to overrate their wisdom. Don’t fall into that trap.

RULE 4.  There is one final point of caution that must be made. The accessibility and availability of virtually anything at all on the Internet has naturally lateraled over to become a huge shopping center for mates. It has become a virtual minefield for predators of every sort, especially sex. Please hear me very carefully, guys: The use of this tool for finding the right girl slams broadside into the highly personal nature of the courtship guideline promoted throughout Scripture. The very first violation is that it eclipses the primary rule of  pursuing God ahead of the girl. That fact makes it a blind, impersonal, back door, sidestepping, shortcut beginning toward an act of exploration. It skips the family interaction that ought to be up front. Emotional ties may be set prematurely, making it difficult to reverse, setting up a temptation to sacrifice one’s standards to own something forbidden. Such a tool is in keeping with the modern convenience of  time-saving curb service, a quick-check brevity that curses the time-tested beauty of romance. It has a falsehood to it, while the real thing has 3-D roots, branches, connections, feelings, emotions, touching, seeing, hearing, person-to-person interaction in the flesh, not merely images, icons and written words. In a word, an internet pursuit bypasses reality. There are just too many ways to fool one another, including the expectations of whole families. It simply is not right. Leaving in the shadows the very ones who love you most cannot be God’s will, and will ruin the innocence in the pursuit. Ours is a cluttered world anyway, but the convenience contrived by our society and the Internet has imprisoned us in lives of solitude even as we exist shoulder to shoulder. Such conditions are a tremendous aid to separation and divorce. Guys, if you wish to find the right girl, you dare not participate in society’s solitary confinement against those who love you, and care what happens to your future.

The subject matter of this article could easily expand into a book, but we must end it. Let me conclude with something Roy’s old sidekick, “Gabby” Hayes might say: “Now listen here, you young whipper-snappers. If you’re gonna catch a young heifer, you better learn how to rope ‘er first!”

DA

“…Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (II Timothy 3:7).

There is a line in the movie, Love Comes Softly, in which little Missie says to grown-up Marty, “How did you get to be so old and not know how to do nuthin?” In this metaphor is an amazing human truth. Here we are existing in a world of overwhelming phenomenon of displays so vast, so high, so deep, so complex, so magnificent, bewildering, awesome, altogether a place where we are born, grow to live most of a century, all the time ever learning in an environment sufficient for a thousand or more learning lifetimes, and yet, despite such a fact, most of us are “never able to come to the knowledge of the truth!” Pray tell, how is that even possible?

This is crazy! Besides all the mind-numbing things mentioned above, Christianity alone possesses and promotes the Holy Scriptures, God’s revelation as to who He is, who we are, where we came from, where we’re heading, and precisely how every scrap of reality we hear, see, and experience came to be in the first place. And yet we read that many of us, not a few, are “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth!” Imagine it! Truth’s reality is so present, relevant, and persistent that it leaves us as road-kill on life’s highway, and yet, for all our learning we still exist in stone ignorance of it! It just seems too bizarre to even think about!

This article will be published on an Internet blog where potentially millions of eyes and ears of all walks of life all over the globe can see and hear life-transforming truths which, applied, would bring peace, joy, and happiness in this life and finally in Heaven itself. And yet all but a tiny fraction of them will say something like, “Hmmmm, interesting. Oh well, off I go to another opinion.” Even that comment itself is very interesting. You see, such a person reads my articles as a gathering of information, much like a carefree person merrily going through the countryside picking flowers,eating berries, sniffing this and that in fascination of the world around them in a sensual experiment of existence, all with a view toward satisfying their inquisitive senses. Perhaps among all the things they touched, smelled, and tasted in such a process, was one item of deadly poison such as hemlock or

some other threat. But having sampled them all, their cluttered mind prevents them from having a clue of which one brought them to ruin. In a very real sense such a person would be “ever learning,” but if just one sampling was deadly, it could also be said they were stone ignorant after all.

Consider, for example, the enormous, impossible complexity of just one American Space Shuttle. Just imagine every tiny screw, rivet, gear, wire, component, panel, and tile, plus all the man hours expended to design and build it, the years of planning, the mountain of paperwork, all the training of the crew, the special fuels to operate it, and on and on. Regardless of all of that, it takes just one tiny flaw in one tiny tile to incinerate it all in a split second in a fiery streak across the night sky. All is lost because of just one tiny mistake, perhaps by a worker who foolishly took a shortcut in workmanship in order to get off early and attend a party.

Friends, when it comes to the human soul, though, all of the above pales in comparison to the eternal loss of just one of them, due to a simple failure to act on just one vital spiritual truth. It matters not one whit what the reason for the failure may be. A loss is a loss, and in this case one cannot shrug, get over it, and go on. The loss is a fiery streak across eternity that never burns out! So declare the Scriptures in plain language for all to read and consider. Those truths are not optional nor negotiable in any degree. It is just one way or nothing. As one minister puts it, “God is not saying, ‘lets make a deal.’ He’s saying, ‘This is the deal.’” If he’s right, then nothing else matters. It is time to quit sampling, smelling, tasting, and feeling, and start eating something in which there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Having made that point, let us ask why there are so many “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” The answer is in the context of that passage of Scripture. II Timothy 3:1-9 speaks of a “last days” list of human characteristics. I urge the reader to read them. We see there utter selfishness at work. “Lovers of their own selves…unthankful, unholy…proud…without natural affection…despisers of those that are good…lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God…having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof…” But the striking truth here is that Paul is addressing the character of troublemakers that have invaded the church! Look around us; never in all church history was this more true than right now!

How, then, does this play out in reality before our very eyes? Here’s how: Consider first of all that “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). Such selfish vanity feasts on the craving to be seen and heard. The global movie industries, especially Hollywood, enjoy a flood of wealth in offering icons for viewers whose vanity is unfulfilled, and so they identify vicariously with trained fakers. Identical to this, sports venues also offer vicarious fulfillment to those addicted to the games. This belongs to those “Lovers of pleasures” in Paul’s epistle to Timothy.

Today’s society is glutted with couch potatoes, movie goers, video gamers, book-aholics, faithful followers of the television Discovery, News, and Education channels, besides rabidly absorbing their lives with computers and the world wide Internet. A favorite among them is every form of pornography, readily available. Truly, this is the epitome of “ever learning,” but of things that can never bring them “to the knowledge of the truth.” Instead, such venues contribute heavily to being “lovers of their own selves,” to the mind of being, “unthankful, unholy,” to being “proud,” to being, “without natural affection.” A multitude in the church are guilty of these, and so sit in church with, “a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” Sadly, especially the church youth through such exposure and peer pressure become well educated to be “despisers of those that are good,” meaning serious Christians, elders, parents, and anyone else who try to maintain a standard of godliness and holiness in a wicked world, and so suffer persecution from the very souls they care most about.

And so the secret of ignorance exists with those who engage in one or all of that, then sit around jawing about it in an egotistical “form of godliness,” without having humbly dropped before God’s throne as dead in a pitiful heap! This in spite of the fact that every last one of us have absolutely nothing to brag about when we consider who we are, where we were dragged from, and just how utterly helpless we were until God in His mercy had His only begotten, holy, spotless Son brutally slaughtered on our behalf, and delivered us from an eternal doom in Hell. There is absolutely no place in God’s Kingdom for starched britches, fused spines, nor prideful, selfish, debating boneheads! We must be humble, clean, repentant. We must be meek, lovers of God, and really, I say REALLY, feel ourselves to be as Paul put it, “Less than the least of all the saints” (Ephesians 3:8), in which Paul, in the Greek, stacked the comparative case on the superlative case to describe how utterly low-down he felt before God.

So let me ask this: Do you honestly know enough about the secret of ignorance to avoid it? Or are you one of it’s practitioners? You cannot hide the answer to that question—God is listening carefully to YOU!

DA