Missionary Wife Falls

Unfortunately, we are now going to be discussing a friend, a very dear friend, someone so close it was originally thought 20 years ago that she was my wife!  So we put distance between us physically so that assumptions would go away but not mentally.  We have remained in close contact up until a few months ago.

Through the years, her husband became a very good friend as well of mine. He used to own one of the Munich hotspot techno bars!  He was a mess back then - PTSD from what went on the Balkans, too much death.  He was at the site where my cousin Bernard was executed in Bosnia - he told me things which have not even appeared in the Hague trials about what happened.  So yeah, blood brothers.

You might remember my mentioning many years ago about a wife, whom decided against her husband's wishes to go on the mission field and leave him with the kids.  He was a bit outraged, she really did not care less and told me from Chile that she may well not return.

Return she did, in time to have two more children, brought about by a couple's weekend for marriage counseling away.  Okay, I thought it was funny - and true according to him.  She was devasted and wanted to abort them ... and I thought, what has happened to my friend?

So, you know Kris, I confronted her.  It seems in Chile she had become romantically involved.  It wasn't serious, she left him behind, but it was physical.  We prayed together about this and I encouraged her to never return to Chile and only go on mission trips with her husband after this.

All was well for a number of years, but well, last August I got a note from her that she was leaving the church - too much gossip and evil things were being said about her husband.  So, I encouraged the both of them to find another church.  There are plenty of offerings in my little town.

And, silence.  Occasionally, I would get a recipe from her but never any real communication.  The husband was growing increasing upset and at one point was arrested for for hollering at the oldest son.  It was bogus, but it made him wake up and start to evaluate what was going on around him.  Why was he reacting this way?  It was too weird.

Then Thursday, he and I talked on the phone for many hours.  It seems she has been having an affair dating back to August with the same man, it is now out in the open and the husband has been pushed out to make room for this new guy.

I only learned this when I called him, because she had sent me nude pictures of herself.  The first ones were inappropriate, by evening time, they had become quite - uhm, heartbreaking.  My dear Elspeth had broken.  (yes, her real name!)

I as floored!

But, I meditated on this over the weekend.  Warning signs were there:

• her personality change
• willingness to kill her children
• the affair in Chile husband still does not know about
• the stresses of more children
• the stress of a PTSD husband
• the stress of poverty as he lost his job
• the willingness to offer her body, for ... what?

And she crumbled because she had walked away from her faith, the church and her friends.

God gave us friends to help support us, a church to help guide us and a faith built on rock.

Equally, God gave us a task to represent Him and when we fail and fall into sin, He will strip away our blessings.  It is painful to know, to witness, to comfort the casualties ...

I do not know what to do or say.  I can only offer distant statements of shock and sorrow for my vet friend.  She is not really talking still to me, so nothing I can do there.  And perhaps it is best I go away from her life ...

Prayer, lots of prayer.

Culture according to Big Bang Theory

My youngest daughter has gotten hooked on the TV show, The Big Bang Theory.  I therefore catch snippets of reruns as I am usually cooking when it is on.  The other day they are revolving around the concept of dating and sex.  The nerdy guys are clueless, the females in question not sure having sex with them is "right".  (and she has never been on a date, so this kind of stuff does worry me!)

So, one of the guys is on date number three and learns that the female expects them to have sex since this is the important date.  Really?  Is this what the California perspective has dropped to?  See you three times and then I have to decide to have sex with you or drop you?  Really?

I know from a 1970's study they found that if you spent 50 hours in total with someone, across a short period of time, you could expect to either be in bed with them or "friended".  I remember laughing at that one.  But, I observe, make measured estimates and I would guess that 50 hours was certainly true for teenagers and singles I have seen in the church through the decades.  But near as I can tell, if you truly are a nerd, it might be closer to 5,000 hours - at which point you are friended anyways so it is all a mute point.  And if you are created hopeless, well, you will never actually understand the whole perspective even if you are made aware, because it is nonsense.

So, as I thought on this, as my numb fingers worked on loosing frozen bolts (I was having to pour hot water on the nuts to help loosen them without snapping them), I realized just how hopeless natural man really is.  And oh so much suddenly made more sense.

You go to the grocery store and the magazine racks are covered with cover after cover with sex topics that are supposed to lure you into buying the magazine.  The message?  Sex is where it is at, it is what there is, good sex is the basis of your "loving" relationship, sex is how you can find  your partner, sex is how you will keep your partner (that was the list from yesterday's visit to the grocers).  Yeah, I never quite got that message before.  This is the lie being shoved down our youth's throat, this is the lie our young adults have come to believe, this is the lie that leads to broken marriages, relationships and badly damaged people whom never should have been.  It is the lie my daughter bought into, as well as her mother, it is the lie I tried to show them without success, it is lie my son and all of "his" bought into, it is the lie my two oldest daughters bought into, it is the damage that is hard to walk away from because it is experiential and therefore more true than what reality is supposed to be.

If the above paragraph describes you, I do not have an answer for you apart from walking away from that lifestyle, repenting (for real this time), and living a life glorifying to God and not your hormones.  And yeah, that is not going to be easy because you are going to be fighting a drug called sex and an evil agent whom knows exactly how to pull your strings to make you come back into the world.

So, if the nerd gathering is a reflection upon truly natural man, if the state of man is so hopeless that sex is the only thing seen as having any real value in a relationship, then it also stands to reason that natural man can not understand the pull/lure of God because it is not based on sexual tension or allure.  (Which explains oh so much about crossed wires in 2012 for me!)  And yet, there is this thing called friendship which each of the TV show's nerds have mostly attained without sexual orientation.

But, if friendship is understood, then why is friendship no longer understood within a romantic context?  A friendship, a real friendship, seems to run about three years to define and to form the commitments necessary to form long term relationships.  The time period I mentioned is from studies done through the years, it seems to have been verified by my faithless bride.  We did not have three years, more like nine months.  We met, we "knew" we were the one, we engaged, we committed religiously and she lost it before the governmental seal of approval could be applied.  So, yeah, I like the idea of three years now.  She should have been my best friend beforehand.  (Conversely, thank you God from saving me from the disaster that one would have become!  And for the record, I was doing my best to be a Godly man - apparently my best friend was not.)

And I guess that is the point of the Big Bang Theory - friendship has nothing to do with sex, sex has nothing to do with a desire for more than self satisfaction, and self satisfaction actually has nothing to with love or you - it is all about me, my desire, my satisfaction.  Yeah, the ultimate egotism ...

Historically, we can look back to the Epicurean Movement of the ancient Greek world.  Whatever the male's desire, it is good for the body, both positive and negative.  Pursue your passions with gusto because you are only going to go through life once, so grab all the life you can!

Paul did not care much for the Epicureans, the Roman empire loved them however, and with the objectification of all females - it meant all females, any female, any time, any where, were created only for your (male) use and pleasure.  That is what this pagan trend of thought leads to and will again and again and time again!

If you are male, do you honestly love and care for the females in your life?  Do you believe they were created solely for your and/or other's pleasures?  And oh by the way, you have nothing to say about some other man taking the females in your life by force for his pleasure when he deems fit ...

If you are female, how do you feel about being valued only for your ability to be part of a sex act?  We are not talking any form of love here, we are talking violence at the hands of strangers!  That is where you are headed if this trend continues.

To disagree at this point is to disagree with history, which has repeated itself many times in this regard, in various forms!

Of course, to disagree with the culture and the way it is headed is to set  yourself apart.  To make a spectacle of yourself, to draw undue attention to yourself, to invite every form of attack.

Just as discussions over the female slave trade in our culture, the concept of a female's desire for purity or commitment is not really appreciated in this male centric western culture we have created.

Face it, your body is your body, you can do as you wish with it.  But, why you would not desire the best for yourself - simply by walking away from culture and healing, then beginning to find love in earnest - defeats me.

Public Pressure

Pick an animal I do not like to eat.
Pick something I would not hunt.
Pick a TV "star" I have never heard of.
Pick a TV show I have never heard of.
Pick an author I have never heard of.
Pick a Christian being slapped around and now I have heard of him!

Yeah, Phil Robertson, of apparently Duck Commander fame has suddenly made the news!

Apparently Phil never heard of Jimmy Carter and his destruction at the hands of Playboy Magazine.  Sure you can be a Christian but when you expect fair treatment at the hands of the world - you are dreaming.

So, Phil commented that with LGBT agenda we are discussing sexual sin - surprise! the Bible says the same thing!  Sexual sin is sin, sin is judged by God, suprise! the world does not believe they deserve judged.  So, A&E called him on this and now he is without a show as A&E's horror at offending between 2 and 6% of the population is greater than offending the Christian majority in this nation.

Oh wait, I forgot, it is okay to trashed Christians because they are powerless.

Well, I do not have cable, so I do not have A&E even as an option.  But, just to pass on a point - I have boycotted Disney since they opened their arms to the gay community and locked out Christians once a year.  They are not willing to have a Christian day ...  So, discriminate against me - why should I use your products?  But, the weakness of the Christians in this country do not allow them to boycott what their children demand.  And consider China whom enslaves Christians to work in factories making junk to ship to America!  I refuse to buy China anything, even if it is the only item available - I will then revert to buying used rather than new, if it means starving China of my dollars!

Should American Christians ever wake up to discover their spine and the power of public opinion/pressure - entities such as Disney would rapidly be starved, as would Sony and Tri-Star all of whom have made anti-Christian statements.  Kiss off most of the TV - imagine Nelson rates now in the 2-3% as a high because Christians are willing to no long put up with their messages.  Conversely, supporting companies which support Christian causes, even if only by not banning Salvation Army bell ringers, would put Kroeger in the lead over their rather God-less competition (Target, K-Mart, Wal-Mart).  Imagine such a new world.  Sure haters would go out of their minds but then again, they can go to France and enjoy all they seek to make America into.

As just a well documented example of what a boycott can due:
I was in Hawaii one time and the police came up with the bright idea of issuing parking tickets to all rentals cars, even if they were parked correctly.  The $25 ticket was nothing compared to the $600 just to return to Hawaii to appear in court to fight the ticket!  So, I told them the situation, provide photographs of my correctly parked car, ticket displayed on the windshield and they told me to pay up or have a bench warrant issued.  Okay, so I told all of my friends, all of my friends friends, co-workers, anyone I heard mention going to Hawaii and at the end of one year I had amassed $1.3m in losses to Hawaiian tourist industry and airlines.  And I wrote and told them so.  Second year was better $2.3m in moneys which did not reach their shores and I told them again.  This continued for 5 years.  I how had amassed over $50m in funds which were redirected to other tourist destinations.  I got a letter of apology from the state's Lt. Governor.  Never got my $25 back but they were able to observe these bright ideas can hurt them - if someone is willing to make their behavior public and hold them accountable.

You have power as a Christian.  Don't be stupid - use it wisely and effectively.  You too can have the ability to starve public corporations and movements into submission just by refusing to use them or to fight them publicly.  Remember evil hates the light of truth and will flee from it, but you have to have the determination to take a stand.

For me, I am not an A&E customer so little I can do there.  But, I can go out and buy one of Robertson's books at Costco this weekend - maybe a present for Dutchman or Swede for next week?  You can also fight by supporting the person being attacked too!

Poor Dutchman

Poor Dutchman is beside himself.  His youngest son has decided to marry and announced to the world yesterday his choice.  Yeah, another train wreck for his life, as if he has not been beset by enough as it is.

I have never commented much about the details concerning this son because, well, mainly I refuse to allow my mind to sink to such levels.  Let us just say that he has been very troubled for the past nine years.  Both Dutchman and I had sort of fantasized that the youngest son would be interested in and eventually marry my oldest.  Silly parents!  Before he was out of high school, Dutchman came to me and told me that he would not allow his son to even attempt to go on another date with my daughter.  Apparently, he found out how sick his son really was before either I or my daughter did!

And as the years ticked by, that young man was making grosser and grosser mistakes in life.  There are levels of sickness we are talking here so black that the mind has a hard time wrapping itself around the concept of how could someone be that ... broken.  And most of that started when Dutchman was away working in Denmark on a project, which then injured him severely and he was then out of it for a few years recovering.  At least the legalities of what son did, the father was able to finance a way around - with the added cost of expensive attorneys.

It is like Satan staged the perfect attack: father gets sent out on a job for two years, son is lured into sickness, father is injured and loses another two years recovering, son falls further into depravity, father is hurting financially and can not even send son to therapy (actually I am not even sure we knew such a thing existed at the time!), son's mis-behaviors begin to cause problems in his life and spiral him into unemployment and substance abuse, he refuses to talk with his father or even me any longer!  Then he starts to get his head together but by now is living the pagan lifestyle and likes it.  Along comes someone he should never have even met - and now scheduled wedding bells.

I can hope that he will have a great marriage or family or a bright future, but I fear he has willing tried an anchor to his leg and the next time he does a nose dive - well, nothing will raise him from those depths.  And living as a non-Christian, marrying a non-Christian - a secular marriage, he only has a 40% chance of not ending in divorce in the first five years.  Even if he turned himself around and she became a Christian, today's percents are almost as dismal.

She is from South Dakota, so I expect she will be off for there dragging Dutchman's son along behind her, at least until she tires of him.  Twenty-two, four husbands, yeah it is hard to be positive and hope for much other than she is going for another income check.

And, just as easily, this could be my son in a few years ... sigh ...

So for those young men, whom are my readers, consider your choices and actions well.  This young man did not wake up one morning at his Christian school and say, "Gosh, wouldn't it be nice to be addicted to virtually everything and then marry someone because she appeals to my increasing problems?"

No, step by step, choice by choice, you drive a wedge between you and God, sure God can forgive almost everything - but you will wake up one morning and no longer care there even is a God because you crave your next addiction or feel so sorry for what you did and know God never could forgive you - so why try any more?

It is all lies from Satan.  He only has one purpose - to discount your testimony before your friends so they will know you only believe in a lie.  And when he can get you to that point, you are lost, as are all of your friends whom are now following your example.

So, look at your life and consider what it ought to be.  Repent.  Get back into the Word.  Get back into prayer.  Get back into fellowship.

And most importantly - learn to forgive and let go of what drove you away from God in the first place.

You Males Are Slipping Again! Etc.

Rather than go back over this AGAIN!  Males, please click this link and find out what I know about you and why!  You will note the link is to one of my earlier posts, so quite safe.

And some of you believe that you can use proxy servers to hide whom you are or where you are coming in from.  Really, it is a waste of your time.  If I wanted to collect NIC ids I could do this even if you are hiding behind a proxy server.  Honestly, I do not care.  Even if you are my daughter in hiding, your NIC is already known so not a big deal to find you if I wanted.  But, I do not, I am content to allow God His timing in everything.

Then there has been the continuous attempts to crack this site now for over two weeks!  Yeah, I get a little note from CISCO, Norton and Google on what is going on over attempts to break into the site and/or gather my NIC id!  I should feel honored that anyone cares enough about me to dedicate such an effort to kill me and this site.  Hint: you can give up.  I sit behind a state of the art firewall and you can nor more find my NIC as my IP address.  Sorry.

So dear readers, I am not sure what is going on but I seem to have attracted a host of interest and I am not exactly sure why.  I know in the past that I have garnered attention by attacking high visibility pastors whom are spreading lies within the Christian body - but I have not taken on one of them in quite sometime.  Outside of my sister in the Lord and her daughter, I had not said much in a long time to make anyone irate I am aware of.  So, interesting.....

And with this post, I am hoping that I can return to were I was back when I wrote about cars.  Yeah, my goal was to write common sense stuff for my children, or anyone looking at doing normal things, and might be clueless on how to proceed.  We will see if I am to be allowed such power!  The past several weeks has been incredibly odd at what I have been told to post.....

Well, back to math homework!

Moral Relativism

Moral relativism is when morality is not defined by objective and/or universal truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances.  Moral relativists hold that no universal standard exists by which to assess an ethical behavior; it is the opposite of moral absolutism.  Moral relativists often see moral values as applicable only within certain cultural boundaries or in the context of individual preferences.  An extreme relativist position might suggest that judging the moral or ethical judgments or acts of another person or group has no meaning.

Jean-Paul Sartre held that a personal and subjective moral core lies or ought to lie at the base of individuals' moral acts.  In this view public morality reflects social convention, and only personal, subjective morality expresses true authenticity.

In popular culture people often describe themselves as morally relativists, meaning they are accepting of other people's values and agree that there is no one ‘right’ way of doing some things.  However, this actually has little to do with the philosophical idea of relativism; relativism does not necessarily imply tolerance, just as moral objectivism does not imply intolerance.

*****

Oh where oh where can my baby be
The Lord took her away from me
She's gone to heaven so I got to be good
So I can see my baby when I leave this world

In the early sixties, a song came out by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers, entitled, "The Last Kiss."  The song is about a couple out on a date whom get into a auto accident.  The girl dies in her boyfriend's arms.  He mourns her death singing the above refrain.

This song sums up the attitude of a lot of people.  They think they can live a good life, if the good works they do outweigh the bad, then they will have earned their way to heaven.

Unfortunately, the Bible does not allow anyone to earn their way to heaven.  Numerous verses show us that good works have nothing to do with one entering heaven.  It is only by God’s grace we are allowed into His presence, and then only after our relationship with Him has been covered by Jesus’ sacrifice.  It is nothing we can earn, because God has done everything for us on a cross and through an empty tomb, two thousand years ago.

Titus 3:5 - Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.

Ephesians 2:8 – 9 - For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Hebrews 11:6 - But without faith it is impossible to please him.

John 6:29 - This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

So, the moral relativist might argue there are no absolute rules for morality, but even they rely upon a set they wish not to acknowledge - bust out their car window, steal their stereo and suddenly their morality is based on the Ten Commandments – just so you never hold them to that standard! 

After all, you are being judgmental then…