Brace yourself like a man

One of my favorite things that God says in the Bible is in the book of Job. When Job and his friends have all had their say in wondering why Job is being persecuted and where God is in all of it, God then readies Job for some questioning of His own. He says, 'Brace yourself like a man. I will question you and you will answer Me." I have entitled this blog with that quote for a reason. This is meant for men. Of course you gals can read along and take from it what you will but please don't make it a tool to 'beat' a man over the head with. There is a 'great disturbance in the force' of "mandom" and we need to talk about it. We men have always been at war with many things and that is true to this day. The particular battle I have been thinking a lot about is that little three-lettered word that makes most churches cringe and immediately want to sing hymns. The word is sex.

There is a crisis, for us Christian men, in our marriages and in our dealings with women period. Again, this isn't something new, but it's hitting close to home for me now on a daily basis it seems. Friends and co-workers all around me are struggling with marriage and with fidelity; some have already called it quits in their marriage. Others are nearing the end. I am a part of this crisis on some levels that some know and some don't. I have been divorced once in the past and I still struggle currently with being a 'good husband'. Granted, my wife says that the last 8 months of our marriage have been the best in our 10 years and I agree. We get along great right now. We don't fight that much and we spend lots of time together talking and simply doing things we enjoy. Most of that is because I'm changing and not my wife. She has always been content and happy... me? well, not so much. I'm still part of the problem that is going on with us men; especially us Christian men. We are fighting to keep our marriages together and sex lives pure. We are surrounded by temptation on a level not seen.... well, in my short life anyway. Every where you go and every where you look, it's all about sex. Movies are filled with it, music sings about nothing else, every commercial has good looking people with very few clothes on, and yes even our waitresses are 'showing off'.

Tonight on our local news program (Feb. 5th, 2007) we saw a report on how to make a marriage work. One of the facts they gave in the report was that of the 19,000 marriages that took place in Kansas in 2006, 9,000 of them have already ended in divorce. Can you wrap your minds around that for a second...... Not only do 50% of all marriages end in divorce, but apparently they end quickly. It almost makes you wonder why people are even getting married these days. I have some theories that may have to wait for another blog, but one reason that everyone is getting married still is because they know that marriage is easy to get out of these days.

I will talk, well actually I will quote another, about two aspects that are killing marriages. First is sex and second is contentment or being happy; getting beyond the 'being in love' stage. The author I will quote exclusively is CS Lewis. It wasn't until later in his life that Lewis was married. He never went through his 30's with a wife and kids and wondering where all the fun went and where all the sex went. But he brings to the table some insights that have really hit me in the last few days.

First of all, we men are obsessed with sex. This is no shock, but can I also say that we 'Christian' men are obsessed with sex? In fact it may be a bigger problem with the Christian man than you may know. Do you know that 60% of all Christian men view pornography on a fairly regular basis? Do you know that 25% of Christian men have had at least one experience with a prostitute? Do you know that 40% of all Christian men are or will have an affair? Now, honesty is always at the heart of these blogs. I don't mean to embarrass myself or anyone else, but I will say that I'm not above percentages. Can we leave it there? :-)
Something has gone wrong with how we see sex and how the church deals with the matter. I'm going to give you a bunch of Lewis quotes and then will move on from there and talk about them.

"The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside of marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union. The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating. It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasures of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again."
"When I was a youngster, all the progressive people were saying, 'Why all this prudery? Let us treat sex just as we treat all our other impulses.' I was simple-minded enough to believe they meant what they said. I have since discovered that they meant exactly the opposite. They meant that sex was to be treated as no other impulse in our nature has ever been treated by civilized people. All the others, we admit, have to be bridled.... But every unkindness and breach of faith, seems to be condoned provided that the object aimed at is 'four bare legs in a bed'. It is like having a morality in which stealing fruit is considered wrong--unless you steal nectarines.... If I object to boys who steal my nectarines, must I be supposed to disapprove of nectarines in general? Or even of boys in general? It might, you know, be stealing that I disapprove of.
"Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it: the old Christian rule is, 'Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.' Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it is now, has gone wrong. One or the other....
You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act, that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you cam to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?"

Ok, let's take a break. I know I can only read so much Lewis before I have to pause and wrap my head around some of the things he says. When Christians talk about sex it is always an uncomfortable time. Let's be honest, we say one thing about it and usually act another way on the matter; especially us men. We speak of being faithful to our wives but lust with our eyes so much that if our grandmothers were right, we would go blind. Some take it beyond just the eyes and sex becomes a monster that dogs our very existence, even beyond our marriages. Recently in a bible study that we attend we were given the assignment to write down 50 blessing in our lives. My #19 blessing was sex. Now this got a good laugh from everyone, but as I thought about it, I should have listed it higher. Why? Because it dominates much of my thinking. I was one of those rare birds that was a virgin when I first got married. It was just a quest of mine that I would stay 'pure' until my wedding night. Well, I certainly wasn't 'pure' but as for the actual act of sex, I had made it. Now the downside to this was, I really thought that once you were married, it would be a non-stop sex-a-thon with the wife. I wasn't prepared for the reality of marriage. I then got tempted with pornography and a troubling cycle began.
Lewis is right when he says that it's not sex that is the problem, but it's how we use it, view it and think of it that is. I love sex. The problem is, at times I put my love of it over other things that should rank higher on the blessing list. Here's more from Lewis:

"A society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women. Women... are more naturally monogamous than men; it is a biological necessity. Where promiscuity prevails, they will therefore always be more often the victims than the culprits. Also, domestic happiness is more necessary to them than to us.... Thus in the ruthless war of promiscuity women are at a double disadvantage. They play for higher stakes and are also more likely to lose."

I don't think we should make the mistake and say that this is all the man's problem and not the woman's. I simply have to ask my friend Seth what the girls are wearing in High School these days to figure out that girls also have a 'wrong idea' about sex. And we should also not make the mistake of saying that women don't cheat on their husbands for we know from watching 'Grey's Anatomy' that this just isn't true. But we can safely say that Lewis is right when he says that usually the victims of 'wrong ideas about sex' are women. Even women who strip for a living, do so out of desperation and loneliness. Women who sell themselves sexually do so for the same reasons. Behind most women in pornography is a bad relationship with a man; usually a father. We men have to own up to our dominating part in this struggle. Pornographic web sites aren't simply the most downloaded sites on the Internet simply because of the women that pose for them. There are a lot of 'good, Christian men' looking at them because they feel like something is missing from their own marriage. One could call what's missing the thrill or the feeling of being wanted. Whatever the reason, men are trying to fill a void that porn sites and strip clubs and affairs cannot fill. Lewis writes some great stuff on what 'being in love' really is all about and what 'thrills' we should now strive for. I'll close with this.

"Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but many things are also above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling... Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years?.... But of course, ceasing to 'be in love need' need not mean ceasing to love. Love in a second sense--love as distinct from 'being in love' is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both parents ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be 'in love' with someone else. 'Being in love' first moved them to promise fidelity; this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run; being in love was the explosion that started it.

People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on 'being in love' forever. As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change---not realising that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one. In this department of life, as in every other, thrills come at the beginning and do not last...Let the thrill go--let it die away--go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow--and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. It is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged men and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all round them. It is much better fun to learn to swim than to go on endlessly (and hopelessly) trying to get back the feeling you had when you first went paddling as a small boy."

Wives, forgive your husbands. We are weak and the temptations around us are overwhelming at times. We may fall, but don't let that be the end of the story of the love that we have. Husbands, let your wives in on your struggles. Share with them honestly what you are fighting against and deal directly with it. Wives, be open to what your husbands say; don't punish them because they struggle and are being honest with you about it. We all have something don't we? Too many marriages are ending because both sides have forgotten. They have forgotten what promises are and they have forgotten what honesty is. But more than either of those, the have forgotten what forgiveness and healing are really all about.

One of my favorite commercials from the last few years is by a sporting wear company called 'Under Armour'. In this commercial a bunch of very manly football players are stomping around working out and training for a big game. The leader of the team starts giving a speech to his teammates about how everyone is coming after them. The tension builds until he shouts, 'Will you protect this house?!!!!' His teammates respond with, "I will, I will". Men of Troy, that is to be our battle cry. We are under attack and our wives and kids are paying the price. The enemy is at hand and it is time to answer the question: Will you protect your house? (View the commercial here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2905328199281265150&q=Under+Armor%2C&hl=en

Brace yourself like men.... and fight this battle like a man.... it's the only way God let's you fight.