Lust

May her breasts satisfy you always.

I imagine that sentence looks rather out of place in a Christian blog, maybe even offensive. I however find it completely legit, also its in the Bible( prov 5:19). Admittedly that not the entire verse. But It is probably one of my favorite verses, partly because most people can't believe its in the Bible. Yeah theres a bunch of other stuff in there you didn't know about ether. But more importantly because i believes that one small sentence contains a ton of information.

You might want to read Proverbs 5 to get this a little more in context.

Firstly "Always" always is a permanent word. The wife of your youth, should be the youth of your old crotchety old man hood. We shouldn't be fickle about who we marry this is a life long deal.

Secondly "Satisfy" You should be content with your wife. You should be happy she is your wife. You should take care of her.

Thirdly "Breasts" For some reason guys like breasts, I'm not going to try and explain that. If you think about it breasts are completely pointless. Yes they feed children, but as far as a husband wife relationship goes they have no purpose. That is if we are taking sex as a method to reproduce. I mean look at animals, have you ever seen a male dog staring longingly at a female dogs breasts, of a bull at a cow? No with them its just sex. And in the same way you wouldn't be drawn to the udders of a cow. But with us humans here is something different, something special. That thing I would say is lust.

So you might be thinking to yourself hold up, whoo lust is bad. And to that I would say no its not.

But Jesus tells us not to lust. Ok lets look at that Matt 5:27-29. Ok you were right, if we look at a woman lustfully we commit adultery with them. So in order to not be adulterous we should avoid looking at women lustfully, unless they are your wife. Wait where did I get that? Ok so if I have sex with a woman I am an adulterer, unless its my wife. I would say the same applies to lust.

And again I will go to proverbs 5 for emphasis. Breasts have no purpose in sex, so wouldn't desiring them be lust. Also we read "Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the public squares?" I read this and when i think of a well I think of deep water. Not only deep water, but this water if not drunken from is in danger of overflowing , overflowing and running out in to the street.

This is an act of love, of passion. Not some fondness we happen to just share for a human we have become a costumed to live with. This is more than procreation, of carrying on the family name. This is desire, and lust.

Civil War

Jon (the youth minister) preached today, and I liked his sermon. It made me think. He talked about how when he went on furlough, that he spent it in a historical area, so he learned about some of the stuff that went on there. Basically it was big in the civil war, I don't remember any of the actual names and such, but it was in Maryland. The south had decided that they had to stop fighting on home turf, and that if they ever wanted England or the north to take them seriously they would have to push the war onto the norther territory. So Lee wrote up his battle plans and sent them to all of his generals, all but one of these plans made it to his generals, the other one however found its way into the hands of a great strategist northern general. Now he knew exactly his enemy's battle plans.

This general was considered one of the best, if not the best at training troops, and getting them ready for war. So the south invaded Maryland, and the north was ready for them, led by one of their best generals, knowing their exact battle plans, and out numbering them 2:1, or 3:1 depending on who you ask. Obviously they were utterly crushed by the northern forces, right? thats what i should say. But they weren't. You see though the northern general knew their exact plans, he believed that the southern forces numbered in the 120 thousands. You see the south was putting all their chips on this fight, a victory wouldn't win just the battle for the north, but the entire war.

But an army who was trained by the best general, and who at many points with a small push forward would have won, yet the general was quoted as saying advancing at this time would not be prudent. He was held back by fear, as a matter of fact he had set a third of his forces to the side, and would not have them fight, because it would have been a bad idea.

In this battle someone died every 2 seconds. It is considered the single most bloody day in our nations history, and no one won. This town in Maryland that was neutral before the battle was still neutral, each side lost many men, and the south eventual retreated. The northern general declared victory, for repelling the southern advance, but when you consider he had many opportunity to win the entire war, well he didn't win anything.

This was compared to us and our spiritual battle. We read in the Bible that Isaiah asks God to open his servants eyes to see the hosts of heaven ready to fight the battle for them. And we think that is a awesome story if only it happened for us. Ignoring the fact that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. The enemy army is much to large and we are to small. We know the battle plan, but we hold back because it wouldn't be prudent. We hear, to not go to bed on our anger, confess our sins etc. but we hold back, because now wouldn't be a good time. We know the out come of this war and out of fear, we stretch it on much further than it needs to go. Causing many more hurt feelings, and needless suffering. I thought I was a very impact full point. And of course with my very non linear thinking my mind put the examples into a different light.

You see I personally consider the Civil War the only war that 100% without a doubt the United States lost. Not because I think the south should have won, as you know I'm a Yankee. But because we weren't fighting an enemy we were fighting ourselves, the body of the United States as you will. And a few days ago I was reading about how the Catholic church was trying to usher the Anglican church back into its flock. And it reminded me how much time God's warriors spend fighting themselves. Much like states, the south was fighting for states rights, and how the constitution was drawn up they were absolutely right. The north was fighting to keep the states unified, and they were also absolutely right. But instead of meeting on this, they caused a rift and a huge chunk broke away.

I think in some ways we do the same thing, sometimes we are both right, we just have different ways of achieving the same goal, and instead of admitting to a difference of opinion we split apart. I of course don't think all churches and we shouldn't just except everything, but sometimes we get hung up on some dumb stuff. And wouldn't time be better spent fighting against the forces of the world then among ourselves. Instead we squabble, brother against brother, while the world watches on cheering us on as we do their job for them.

Science

So i'm a scientist, and one of my duties on the job, is to check on chemicals, and if there is a problem discard the chemical. If I don't do this there will be problems later. We have a few different containers each with a different label, in which to put problem chemicals. One of these containers is simply marked unusable. I would say 90% of the chemicals that get thrown in unusable, have the same problem, and that is little flecks of dust floating in it. Which got me to thinking about.

Matt 7:1-5

¹"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ²For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. ³"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

You know, how easy is it to find the faults in others? We find this one little thing, and the same thing or something more goes completely unnoticed in our own lives. Here is a small story for example.

A short while ago I went to a concert with some friends. Two of us rode separately and arrived a bit earlier than the rest, since we purchased the tickets as a group, we had to wait outside until the rest of our party got there. So we sat around and waited. While we waited two relativity attractive girls, asked us if we had tickets, and offered to sell us some extras they had. We politely declined sense we were waiting for ours, and we went back to people watching.

If you didn't know people watching at a concert is quite fun, you see people of all shapes and sizes. Kids with crazy hair, weird trendy outfits. Nerds, preps, whatever it was all there. One group that caught our attention was two or three guys, with long hair, crazy facial hair, ink, leather chains. The whole nine yards. You could tell from looking a these guys, that they rode Harlys, and that they all worked in a shop or a tattoo parlor, because nowhere else would hire them. It was great to see them at a Christian concert because these guys obviously needed it, these were the guys who could really use church in their life.

Then as we watched one of the men said in a loud, disruptive voice. "four free tickets, come on who wants a ticket, free ticket!" And i turned to my friend and said "I love that these are the guys, Christians tend to say are unusable."

We got offered two sets of tickets that day. The first group was very outwardly appealing, and they deliberately seeked us out and offered us the tickets. While the second group was not very visually appealing, was loud, and didn't seek us out. But had I not been a Christian that day, which do you think I would have been more willing to tell me about God? Maybe someone who didn't care who I was they just had a free gift and all I had to do was say "Me, I'll take it." These men didn't need the church, the church needed them. Could it possible be that the agent that God uses to bring you closer to him is a long haired freak, with a scruffy beard?

We get so caught up in who people are and what they have done. Finding all there little specks, and we discard them as unusable. I mean who can't God use? Murders? moses-unusable. Liars? Jacob-unusable. Women who sleep around? Rahab-unusable Mary Magdalene-unusable. Guys who hate the church? Paul-unusable. Young mothers, and their bastard children? Mary-unusable Jesus-unusable.

Isaiah 53:2b-3 He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.³ He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

For every single person you can find me in the Bible, I can give you a perfectly good reason why they "can't" be used for the spreading of the gospel, yes even God's son.

And every time God would prove me wrong.