Last Sunday, I came back to Junior church. They were playing octopus tag like a video game. James, the game director, would walk or run, try or really not based on the levels –easy, medium, hard, or (my fav) impossible. The kids would tell him what level was next, but as one little kid boasted about winning the game-James replied, “You can’t win on easy mode!”

I liked that. You can’t really win unless the victory takes work. We have a microwave mentality. Everything now-but that isn’t victory–we didn’t get our country by 55 men signing a sheet of paper–the founding fathers had to fight the revolutionary war. Hitler regime was beaten-not by the propaganda machine of the USA but by the joint effort of the entire allied war effort. Things worth doing, worth winning, take effort in real life–sure in games you can use cheat codes and become invincible but that really isn’t beating the game and it certainly doesn’t work in real life.

And since the essence of the truly real life is the Christian life, you can’t really win in easy mode against the forces that war against us spiritually.  It takes effort–real sustained effort to win in the battle against your flesh. It takes constant care, preperation, and above all devotion–to live the Christian life. This was proven by people like Bill Borden, Hudson Taylor, Jim Elliot, David Livingston, Moody, and the many others that successfully joined Paul in saying, “I’ve kept the faith, I’ve finished my course.” Or in modern terms–”I won.”

But the truly awesome thing is that according to the promises of John 1, all of us that believe in Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior have the power from God to win in the task of being a child of God. We can win–it’s not a cake walk. It’s not on easy mode, but we can have victory–but it takes work.

Why should taxpayers pay for everyone else to have insurance? They don’t answer that. Why can’t we pursue legitimate health care reform-fixing the current system? They don’t answer that either. We have a problem, and it has been ignored for years, like the cheap loans problem that spurred the current economic problems. Our health care system needs some checks and balances, but why is the federal government trying to replace it with itself. It’s just another nail in the coffin of American freedom and another huge win for big government. And if they have to buy votes from senators with special treatment, so be it. If they have to lie, slander, bribe, threaten, or cajole they’ll do that too.

And when they come gunning for a freedom you hold dear, they’ll do the same thing. Pray that our current rulers learn to emulate our founding fathers and not Big Brother from 1984.

Of course, no answers are available through Washington. They are proving beyond reasonable doubt that they don’t have the moral fortitude to do what is right. Pray people, the God of heaven rules on earth; He can solve all problems and He doesn’t need to bribe people for their votes.

Now, at first, it got me thinking about the difference in beauty. Where Marilyn’s beauty was from her sensual appeal; Audrey Hepburn was different. In Hepburn, you have an attractive woman with depth of character and intrigue–which is a higher quality beauty. Marilyn Monroe is also very pretty, but she comes across as loose or cheap. Her actions and modesty issues produced a persona of a plaything rather than that of a valuable beautiful woman. 

Both of the women were pretty, no one would argue that either wasn’t; but one presented herself as much more than a pretty face, while the other reveled in only that.  Then I noticed something else. Two life-size photos of the two actresses. Marylin in a once-piece swimsuit and Audrey in an evening dress.

Marylin was not skinny! She wasn’t fat but she totally lacked that nearly twiggish body type that our society currently tries to elevate to the position of truly beautiful. If Marylin Monroe would be too big for our society’s current obsession of beauty, who isn’t?  Something is definitely wrong!

The thing is the “natural beauties” of the silver screen are nothing natural. If you don’t believe me, go to the local pool during water aerobics. I also suggest you don’t eat first. Those ”natural bodies” will cure you of wanting to see! Those unfortunate enough to be the beauties of Hollywood can’t really enjoy life-They must constantly maintain their petite to super-petite physiques. Marylin Monroe was pretty; I don’t think she used that gift well, but she was a beauty and no one would argue differently. However, she was not a skinny body sculpture of today’s obsessed culture.

What the problem is, is that we have allowed those that have been blessed with good features and then abused themselves to extremes to manipulate those features to be the standard of beauty. But as a twenty minute swim at the local pool will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt; all those feautres are fleeting. Time will not be put off. It will conquer any physique.

But then that brings me back to Audrey Hepburn. She had something more than physical beauty. She was not just a pretty face, but a lady with class and character. I can speak from a guy’s perspective, being pretty is great; but a girl with class and character is a prize that is really attractive.

Hmmm. I am no great member of the intellectual elite. But taking America’s wealthiest citizens and taxing them more and more and more doesn’t seem to be fair. Why should the wealthy have to pay more taxes than the poor? Isn’t there equity in the law? How can paying upwards of thirty percent in taxes while others pay nothing or close to it be fair?

I realize that I am defending a group of people that are totally without sympathy in this current society. People without stuff have always looked to those who have stuff with envy. The battle cry of the populace has always been that the rich deserve to have their riches taken away. That is why Robin Hood’s mantra is considered heroic, and why Marx, a man that never worked in his life, could create such a seductive economic philosophy. “Take from the rich and give to the poor!” is not good economic theory, although it does unify the masses against anyone who is better off than themselves. But here is a thought that might deserve some consideration, “Didn’t the rich earn their money?”

Take Bill Gates for instance; sure he’s richer than most everyone, but didn’t he sell most everyone a computer program? “But Gates didn’t work for that money!” Okay, I’ll concede that he didn’t go door-to-door like Kirby vacuum salesmen, but just because he didn’t do all the work does that mean he didn’t earn the money. From what I understand of economic theory, there are three things that are required for production to take place; work, resources, and facilities. Any of the above will not produce goods without the others, you need a farmer, seeds and a field; you need a worker, materials, and a factory.  All of those cost money! Workers don’t work for free; basic materials aren’t free; factories aren’t made or maintained for free. All the economy requires money, the economic power to accomplish something.    

If all parts of the economy require money, where does that money come from? How do companies start? Well, there are primarily two sources of revenue for a business—profits and investments. A company starting out has no profits; it must start off with investments. That means someone has to buy the resources and facilities, and pay the workers. That someone is the investors.

Now I know that the investors are not some great benefactor to society; they want to make money and use their money to do so. However, that doesn’t mean that we can ignore the investors in our view of the economy. To provide a job requires money, an investment; that, quite honestly, people cannot afford to pay. It takes many thousands of dollars to open a fast-food joint and provide a dozen teenagers with part-time minimum wage jobs; starting a company that can support a dozen salaried employees with benefits costs exponentially more. The average American cannot provide the money it takes to create their job. In order to create jobs, we need many investors to put their money into creating jobs and businesses. And guess what? The best people to put their money into investing are the wealthy!

In economic hard times, a young guy saving in a mutual fund or a middle-aged couple opening a retirement account is not going to greatly affect our economy. Even the same groups spending their money is not going to help the economy to a great extent. What the economy needs it the wealthy to put their money into it. This will create jobs and businesses.

The good thing is that although the rich are going to get richer; the rest of society does too. The rich get a return on the investment but the whole economy gets the new jobs and businesses; in fact, some of the people involved in the new company might become wealthy themselves. That is the American dream-a land of opportunity- where people can get jobs, work hard, save money, and become wealthy themselves.

It is bad for the economy for there to be an inequity in the percents of taxation from the wealthy to the poor. First of all, it is not equal under the law. Second, it stops the wealthy from being able to use that money-primarily in investments that will help our economy. A third reason, which I didn’t develop in this article, is that it keeps the poor in that economic bracket. I completely oppose progressive taxation or increased taxation on any people group in our society. I wonder as the government fills its time with new reforms and initiatives and programs, if it really thinks the redistribution of wealth is the best way to pay for it. I don’t think it is, and history proves it. 

John 16:33  These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Rom 8:18    For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us

So God’s word says that there will be trials in this life, so you can have trials with patience or without it. Which do you think is better? (HINT: Pray for patience.)

I have personally been praying for something else recently. I have been asking God to make me a man of prayer. Since, I have done that I have been made aware of problems in a wide variety of areas, from personal to global. Just like knuckle headed Christians said ”you shouldn’t pray for patience,” I was tempted to say that I shouldn’t pray to be a man of prayer. I want to say on a mental level it is not an easy transition to go from being a twerp in prayer to a man of prayer. Pray for me. (LOL lots of prayer going on here; it’s like the universal solution.) But the problems I am now aware of are not new, I am just bringing those problems to God in prayer, and I am doing lots of little bits of spiritual growing up, along the way. So I highly, but not lightly, recommend praying to be a man or lady of prayer.

So from one trainee to another, keep it up, because God will answer that prayer!

If the dragon kills you, it is no big deal. When you die, you’ll come right back. Sure you might loose a little loot and you’ll have to walk from Lumbridge back to the dragon’s cave. But someday, you will beat it. Someday, you will win. You know that if the dragon kills you that you will get it in the end.

But when you do kill the dragon, it comes right back. When you stop the black knight, he comes right back. When you save the man turned into a chicken, he gets right into trouble again. NOTHING ever turns out bad or good forever because every decision you make doesn’t matter. You can threaten to kill a man one second and the next he will politely give you directions. The thing is that every decision you make is fake. It doesn’t have any real consequences.

Runescape is fun for a while, but it gets boring really quickly because really nothing matters. What if God had allowed the atheists to have their way; no consequences for actions–no tragedy follows choices no matter how foolish, sinful, or selfish. Hitler kills Jews, but they come right back. Fathers are drunks and abandon their kids, but there families have no ill effects. People fornicate whenever, where ever with whoever or whatever–no pregnancy or STDS. Wouldn’t it be great?

But what about good choices? The single mother that works two jobs to send her son to Christian school or college–Her sacrifice doesn’t matter. He turns out the same if she works or not. The Father that loves his family, the soldier that fights bravely, the shrewd investor, the inventive entrepreneur, the honest politician–none of their choices for right matters one bit. Everything ends up the same no matter what–Life on earth becomes like Runescape.

This would apply across the whole spectrum of human relationships. Imagine if dating resulted the same way if a man was a gentlemen or a sexist pig; a woman a lady of virtue or a harlot. It didn’t matter if you loved, hated, cared, or cried. Nothing matters-That is the wonderland that Atheist want so badly to believe is the reality. But to me that is like wishing you could go to the fair to watch others ride the rides and eat the funnel cakes. No, it’s worse than that. It’s like wishing away all that makes human life worth living. The only thing you could ever satisfy is bass instincts–you would be an uncontrolled and useless animal. All the wonder of life, the real love, care, etc. would be gone. There would be no consequences in life because their would be no life. All that makes us worth while would be gone, replace with nothing but useless, empty, tepid entertainment that would merely distract for a few moments before we again revel in our empty, pointless existence.

I thank God that He is so much smarter than us and so much kinder too. He could have had automaton that would not mess up, but He knew that giving mankind choices, REAL choices, was so much better. Yes, we have tragedy, but we have triumph. We have suffering but we have love. What we do, each of us, every moment does matter–It really matters. So Dawkins and his crowd can complain, but I am glad God choose to make our reality real and our will real too. I don’t blame God when wicked people choose evil and sin. I rejoice that I can effect reality just as much by choosing righteousness and love.

Anyway, I am getting a refill of root-beer, and–before I go on, I want say swearing doesn’t bother me badly. I don’t like it; but most of the time, I don’t actually notice swearing and cursing. I worked in a call center and was cursed out many times. But these kids were cursing every other word, LITERALLY! They said something to the effect of “PROFANITY the PROFANITYing the PROFANITY” I heard less than ten words and almost that many curse words. I was really tempted to say something to them, but they weren’t talking loud and they weren’t upset; they were talking quietly and I was just unfortunately too close. They just had mouths that only learned their vocabulary from bad movies and poor comic books.

I realize now that I consider swearing to be the expression of a mind that cannot or does not wish to clearly express its thoughts and feelings. A person that has to use curse words to express themselves can’t be expressing much. One event stands out in my mind as the time I truly learned this fact. When I worked at a grocery store as a teen, I was a lunch. Which meant I ate at the tables around the store’s deli for the half-hour I had off. A cashier and the bouncer like guy that worked with the money were there too. Now, I had for a long time admired the bouncer guy; he hunted rattlesnakes as a side business. To a teenage guy that is cool, not to mention that he looked like he could bench press a small car. The cashier had bought a new type of salad dressing and was trying to get the guy to try it. He didn’t want to try it. She insisted and the fellow decided to use profanity to insist he didn’t wan to try it. I remember thinking, “He cussed out salad dressing.” That man lost all coolness I thought he had.  What kind of person curses out salad dressing? My answer, one with a very limited vocabulary.

Now, don’t for a minute think I am just saying cursing is just a sign of poor vocabulary. It’s also sin. But I am looking at why people curse, not why it’s wrong. I see basically two reasons people curse: they are cannot express themselves emotionally without cursing and they think that cursing is cool.  

Today, people do not learn to think and therefore don’t learn to express their thoughts. Imagine a person frustrated by the inability to accomplish something. Today he would say he feels, (PROFANITYed) over, or equally crude, profane remark. A couple hundred years ago, Thomas Paine reflected on the difficulty of a fight,” Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.” I realize the average Joe will lose a vocabulary contest verses Thomas Paine, but the point still stands. If you cannot express yourself, you are likely to fall back on the very poor prop of profane speech.

Unfortunately, our society classifies certain speech as “adult” rather than “profane.” This makes kids think that saying those horrible, blasphemous words are part of the process of becoming adult. Not true, because nothing shows the horrible immaturity of a person better than using foul speech to enforce weak thinking and bad behavior.  Kids think that since that cool guy in the movie or CD used certain words to describe his mother, friend, or enemy that the kid should do the same thing. The person that thinks swearing is cool has forsaken decent conversation for obscenity; and, most likely, their pride will lock them there. It’s a pity too. Thinking people will have so few people to talk to.

I tell my student this, “Think before you speak.” It’s a good habit. If all of us would practice good thinking, profane speaking will be a much smaller problem.

Sure I could make the almost obligatory joke about expanding waist-lines, but that is not the point. I am refering to God’s unique way of forcing each of us out of our particular comfort zone. For personal instance, I am now being trained to take over the church books. I seem to remember some Bible class in college saying that was a bad idea for a pastor, thankfully I am a school teacher. I also seem to remember not wanting to do this, but necessity is a superior force than want. So I am learning to do it. Organization on the level of business bookkeeping and I go way back-as significant enemies. Well, maybe enemies is the wrong word; at least as those people that your polite to at Christmas parties but don’t like.

So, it seems that I must grow in several different directions. I am not particularly looking forward to it, but thankfully, once you’ve grown your ability significantly increases. That’s the cool thing; God wants us better and loves us enough to not let us stay put.

I guess basically I would like to see our world take the moral high road. I would love to see responsibilities taken seriously, and moral deficits considered worse than fashion deficits. But there is a major problem with that. I don’t think our society can have the morals of Christianity without the Christianity. Christian has nearly become a meaningless word like nice or cool. It has been reduced to the point where it means that the person talking thinks what they say is good. People that wouldn’t know a Bible verse from a hole in their head are saying some idea is ”Christian” or that someone is a good “Christian.” Ick!

Self-sacrifice, putting others before self, and doing what is right despite the cost cannot and will not happen in a society that rejects God and rejects Biblical Christianity. Yeah, Tyler might be right. We may be a few years from dictatorship in this country. So what should we do? Simple, same thing God has told us was our job was back when Christianity was under a dictator.  ” Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” It is the power of the gospel working in the hearts of man that will truely change our society. Maybe we should petition the government for that. We could get a special interest group and have rallies.

No. That would be interesting, but that it’s not the method God gave us to reach this world. We have the awesome tool of preaching which means telling people. So let’s change America, tell your neighbor about Jesus and proclaim the truth into a dark world.  Long live that REVOLUTION!