So moving on...
Whenever I open facebook I notice a lot of my friends posting links to some of their favorite bloggers which generally open up discussion on topics of Christianity in today's society. I've taken screenshots of just a few for examples:
Discussion about tattoos...
Tackling the topic of alcohol...
About whether bikinis are appropriate wear for our sisters in Christ...
And the topic of Christian dating...
Oh and also this guy...I don't know why but he is EVERYWHERE on facebook right now...relevant? No. Hilarious? Yes...
But I digress...
The simple fact is, we are a generation of bloggers (case in point). As such, we enjoy good healthy discussion about any and all topics especially those surrounding our faith. This is good, as the bible says "As iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another."
But my question for all of this is "Are we forgetting the basics?"
Now before I go on, I'd like to say I am in no way complaining about blogging and reposts. I, like many others, greatly enjoy discussing these topics so long as they don't become obnoxious or destructive. So please, continue to post away with wild abandon.
But all I'm getting at, is that in many cases I feel my generation is struggling with oversight.
I won't lie to you, my generation is a hot mess. The main problem being that we, like our parents were when they were our age, have no idea what it means to be an adult...however the problem is that we think we know everything.
I'll say it again: We think we know everything.
We think we've got it all together and we know about how to fix the world, the government and the economy...we're little geniuses about to bring the fires of revival and revelation to the unwashed masses.
But while we can write a very well thought-out blog post about Christian dating, bikinis or whether drinking alcohol is a sign of worldliness, we literally have no idea about what it means to be a man or a woman of God.
One of the most revolutionary lessons that I ever learned about Godly manhood was from James McDonald in the Act Like Men Conference when he outlined the 4 pillars of biblical manhood:
The James McDonald outline on how to be a man
1. Don't be a woman (Don't look for a "knightess in shining armor" to help support you/Don't be emotionally motivated)
2. Don't be an animal (Don't live for pleasure and thrills at the expense of Godliness)
3. Don't be a boy (Don't expect things to be done for you)
4. Don't be a follower (Lead your girlfriend/spouse to Godliness instead of making her motivate you)
That's it.
It was so simple yet so profound because although I've heard so much about how to biblically pursue a woman, how to perform proper exegesis on scripture, and how to glorify God with my career, I was never really told how to be a man.
In other words, I have lived with an oversight of the basics and an obliviousness to my spiritual growth.
What if instead of blogging about Christian girls wearing bikinis, we put down the laptop and went out to encourage parents to raise their daughters to realize their beauty isn't found in their waistline and the curves of their bodies but in the strength of their character and the depth of their devotion?
What if we decided to challenge each other as men of God to grit our teeth and fight for our sisters purity by encouraging them to seek the approval of the Lord instead of the approval of our eyes?
What if instead of debating whether tattoos are biblical, we discuss the growth of our spiritual lives internally and living our lives as a reflection of that inner growth?
What if, instead of giving out advice on how to be biblically pursued by a man or how to biblically pursue a woman, or just how to biblically wait for that guy or girl, we pray for the strength to find our contentment in God first and then strive towards holiness so we can give the best version of us for our future wife/husband?
In short, what if we got to the heart of the issue?
What if we focused on our own internal flaws and shortcomings before we tackled the shortcomings of our neighbors?
"Ahh but Jeremy, by blogging about this you are pointing out the flaws in others and therefore negating the very point of your posting."
No...not really, what I'm doing is praying for the Lord to reveal my own shortcommings so that I may be able to serve Him better.
I've discovered that others too struggle with getting bogged down in removing a speck from our brothers eye while being blinded by the plank in my own. And in my humble opinion, I feel that encouragement to live for holiness on a day-to-day basis generally reaps better results than simply telling others that what they're doing is reprehensible.
So to bring it all full circle, what am I proposing? To continue to blog and repost like we always have been, but perhaps focusing on the roots of the problem and not the surfacing weeds. This is a world begging for validation and notoriety and so it stands to reason that we will struggle with worldly issues.
But I just can't get it out of my head that maybe if we focused on encouraging others to holiness and focusing the core of our being on reaching out in the love of Christ, then we wouldn't even need to worry about tattoos, bikinis or whether dating him or her is the right thing to do.
Once again, I'm not targeting anyone other than the face I see in the mirror everyday...because I've spent the better part of my walk with the Lord rambling and ranting about how the world is screwed up, how we need to live better, and all these other issues where my motivation was simply to make others live in my own little box of what I saw Christianity to be...and I've become exhausted...I simply can't spend another second filling the air with my ego-inflated opinions on this, that and the other while my own heart still needs growth. What I've needed is quiet communion with the Lord and an inward look at the condition of my own soul and to remove the plank from my own eye before taking up the case against my brother's speck.
But this would be a pretty poor blog post if I didn't have some sort of point or challenge to summarize it all up...so I'll just end with this: let's pray for revelation about the heart of all these issues and how to heal the brokenness that these topics are but a symptom of. And let's take some time to pray for the Lord to step in with the Holy Spirit and guide us in our own personal climb to holiness.
And most of all, be encouraged...know that the work in each of us is far from done, but to quote Much-Afraid in Hind's Feet on High Places: “You, my Lord, never regarded me as I actually was, lame and weak and crooked and cowardly. You saw me as I would be when you brought me to the High Places, when it could be truly said, ‘There is none that walks with such queenly ease, nor with such grace, as she."
Walk with queenly (or in the case of us males, Kingly) grace. Even in our most desperate, despicable and broken moments in our lives, the Lord only ever sees us as holy, pure and unblemished.
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