The RIGHT stuff…Politically InCorrect

So I suppose I should explain why I backed off from political commentary. I did it because I wanted to distance myself from the elections for a while so I could better keep my promise not to get on a campaign trail and run myself ragged this year like I have the last three. I figured the best way to do that was to take a break from going on and on about them. Still following the news, but not as closely as usual. Well I’ve sufficiently annoyed myself with trying to stay out of it and couldn’t get a topic that’s been on my mind for a while out of my head.

What I’ve noticed every election cycle is that the conservative/evangelical wing comes together to try and elect someone who will over-rule 60 years worth of bad decision making. This simply isn’t practical. It’s not possible for one man, with a four to eight year term to get rid of bureaucracies that have been in place for decades. As voters we are doing two things wrong:

1. We’re placing too much power on one man that he simply doesn’t have. Instead of changing our focus to trying to elect people who will continue our vision instead of punishing ourselves by sitting out an election.
2. We’re forgetting that even the President has to wait to get his agenda through congress and if we’re not electing congressmen in line with our vision continually nothing is going to get done.’

Perhaps if we changed our perspective away from immediate gratification and to carrying a vision through generations, we would be better off.

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Earlier today my family and I made our weekly trip to McDonalds and Walmart. My brother, Zachary is almost a year late for his pictures, so my mom sat with Chay and had Zach’s pictures done while I took my four sisters to get the groceries. About an hour later mom sent Zach to help me unload the cart while she ordered the pictures. The conversation took place as follows:

Cashier: All girls?
Me: (pointing to Zach) No, there’s one boy. He’s my brother.
Cashier:(looking worried)What? Oh, they’re all your siblings?
Me: (finally realizing she must think they’re mine) Yes, they’re all my siblings. They’re not mine, don’t worry!

After that she seemed to be okay with it, though a little wary of the fact that I was buying a whole ton of groceries with a bunch of siblings. I still find it sort of odd that my 14 year old brother and I appear old enough to be parents of 4 girls who’s ages vary from 10 - 2. I think it all just goes with the territory.

In a day where relationships don’t last, or any friendship with the other gender typically makes people think you’re “together”, it’s hard to maintain a pure relationship. With the peer pressure and “just do it” attitude of the American culture, we see people “hooking up” for all the wrong reasons. Often times the attraction between two people is largely physical over establishing a friendship and then seeking God on whether or not anything deeper is His will.

The interesting aspect of this is that the way you handle all of your relationships whether it be family, friends, or romance all boils down to your worldview.

A prominent ill in America is the high divorce rate. This is all due to an incorrect view of God. Instead of trying to serve the other person, your goal is to serve your own desires. The process before marriage becomes focused on fulfilling physical and emotional desires to please “self”.

This is where our view of God comes into play.

When all we’re trying to do is fulfill our own desires we are making ourselves the first priority and simply using the other person. The “love” that is then being felt is not a genuine love and concern for the other person and their wellbeing, but rather the feeling of a desire being temporarily filled. In a sense, we have taken God’s place as priority and ultimate authority.

On the other hand, if we have an accurate view of God, our focus will be on His will and not our personal desires. As a result, we will aim to keep ourselves and the other person from anything that could hurt or damage the purity in the relationship.

If a couple decides to get married and had an inaccurate view of God – or the “it’s all about me” worldview – when a hard time comes or the feelings go away, they will most likely end up in divorce.

If the couple who put God first in their relationship gets married than they will be able to go through the hard times and come out victoriously.

By putting God first in their relationship they gained a true relationship with each other – as friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. As a result, because they placed God first they became a “cord of three strands” that is not easily broken. Because of this, anything can come at them and they will be able to finish stronger and be closer together than before.

As we can see the results of the two relationships are as different as the worldviews each had.

However, the effect that our worldview has on our life does not stop at relationships. Our worldview determines every other aspect of life: what we say, how we act, what we think, who we interact with – it all goes back to how we view God.

If He is first in our life the rest of our actions and thoughts will inevitably follow, if we place ourselves first then we will become self serving. The question that remains is this:Will we keep our “it’s all about me” mentality? Or will we change and make God our priority?

A few years ago, Genarlow Wilson was given a 10 year jail sentence for being intimate with his girlfriend two years younger. Now the case has been brought back to the forefront. In the usual Georgian style, things have gone on in this case that make absolutely no sense at all.

Things like why the mother of the 15 year old and the 15 year old were contacted by the state and told to testify in a certain way or have the 15 year old thrown in jail with the 17 year old.
Or how come the state decided to prosecute this one set of teens and not go after all the other minors doing the same thing?
Who had the idea that two consenting teens is equivalent to child molestation?

Most importantly, why are people surprised by this?

If we’re sending off our kids to a school system that teaches them about and how to have intercourse with others, why are we surprised when they try it?

We shouldn’t be. Premarital sex is wrong and it has huge disadvantages after the fact, but we do have to take responsibility. If we aren’t giving our kids a good foundation and taking time to explain why they shouldn’t have relations before they’re married, we shouldn’t expect them to hold that conviction. Especially when the majority of their friends are doing the same thing.

At the same time, it isn’t the government’s role to intervene when it comes to two consenting minors. This is a classic example of the state usurping the parent’s role. The reason is simple, we’ve let the government control too much of our lives and we have grown lazy. If we don’t want the state to keep intervening than we need to stand up and take our responsibilities back.

Most of the people following the case, and even myself have seen this as an obstruction of justice. However, this really boils down to a consequence of avoiding the most important responsibility adults have - to train their children in the way they should go.