For a Time as This - Day 41

Each decision you make goes towards defining who you are. It's akin to building a house.   You begin with the important parts such as the foundation, the studs, and drywall. As you become older many things become set in stone, very much a part of you. To change something such as the foundation is much more difficult than one of the paintings on the wall.

As young children, the environment and wisdom that our parents/elders/peers nurture are much of what builds that foundation.

Yet the ages of 15 - 25 also seem to be very important. (Specifically for boys) This is the time when one establishes who he will be. The good lessons he learned as a child will help him to develop.  As a Christian, he must take what he has been taught and turn it into something worthwhile.

Every year, every month, every day, every hour, every minute, and every second that you waste with foolish/evil things is time that will you will never get back.   If you let evil characteristics grow and blossom, they will eventually become part of that foundation and no longer just an ugly painting on the wall.

Isaiah 1:16 ~ Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil;

Picture of the day: (old picture)

Sunday Quote - Day 40

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Picture of the day: (old picture)

Sunday "Christians" - Day 39

We all know them. Those who show up to church because of their raising, or their peers, etc. These people appear as angels on the outside on Sundays. But you check out the same people Monday - Saturday. Different story.

If you're one to "worship" God on Sundays and then to go out and ignore him for the next 6 days of the week, why in the world are you attending church? Would you prefer to just be cursed by the words said by taking them and ignoring them?

These people typically are those who just don't take God seriously. Maybe their preacher is some sort of hell, fire, and brimstone preacher. It still just flows off their back like water off a duck's back.

Are we personally taking God seriously? Do we worship him like he is God? Not like some teddy bear who comforts us when we're sad?

Picture of the day: (this is how we take pictures of people who have lost one of their teeth.)

God - Day 38

Everyone has a god. Either it's the true God or it's an idol of your own creation.

Who are you worshipping? You or God?

Picture of the day:

Tough Love - Day 37

Spanking. Not exactly politically popular.

To spank your child, on the gluteus maximus, is something highly recommended in Proverbs.

Proverbs 13:24 He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.

I.E. The difference between love and hate.

Pretty distinctive detail.

However, the important part of this is that you love the child. Beating or spanking a child with hate or anger in your heart is evil. Hatred is not a reason to ground your child either.

I do occasionally question grounding.

Proverbs 29:15 The rod and rebuke give wisdom, But a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

I do get that grounding is a form of punishment. And for some children, separating them from other people can be a good punishment. But for many children they would like to hole up in their rooms and hate the world.

Also, this verse brings up another good point that a child who is not disciplined will bring shame to their mothers. And, oh my is this happening now or what. Every single day I read about failing grades, suicides, cutting, killing parents, etc. Children are not being disciplined today, and we complain that children aren't being raised in a right manner.

OPEN YOUR EYES! If you don't love your kids and if you don't discipline them they're going to become a shame to their parents. Don't be an idiot.

Proverbs 10:13 Wisdom is found on the lips of him who has understanding, But a rod is for the back of him who is devoid of understanding.

Proverbs 23:13 Do not withhold correction from a child, For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die.

Proverbs 22:15 Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of correction will drive it far from him.

P.S. Do not kill your children doing this. Evil.

Picture of the day: (Again I failed, but I'm feeling slightly better, so hopefully I'll have one tomorrow... <_< I'm lame)

Consistency - Day 36

Be consistent to what you believe. It seems that many people like to talk about rationality and being logical but then are inconsistent to what they believe in their daily lives.

Of course I mean strive for consistency. :-)

Picture of the day: (Again old picture, I should hopefully be starting again tomorrow with the daily picture and longer posts..)

Movies - Day 35

It's weird. After I watch most movies I feel like my IQ has dropped...

Picture of the day: (older picture)

Choose Your Church - Day 34

How do you decide where you go to church?

Is it the music? Is it the carpet? Is it the love for others? Is it the rock band? Is it the sermon? Is it the coffee shop? Is it the people? Is it other's recommendations?

In every decision we make throughout our lives we make decisions based on multiple factors. Of course, not every church fits each family.

But what is the basis of your decision? Is it a fleshy desire? Or is it a Godly desire?

Are we there to worship God? Or worship the rock band/pastor?

P.S. I just edited a fairly interesting show on modern day music by the church. (That will air tomorrow.) I honestly just haven't thought much about this. What do you guys think? What's important?

Picture of the day: (Picture from late last year. (I'm sick, cut me some slack ;-) )

Pain - Day 33

God has called us all to different trials in our lives.

1 Peter 6:6-8 Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:

Some of us have physical pain, some emotional pain, and spiritual pain. God has called us to the testing of our faith throughout these many trials. It can be so difficult to continue to bless and cry praise to God during these trying times.

But just as a loving parent, he tests us and we grow through his ever present care and love. That we are even alive is an incredible blessing.

Thank you Father for your love and your constant testing. Thank you for the pain we feel. And I pray that we will have the faith to die for you if you ever test us in that way.

Picture of the day:

Thankful - Day 32

I'm just going to make this short.

I'm thankful for those who love me and care for me. My family and friends who sacrifice of themselves to encourage and build me up. But most of all I'm thankful for Jesus Christ who has made the ultimate sacrifice and laid down his life for our sins.

Yay! It's Sunday tomorrow. Looking forward to the sermon and fellowship.

Picture for the day:

News - Day 31

Death, sickness, and general mayhem are most of what we see in today's news. Some man robbed a bank, some celebrity ruined his marriage, a new super virus was found, etc. I have come to hate reading the news. It's not helping me to know how some murderer in Taiwan killed 8 people with a machete.

Why must the news continually report on all the evil and sickness of the world?

Well, people like it. People are very much sensationalists. Everything has to be bigger and badder or it doesn't sell.

Is this good? What should news cover?

P.S.

I want to know if something in my local community is happening that's bad. But I just don't need to know the evil that's happening the world over. How's this going to help me? I know there's sin in the world. I don't need to have my face dragged through it. Over and over again.

Picture of the day:

Growth - Day 30

My dad has many times said "Relationships drive specificity."

I've seen many people try to develop relationships quickly. They want to tell you their life story. Spend lots of time with you. And it seems like many times these relationships end up blowing up in people's faces. People are trying to get too specific too fast. It's much easier to not be careful with others and no longer be edifying or encouraging one another when you're around each other too much. "Familiarity breeds contempt."

Proverbs 25:17 Seldom set foot in your neighbor’s house, Lest he become weary of you and hate you.

Relationships do have to mature. As you spend years with people, the relationships are able to handle more. You start with a twine, but over the years as you add more twine, it becomes a rope and eventually becomes strong enough to handle most things.

It's over many years that you learn who a person truly is. Unless you can see where a person is going over years of time, you're not going to know who they are. Even if you spend tons of times with someone over several months or so you're only going to see a small part of their path. They might be in a really bad part of their life for those several months. Or be in a really good place headed in a bad direction.

We're very weak with relationships. Around 50% of people who have been married have been divorced at least one time. We just aren't able to handle these relationships without a lot of time and love.

People are delicate. Let's be careful with them.

P.S.

I've found one thing you need to watch especially with your own family is being edifying and encouraging. It's easy to be pleasant and nice with the rest of the world while at the same time taking out your negativity and crankiness on the people in your family.

Shouldn't it be the most important to us to build up those who are closest to us?

Boys vs. Girls - Day 29

This was supposed to go on Day 14, but it didn't so here it is now.

Some of us have grown up in churches where the guys just didn't talk to girls and girls didn't talk to guys. Blech...

It seems as if there's some sort of unstated rule that all conversations must be awkward and not be very edifying.

Why? I sometimes find that the best conversations can be had with girls. Sure, the relationship is going to be a different one then you have with your guy friends. Of course you're going to need to be more careful with these relationships. You don't want it to become unedifying. You want to stay away from attaching your hearts to one another.

In the end it's because we're not treating each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.

1 Timothy 5:1-2 Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.

Are our hearts pure? Are our actions Godly? Are we loving one another in Christ?

P.S.

I sometimes wonder if this has a lot to do with boys and girls not getting married. Is it because we've created this awkward arena that we aren't able to communicate in? Is it because we can't be friends without thinking of another person as "marriage material?"

I don't know.

Picture of the day:

Free Time - Day 28

We all have some sort of free time. Some have more then others. What do we do with our free time? Is it video games? Or are we watching movies? Or are we walking the dog? Are we spending time with friends or family? There are many things we can do when we aren't busy with our daily chores and work. But what are we doing?

I believe what we do should be profitable. Something that accomplishes something. It could be as simple as growing closer to somebody by spending that time talking to them. Or it could be improving some skill or ability. Reading good edifying books, etc.

I believe it should also be edifying. To tear someone down is generally a bad idea. Or even to tear down your own character. Sure, shooting the breeze with someone is great, but it should be an edifying time. I find if I'm around someone for a long time, but if our time together has not been edifying I almost feel as if the entire conversation would have been better left unsaid. But this doesn't mean talking about some theological theory or doctrine all of the time. I honestly think it's a different balance for different people, and it's something you figure out over time with different people in different situations.

And last, and most important it should be honoring to God. Everything can be kind of encapsulated in this. If our time isn't honoring to God why are we doing it?

Galatians 5:22-25 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

P.S.

I think one reason that many of our relationships are very weak and aren't able to handle a lot of stress is because of our constant dependence on media. We have to immerse ourselves in the video games, television, social networking sites, and movies. People are trained by media to make relationships fake, sexual, and not that close.

I think if we spend this free time growing our relationships through edification instead of on ourselves our churches will be stronger, our families will be stronger, and our relationship with God will be stronger.

Thoughts? :-)

I cannot get these days straight... Day 28.

Picture of the day: (Editing audio)

Valentine's Day - Day 27

A day with hearts, chocolate, champagne, roses, and most importantly that special someone. It's a day where love is in the air..

Great! I'm glad there's a day of the year that people are able to focus on the romance in their relationship. But Rome wasn't built in a day and neither was romance/love. It's the doing the dishes, the cleaning the house, finding the time to spend with one another when the household is full of a bunch of children under 10, and the being together as a team that builds up a good romance. It's when one isn't giving 100% of themselves to the other that romance dies.

The world portrays the flashy/flirty moments before marriage and the moments where a man hooks up with some woman at some bar as romantic. But it's not. True romance is growing closer each day over 50 years and laying down your life. It's not so glamorous, but it's oh so much more beautiful.

Picture of the day:

Perseverence and Habits - Day 26

Growth is a difficult thing. For one to become something new they must give up old habits and begin new ones.

I think that much to being successful is building good habits. I.E. Going to bed early - getting up early.... (HAHAHAHA - yeah, I'm writing this at 11:30...)

Anyways.

A good habit is going to direct your day to day life. Reading God's Word every morning before you check Facebook may be a good one. Or making breakfast for the family every Saturday. Or, etc.

Many people want to change things immediately. But it just doesn't happen that way. Your life turns around by making a change here, making a change there. But always transitioning to a point where you are following Christ and the Word in a better way.

Good habits don't necessarily come easily. Sure it's easy to make a habit of going to the movie theater every other week, or a habit of laying on the couch all day. But the good things in life are typically hard to come by.

You need perseverance. You need to be able to set that alarm clock and get out of bed when it tells you to. You need to push harder when life throws its constant issues and problems at you.

And lean on Christ.

Picture of the day: (In anticipation of Valentine's Day. ^_^ I'll try to do some sort of Valentine's Day post tomorrow.)

The Knight in Shining Armor - Day 25

Chivalry

–noun

1. the sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms.

Every girl, at one time or another, has dreamed of their knight in shining armor. He's one who protects them, honors them, takes care of them, and loves them. He's a man who is faithful, charitable, just, wise, prudent, temperate, resolute, truthful, diligent, hopeful, and brave. He loves his God, his family, and his friends.

To some extent there's never going to be a man who will live up to these kinds of standards perfectly. But as men we have a responsibility to be these kinds of men. Maybe we won't swing a sword and rescue our woman. But that's really not what life's about. It's about dying to ourselves in the small things that allow us to become the man who will be able to die for others.

When a man doesn't hold the door for a lady or pull a chair out, he's dishonoring women. I find it ironic that there are women today who see men honoring them to be a dishonorable thing to themselves. The relationship of men and women is complimentary. For one to say that they wish to be the same as another is foolishness. A team is built of different players with different gifts. God has gifted men and women differently. A man and a woman separately can't do half as much as they can together.

However, in a team all the teammates must work together. And so it comes down to the fact that a man must be chivalrous. He must be willing to give up his laziness, selfishness, etc. The same goes for the ladies out there.

I believe, as we strive to be chivalrous, marriages and relationships will blossom. Romance will become something that is long lasting. In our culture we see romantic love as something that we read about in romance novels and watch in chick-flicks. It promises more then it delivers especially in regards to permanence. I think it's because we perceive romance as something spontaneous, something that does not demand work. In reality, the very essence of romance is commitment. This is where chivalry proves to be a significant part of romance. In marriage, this is the very place that the virtues of chivalry are tested and manliness is proved.

Let's go out and prove ourselves to be men. (Not just banging trees with our fists. :-) )

Picture of the day: (Yes, I'm still wearing that hoodie.. And no, nobody's behind the camera.)

TGIF - Day 24

Bam. Here comes the weekend. It's time to party, get drunk, have a hangover, and brag about it next week at work.

Okay, okay I get that of the people who read this blog, nobody (okay maybe... somebody) is going to fit in the above mentioned category. But still, why are we so thankful for Friday? Is it because we don't have to work for the next two days? Or is it because we're tired of working for the man and go do something else? It really seems like it could stem from an ungrateful spirit for where God has put you in your day to day life, maybe? I don't know.

Or it could be because you get to spend time with your family and friends. Which is a great reason.

But it does seem to give us this mindset of a 5 day work week instead of working six days and resting the seventh.

Tell me what you think! ^_^

Picture of the day: Okay I didn't take this... <_<

Online Communication - Day 23

“Hahaha”

“LOL”

“Where r u?””

I just read an article on how people spend about 7 hours per month on Facebook alone. This may be as much time as some people spend at church per month. On average people with cell phones text 500+ texts per month. They chat, voice chat, etc.

I’m noticing that many people don’t like to talk on their cell phone anymore, but would prefer to text or e-mail. I’ve made probably a little more then 8000 posts to online forums. And it’s interesting how different people can be online compared to who they are in real life. And the internet gives you that ability. You could play an MMORPG and create a muscular, good looking, and tall character online while being a fat, short, and weak kid in your basement. Your facebook can make you appear to be a cool and Godly person posting Bible verses every day and letting everyone know what a saint you are, while at the same time spending time watching porn and cursing your job. James 1:26 “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.” Are you being real?

The internet has made it easy to ruin people’s reputations overnight or to create a superstar overnight. It’s a powerful form of communication.

We need to be careful what we say. James 3:5 “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!”

Things come across a lot different over the internet compared to your normal life. People aren’t able to see your facial expressions, your vocal expressions, and your body expressions. One thing that may come across as a joke person to person can be read as being very offensive over the internet.

Take a little time and make sure what you’re saying is “true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

P.S. Haha, posted before 10 pm, gj me. :-P

Picture of the day:

All About You - Day 22

I love myself.

To some extent everyone loves themselves. They feed themselves. They put themselves to sleep. They make sure they're not cold, hurt, etc.

But relationships aren't built on loving yourself. I've noticed this in my day to day life. When I feel sorry for myself and hide in a hole by myself people ignore me. Who wants to be around a sorry slob who hides under their earbuds and cares about themselves? I get that some people will bridge that gap and sacrifice themselves to talk to people like this. Are you the one reaching out or being reached out to?

In a healthy relationship there's going to be give and take. One person will pray, love, and help the other when they hurt. And the other way around. I.E. Ephesians 5:33 "Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband."

And you know what, life's never going to be perfectly fair. Sometimes you're going to have to give more. Christ came down to this earth and gave everything up for us, who will never be able to give him as much as he gave us.

Are you willing to give it all for Christ and others?

Tomorrow: Online Communication

Picture of the day:

Fantasy Land - Day 21

It's really weird the things I think of day to day...

Today I was thinking of how we don't live Hollywood lives. We don't live a life where we wake up one morning broke and lonely and then by that night we have an 8 million dollar house, fought an alien, found the love of our life and had some kiss with a girl in the rain.

Life is far more dull in comparison. Life is about working day to day in a consistent manner. Relationships eb and flow, but rarely to the extent of a movie. Things move much slower. People aren't quite as perfect or aren't quite as bad.

But people want to escape into these fantasy lands. Take a look at the top grossing movie of all time "Avatar." This movie was the ultimate escape.

Why are so many people constantly trying to lose themselves in this fantasy land? It's because, well without God their lives are pretty lame. You're not fighting aliens or saving civilizations with your pure brains or muscle. You don't have Megan Fox as a girlfriend. Instead, you work in some job that promises maybe 40k per year and you look forward to the weekend so you can lose yourself in fantasy land.

When it comes down to it, when you look to God and you have hope for something better things mean a lot more and you don't have a need to lose yourself in a fantasy land.

Tomorrow: All About You

Picture of the day:

Thinking - Day 20

I find it interesting that sometimes people do one of two things, in our minds, when we're away from them. Either we create a false persona of them and remember them as better then they were. Or, and more typically, they grow horns and begin to breath fire. Lets hope we're the ones who are hoping all things of others, and not the other way around. ^_^

Picture of the day: (I took a couple pictures today, but they looked so bad I'll post a different one. :-P)

Super Bowl - Day 19

Today is the most watched television broadcast of the year. It's a time spent with friends, family, etc. watching a bunch of guys hit each other. Yay. But it got me to thinking on a totally different topic.

I find it interesting how some people are to live or to die on their television shows. I.E. I must get home to watch my television show. Or they have to watch the super bowl. Or they have to get to a business meeting, even if their sick. They'll even fight through a snow storm to get to this meeting. And it's great when I see someone plowing through with such determination to get things like this done.

But then I look at the exact same people and see them skip church just because.. It didn't fit in their schedule. They stayed up too late watching a movie. They have to watch the Super Bowl tonight. Or maybe they're at church, but because of that late night movie they watched they're spending the entire time at church either going back for coffee to stay awake or nodding off between cups. (Of course I don't think drinking coffee is bad, I'm just trying to make a point.. ;-P)

When preparing for a marathon you'll eat a lot of carbo-loading types of food the days before. You'll make sure the few nights before you get good sleep. You'll warm up, use the bathroom, and stretch before the race. And then throughout the race you'll be focused and strive hard to do your best. To a certain extent I believe this can apply to the worship of God on a Sunday morning. You'll get a good night's sleep so you aren't struggling the whole time to stay awake. You'll use the bathroom before so you're not having to hop up halfway through the sermon. You'll focus your mind to try to reap the most you can from the Word of God. Etc..

When it comes down to it, my point is just that maybe we should prioritize the things God wants us to prioritize. Sure, sometimes you're going to get sick and not want to spread the "love" with everyone. Or you have a bunch of young children who need lots of attention. But is it our priority to be at church, or are we looking for an excuse?

I'd be curious to hear other people's thoughts on this. I'm sure there are lots of other opinions out there.

^_^ - I feel like I'm running out of things to write about... <_<

P.S. Yay! Go Packers! :-P

Picture of the day:

Listening - Day 18

As I sit here listening to my sister play the piano it reminds me of how little we listen today. We have a deadline here. We have to get to this banquet. We have to check our e-mail. We have to see the next piece of old ceramic. Do we spend the time to see little children grow up? How about the time to sit outside and listen to the birds chirping early in the morning? Of course we must get things done. But do we enjoy these things? When our car has a flat tire in the morning do we look out and admire the handiwork of God? We're so hurried in everything that we do, that we forget to worship the one we're doing it all for.

Picture of the day:

Where - Day 17

Where will you be in 10 years? Who will be your friends? Who will you be?

Picture of the day:

Edification - Day 16

Hello!

How are you?

Good.

People talk a lot. Men talk maybe 12,000 or so words per day and women speak about 25,000 words per day. (I have no idea if these are even close, but some studies agree with this. So I'll run with it.)

What is being said? Are they edifying words to build up the saints? Or are they words that tear down and destroy?

When you come to the end of the day can you say that you edified people with your speech? You certainly spoke a lot, but did you say a lot? Will others go away encouraged or discouraged?

Picture of the Day:

Beauty and Strength - Day 15

I went down the Amazon River earlier this year. And one thing that I really came to grips with was the fact that God is both great as well as beautiful in his works.

We spend a lot of time speaking about the greatness of God and his judgment. I don't know that we always spend enough time as Christians observing the beauty of his creation. In the power of a storm there is a beauty. When we look up and admire Pikes Peak we see both beauty and glory.

Psalm 29:2 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

As we observe the beauty that God has created we should give glory to him through our words and actions. We should also observe holiness as beauty. Sin can never be seen as beautiful no matter how much hollywood tries to make it look beautiful. It's as if they dress a pig up in millions of dollars worth in jewelry where at some point it's hard to see the pig. But, it's still a pig under all the jewelry. So remember that holiness is a true beauty.

Psalm 96:6 Honour and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

God is truly magnificent. His sanctuary has strength and beauty to it. Both strength and beauty are part of God's sanctuary. As young men, we can tend to put much of our emphasis on how strong we are but are sloppy in other areas of our lives. I think beauty also has value. We need to have beauty of spirit. A man who has a strong will, but dresses sloppily and who does not keep his house organized and beautiful can be failing in this aspect.

Psalm 90:17 And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

I don't believe we focus enough on the aspect of beauty as Christians. Christians are well known for doing things badly. Their films are disgustingly put together. They don't put work into their projects. (They wear sandals with socks. - pet peeve ;-P) They don't show the beauty of the Lord because they are lukewarm. They aren't taking the beauty of the Lord and putting it into their work. Instead they are inconsistent and do everything in a mediocre manner. As Christians we should be the ones designing new technology and creating better art forms because we have hope. We should believe in a generational vision. If we care about our children, grandchildren, great great grandchildren etc then we will take dominion over the earth and will do it well and with a passion.

Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

God is the ultimate creator of creativity. Everything on this earth he's designed in such incredible ways. The ways our bodies function and think, the way fire burns logs and creates heat. Remember George Washington Carver spent much of his life researching the peanut and found 300 uses for it in our daily lives. It's amazing how just a tiny creation of God like this would have so many uses. That's just one plant of millions of plants that God has created. There's a lot more work to be done.

Psalm 48:2 Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.

And someday at the end of our work here we're going to go see mount Zion. The city of our King. It's going to be an incredible day when we get to see this city that's called the joy of the whole earth.

But right now we need to take dominion and create beautiful things and marvel at the beautiful things our creator has made.

Picture of the day:

I could put these on another post, but I don't want to post two posts. :-P

Marriage or Video Games? - Day 14

It comes down to the fact that many young men aren't ready to be married. Yes, young men exist and there are actually more males then females in the United States. So where are these elusive men?

Well for one there aren't many men. There's a bunch of males. They in theory have the body parts of a male but they don't act the part. They're a bunch of children. According to a Newsweek article less then a third of guys are growing up by 30 years old. (Growing up = leaving home, getting an education, finding a partner(wife..), starting work and becoming a father)

As a Christian young man I see the serious temptation to not grow up. I recently read a paper by someone on how teenagers (15-17) spend their time and boys typically spend about 85 minutes a day working and about 500 minutes a day with free time.

After looking at this I wonder why we're complaining about boys not being grown up. It's kind of a duh factor. If you're spending 5x the amount of time goofing off then time working you think a man is going to be ready or even want to get married by the time he's 22?

But we're homeschoolers! We spend our time studying geography and staring at math books all day. We're with our parents so the boys must be much better then the average.. Ha ha, I think not. Most of the time, when I converse with a boy between the ages of 15-20 they say they do school and after school, well they really don't do anything. o.0 Really? School should take you about 3-4 hours a day and the rest of the day you do nothing? The problem is these young men aren't being raised to work.

Guess what. If you're raised by women it's going to be harder to become a man. And from what I see, in two parent households, the moms are raising the children and the men are doing... Umm. To be honest I don't really know. I figure most men have about 55-60 free hours per week if they work a 50 hour week. That seems like more then enough time to spend with their boys raising them and training them up. I'm blaming the men. I think it's time to point fingers. (Yay!) Fathers need to look themselves in the eyes and ask if they're raising their boys to be men. Both parents have a role in their children's lives and I don't see the men holding up their end of the bargain.

Now to the boys. Of course I'm speaking this while attempting to drag the log out of my own eye, but here are my basic thoughts. Number one, guys get a vision. If you have no vision for life you're going to fail. You need goals for now and fifty years from now. Otherwise you're going to spin your wheels and be one of those 30 somethings who aren't grown up. Number two, stop buying the load of #%#@% that the world sends your way. They want you to think that a life with children, a job, a wife, a house, etc. is a bad thing. Maybe it is hard, but that doesn't give you a reason to act like a child and hide from responsibility. Plus it's going to be so much more rewarding. Number three, learn to sacrifice. Sacrifice is so difficult especially in our culture that's taught us that it's all about us and the newest toy. Number four, get busy. If it's video games or computer time (except reading my blog of course. ;-) ) or television that's getting in your way of being busy consider throwing it out of your life for awhile. Sometimes these are the lions in our lives and need to be killed. Lastly, grow up. Read good books. I'm starting to get sick of talking to girls who have read a ton of great books and talking to boys incl. myself who don't read very many, if any good books.

To solve problems we have to do things differently. "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Everyone's going to have to sacrifice their flesh in order to see change.

P.S. To be honest I feel pretty naive in this area, but I took my best shot at it. I appreciate others input.

Tomorrow: Beauty and Strength