My boys are twelve, eleven and nine years old, in chronological fashion.
Technically, still children...
They covered their eyes with afghans, just like they do when they see that creepy Maybeline commercial, the one with the bright red lips, that even to me, looks a little bit scary...
In moments like these, I am amazingly proud of my three sons.
They exist in a world that seeks to sensualize and quietly attempts to traumatize their inborn sense of decency and modesty at almost every turn...
I remember the movie " The Deep" from 1977. I was twelve years old when it came out. Someone got a VHS copy of it after about a year. Back then, a woman in a blurred wet T shirt was about all the sex education you could get...
Of course their were Playboy magazines, but none of us stopped to read the articles.
We all believed that women had staples in the center of their bellies...
So I grew up exposed gradually to porn, little by little. Back then, no one saw it as a big deal, I guess.
At least not most of the people that I drank with...
So I grew up seeing and doing many things entirely too early. At the time I thought it showed maturity. It would not be the first or last time I had wrong judgements, growing up...
As a Christian man, I still struggle with purity of the eye. This is not a popular topic in Church circles and often is left to men's groups or meetings with trusted male friends. We tend to hide it in terms like " unspoken concerns" and never really bring it out into the sunlight. The sad thing is, this is not a unique struggle. I have a book that was given to me a long time ago, by my Wonderful Wife. We had talked about this issue between us, at times and even with one of our trusted Pastors. The title of the book is " Every mans battle"...
Every mans battle... No truer words have ever been spoken...
I have talked with many men regarding this issue. Guys at work, guys in Church, Pastors and elders in many different denominations...
After all those discussions I can confidentially assure you that not once have I met a man that did not, at one time or another, struggle with purity of the eye...
I'm not talking necessarily about straight out porn. Sometimes it's a commercial or ad in a magazine, that snaps a picture in a mans mind. A trip to the beach or a trip to the supermarket, where a well endowed woman in a low cut blouse bends down to pick up a can from the bottom of her cart...
I guess I am talking about lust. Insidious, in it's approach, often disguised, and in its camaflouge, nearly impossible to battle.
We try not to look, or try to try not to look...
The point is for every few success's encountered, there are a few failures, also...
Some had faced it early and created defenses against it by surrounding themselves with Biblical principals, accountability partners and requests to be confronted, if they appear to stray in a lustful direction.
But there are no absolute protections, in the end, against free will...
God can and will protect us from succumbing to temptation, but He will not always remove the temptation... And as long as mankind has both free will and temptation?
Eventually, every man will give in to temptation...
At best, we confess our sins and try to shore up all our built defenses, and start over again, once more a new and clean creature, in Gods eyes...
So why do I bring this up?!?
What good will it do, to paint men with such a large and unflattering brush?
I guess it is for a couple of reasons.
To be exact, three...
I have three young boys that want to be better than that....
Inside their hearts they know that these things the world tosses before them are not prizes, but traps...
But their hearts are encased in pre and actual pubescent bodies that can't deflect the onslaught of all this sexual marketing without some kind of defense..
All three have accepted Jesus and have learned the differences between right and wrong and have read about not caving into temptation.
They are getting older and probably have been inadvertently exposed to more crap on their buses and school hallways, than I really want to comprehend, right now...
I want to protect them.
I want to build a bubble and a wall and a cage that will keep them safe from the pollution this world has put a billboard, commercial or mouse click away...
As a father, I'm somewhat terrified about the prospect of trying to help my growing young men build structures into their lives to reduce temptation and encourage purity of eye and honesty.
I have been battling lust since the moment I was saved, it seems. Some years were absolute failures, but many have had marked success's..
I do know that foundations built well and early will make for much less struggle and much more success, for them...
I did not plan on preparing them as early as this...
But they are in the process of becoming young men.
And soon they will be fighting every mans battle...
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