Shaped by Desire

When Rosaria Butterfield has described her conversion from a radical progressive atheistic worldview and a lesbian lifestyle to becoming a fully devoted follower of Christ with God's word as her authority and who later entered into a Biblical covenant marriage, she says that God's word became bigger in her than her own desire for autonomy. The Holy Spirit transformed her heart and her desires so that she desired more of Christ and his kingdom than what her old life offered her. It wasn't easy at the time, but it was definitely what she wanted. Sanctification is all about falling in love with Jesus and truly understanding the significance of his sacrifice on our behalf. So, it's instructive to remember that our job as disciples and fishers of men/women is to point people to Jesus and His word instead of focusing merely on the outward symptoms of a divided heart.

While we know it's God's power that makes us new creations in Christ and helps us make positive changes in our lives, this principle of connecting our actions to what our heart desires is applicable to so many other areas of our lives. For example, those who love the benefits of being healthy and strong more than the temporal pleasures of lounging around and eating junk will generally be more successful with their diet and exercise goals (although certain medications, injuries, and other health restrictions may still impede progress for some). I have been telling myself for many years that I need to cut out refined sugars and reduce carbs in general, but it wasn't until a health crisis showed me how much I took health for granted that I began valuing health more than sweets. I haven't eaten sugar, sugar substitutes, grains, starches, or lactose in 10 months because now eating those foods could put me in the hospital and cause excruciating pain and permanent intestinal damage. I choose health. I did not start lifting weights seriously for significant strength gains until debilitating back pain demanded it. Now I desire to be strong more than I desire to skip my workouts.

If devoted moms could have seen the great sacrifices they would make for their kids before they ever had children, they may have chosen to not even have children. But when our love for our children exceeds our love for ourselves, we joyfully choose to make those sacrifices because we know they are worth it. Similarly, our desire for a healthy marriage compels us to do whatever it takes to nurture and defend our marriage because a Christ centered marriage has immeasurable value. Christ willingly sacrificed everything for us because He loves us and because we are worth it. His love for us and His desire for a relationship with us propelled Him to the cross.

When our desires are aligned with Christ's good and perfect will, He will refine us and help us succeed. The more we love Him, the more our desires will align with His. So in those areas in which we struggle with self-discipline or with aligning our lives to God's holy standard, let us ask ourselves what we desire most. Are our desires holy or selfish? What are we taking for granted?

I now see the autoimmune disease which has entered my life as grace because it realigned my desires with God's and forced me to take better care of my body, His temple, which will help prevent other more serious diseases, although I wish I had followed the inner promptings to change my diet sooner so as to avoid it. What do you desire most? Will trials be necessary to realign your desires with His? Do you love Jesus more than your earthly idols?

May we each fall deeper in love with our Savior with each passing day so that our unhealthy desires will fade away.

To the Empathetic Pro-Choice Men

Since I should treat men and women equally, and I've already addressed pro-choice women enough with my opinions and God's word, I'd like to address the pro-choice men. Specifically I want to address the men who support abortion on demand (and federal funding of it) because they claim they do not know what it feels like to be a woman and thus cannot tell women what to do. I truly appreciate your desire to be empathetic instead of domineering, but there are many who would consider your defense a cowardly one.  Do you support a terrorist's choice to slaughter children with machetes because you do not know what it feels like to be indoctrinated by radical Islam? Moral relativism is a farce. Killing children for personal convenience or by order from ISIS is wrong, and you know it. You just won't risk being politically incorrect or offending someone to stand up for what is right.

Abortion may remove what you see on the outside as a consequence of irresponsible choices (whether consensual or not), but it does not remove the consequence. If you think you can partake in risky behaviors because she can always just get rid of "it", then you will keep playing with fire, while continuing further in your degradation of women. Abortion takes a human life and leaves lasting physical and emotional scars that you may not see but which are far worse than any pregnancy and delivery could be. Consequences can be very good teachers and can provide a dramatic improvement in the treatment of women....if only men would stop covering up those consequences and allow themselves to truly SEE them.

If you truly want to be empathetic and supportive of women while fighting for their rights and opposing violence against women, here are a few practical ideas:

• Don't get women in crisis pregnancy situations in the first place. Take responsibility for your own actions and treat women with respect. When you mess up, don't run and hide from the problem you created. Support her. Do not ever force her to get an abortion.

• Do not be impressed by "locker room talk". If another guy brags of his conquest over a woman, rebuke him. Be a righteous example, and call the men in your realm of influence to a higher standard. 

• Support women in abusive or crisis pregnancy situations. Honor them. Pray for them. Provide for them. Bring them to Christ-centered ministries where they will be loved and cared for unconditionally while getting all their needs (physical and emotional) met in a way that is honest and pure.

• Stop using pornography and join the fight against it. Pornography is the largest industry in the world and the greatest contributor to both objectification of women and physical crimes against them. Rape, violence, and human trafficking are almost always rooted in an addiction to porn.

• Support local crisis pregnancy centers, faith based maternity homes, and homes for battered women with your money and/or time and skills. Handyman work is always needed as are board members, fundraising directors, counselors, mentors for men involved, prenatal care providers, sonogram techs, life skills trainers, house parents, etc.

• Contact your elected officials and demand that they support legislation that values all human life, male and female, from the womb to the tomb.

• Foster and/or adopt.

• Volunteer as a Guardian ad Litem.

To the men who are already doing any of these suggestions or who support women in other life affirming ways, I salute you. As one born the same year as the Roe V. Wade decision as a result of an unplanned pregnancy. I thank you.  I hope our nation's children are learning what true, compassionate and courageous manhood looks like by watching you.

11 Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
12 If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?  (Proverbs 24:11-12, NIV)