This year, I will spend the first nine months in Dunedin. Then in September and October I am travelling — to conferences, to see my parents, to celebrate my father’s birthday (God willing — he’s getting closer to ninety and still teaching). And when I travel I note that this world is pretty awful outside the Bubble.
The situation for men is becoming more punitive by the week. Their societies are taken away, they are considered creeps or perverts if they look twice at a woman, and they all too frequently get emotionally and physically destroyed if and when their relationship with the mother of their children ends.
For most men and women are responsible. Most, in a sane society, delay breeding until they have a spouse — common law or not — who is sane. Consider, for a second, Ms Jolie. Well known for being fairly eccentric when living with a buncha actors, in or out of wedlock. Never had a kid. Snags a certain Mr Pitt — whose family are not crazy and she’s had a few babies. IF times are tough, and the future looks bleak, you either do not have kids or you do not value them. The current laws are stacked against marriage, sustained fidelity, and healthy children. But Cane has this one correct:
We will be either Godly patriarchs, or we will sacrifice our children to foreign gods of pleasure and wealth. There is no other choice.
If we say that, as a church, we must be Godly patriarchs — we must “Man up”. In the world’s sense we are being crazy. Many women, just like the cads and PUAs they emulate, have, by their choices and actions, made themselves marriageable.
But our hope lies in faith. And faith is shown by what we do.
1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. 3By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.
8By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. 9By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. 11By faith he received power of procreation, even though he was too old-and Sarah herself was barren-because he considered him faithful who had promised. 12Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.”
13All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, 14for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. 16But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.
32“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. 33Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
35“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; 36be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. 37Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. 38If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.
39“But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
Christ calls us not to be afraid. This world wants us to fear: they are concerned with the risks. And being a parent is all about risks. Your imperfections and faults are reflected back at you. Your children make the same mistakes you have made, have the same weaknesses, and often you are speechless because you are guilty of the same errors they have.
There used to be a meme — taken from scripture — in my youth. ‘Without hope, a people perish‘. Hope comes from faith. Faith that God keeps his vows. Faith that we will all keep our vows.
And this world celebrates the community of those who break oaths, destroy hope, regulate minutiae, allow crime to flourish and advocate that society is sacrificed on the altar of their ideology. The end game of this is fairly horrible: I now understand, from seeing it happen, that a nation simply destroys itself by not preserving marriages and fathers and mothers. If you punish people for choosing that way of life (and our society does) then most will get the signal, and not breed.
We have to choose in faith. In faith. Which leads to two challenges.
The first is to those who are still married and hear voices saying that there is more out their: the workmate is more attractive, or freedom is more attractive than the chains of vows you have made. That voice has to be confronted and ignored. You have to hang together — and not let the harpies in who will say that any form of biblical living is abusive. Learn from those, like me who have been there: Divorce is not a life-enhancing experience.
Those of us who ar single need to find people of faith, who will keep their word. They exist, but they may be but one in five, one in ten, one in twenty. The times are evil, and people are faithless.
But so was the time when Abram and Sarai begat Isaac.
