To Every Broken Girl, Abused Daughter, and Hurt Mother. . . Forgive Me

After reading this article the other day, my heart quite literally broke in half as I came to grips with the reality of where we--yes, us screwed up men--really are. (What happened to men who were willing to say something like this?)

Men who were created to lead and love and protect, men who once knew how to be honorable and what it meant to be chivalrous, have sunk lower than ever before. And, while this isn't the first time we have failed you, dear members of the fairer sex, it is certainly the most grave of our offenses.

From the beginning of time, we've blamed you for the sin, we've cursed you for a lie, we've hurt you for the pleasure. We, so undeserving to be called men, have simply let you down.

Today, I have no excuses; no challenges or charges or even an explanation. Today, all I want to say is that I'm sorry. Heaven knows I'm sorry, and by hell I know I've done wrong. Because when it comes down to it, not one of us has done our job. Not one of us has lived up to being men. We need to try harder, to know what it means to really bleed for the other sex, and I am truly sorry that we have not.

Standing in representation for what small handful of men are out there willing to humble themselves before you, I ask forgiveness. Forgive us for our pride, for our lust, for our impatience, for our disrespect, for our spite, for our shame, for our apathy, for our laziness. Forgive us for doing too little and for defiling you too much.

Forgive us for deserting you when you've needed us most; for not respecting you, for not caring enough, for not honoring you; for degrading you, your bodies, and your hearts by playing with you like objects; for hurting and betraying you by ripping apart your hearts; for having no control over our wandering thoughts; for selfishly using you to get what we want; for lying to you when we say we love you; for letting you fall and not bothering to help you back up.

Forgive us for not being the men you need or deserve.

We've screwed up, and there's nothing we can say or do to ever become the men you truly need. So please, despite the hope you've rightfully lost in us, forgive us because that's all we have left to offer.

But, regrettably, the painful truth is that I know not every man wants to be forgiven, and none of us deserve to be forgiven. Some men enjoy hurting you. So I ask not for them, but for me if nothing else; that despite my imperfections yesterday, today, and tomorrow:

Forgive me. I don’t want to be a carnal male animal. I want to be a Man. Not a perfect man, but perhaps a decent enough one to be able to say I love you without any malice. To be able to respect you all if only because of what you are, and to be able to love you not for what you are, but who each of you are.

With that, I lay it in your hands. I don’t expect to be forgiven or understood. I simply hope you know how truly, truly angry I am at the men in the world, and how sorry I am to you.

Sincerely,

Another unworthy man.

"Love," a guest post written by Sarah

If I could change one aspect in today’s society, it would be the way people think and feel about love. What is love today? What has it become? If you look at the definition for love, this is what you get: “a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person” “Sexual passion or desire.”“A person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.”“To have a strong liking for; take great pleasure in.”“To need or require; benefit greatly from.” So what can we take from this? Well, we can see from these definitions that today’s thought of love are the following: Love is a feeling. We love only what we benefit or take pleasure from. 

So what is wrong with these definitions? Well, it’s false. Love is not just a feeling, sure you may have feelings of love, but that is not what defines it. Love is a choice, and it’s a hard choice to make. “4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”~ 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7. We can see just from this that today’s definition of love is wrong. Look at verse 5 “…It does not insist on its own way…” the worlds definitions says love is what we take pleasure in or benefit from. Real love doesn’t seek its own; it lays down its life for others. The whole passage talks about how we act towards others, not how they can benefit us.

So what is love? Love is to be a servant, to lay one’s life down for others. It does what will benefit others, the exact opposite of today’s meaning of love. Love is to completely adore and serve others, it doesn’t care if others wrong them, it chooses to bear all and love them through it all. It chooses to believe the best. As I said before, love is a choice. 

So who should we love? Only those who are nice to us, people who we enjoy? No, that would be love seeking its own. So who do we love? The answer is everyone! “27 ‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32’ ‘If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.’” ~ Luke 6: 27-35

Now that we know what love is, how much more beautiful is the Lord’s love for us? We are all familiar with this passage, but let’s look at it again. “16 For God so loved the world that he gave hisone and only Son , that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” How beautiful is it that our God loved us so much that even through all of our sin and corruption, He made a way for us to escape hell? Only through the sacrifice of Jesus can we truly be seen as clean and be allowed in the glories of heaven. It’s such a beautiful truth!

Imagine how the world would be if everyone viewed love for what it truly is. If everyone was willing to lay down their lives to serve others? Imagine if people were willing not to seek only what they wanted? All the corruption in this world would be gone! Love is the root of all good things; it’s what turns evil away. Love is the most important thing in life. Where would we be without it? The answer is: Hell. “3 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” ~ 1 Cor. 13:13

Striving For A Crown: Intentional Relationships: Seeing Past the Smile

My "Cuz" is an amazing girl posting some great things through Blogger, and recently she posted on the often misunderstood concept of what being a friend really is. Here's a link to her post:

Striving For A Crown: Intentional Relationships: Seeing Past the Smile: Superficial relationships have been on my mind for a long time now and I have discussed the problem with three people in the last week. So, ...

"180" Movie

Here's a movie you must watch. It's an award-winning documentary revealing the state of our world today; shows just how much we know about Hitler and how we view abortion in today's world. Rather eye-opening, so please watch. There is a warning, however, because of some of the pictures shown in the video so use discretion if some of the young ones are around ;)



http://180movie.com/

An Apology, Announcement, and Advertisement

Firstly, I apologize for my lack in posting. I haven't been around actively in a few months and that would be because of the simple, complicated peaceful, chaos known as life.

With that said, I'm starting a new blog.

Yeah, I know. I can barely keep this one up and I'm starting a new one o_o

But I actually have a decent explanation for once. This blog has become a sort of melting pot of posts and, looking back, I never really had a very clear idea for what this blog's purpose was.

Thus, I decided to make a more writing-centered blog. I will be keeping Looking Heavenward up--and hopefully will be someday posting actively on here again when life bubbles down--but for now, I am moving most of my activity to the other blog, now known as:

The Sharpened Pen

Here I'll be posting updates on novels, essays on writing, poetry and songs, and even perhaps a few (cleaned up) posts from OYAN. If anyone has any other (more creative) names, feel free to pipe up :P

Anyway, I'll see you there (or not) and until I next post on here, good day and God bless!

Will You Be a Friend?

"Most of you probably know this, but East Africa is in extreme drought and famine right now. Millions are suffering, ill, and starving. Children like your little brothers and sisters are dying because the rebels are cutting off food from reaching them. And so far, no one is doing enough to help save these innocent lives.

There's a new donation program that has just been started. It's called I'm Gonna Be Your Friend. There are two ways that you can help out. One is by donating, using either the PayPal system or credit card. The other is by downloading the Bob Marley & The Wailer's 'High Tide or Low Tide' benefit song + video from iTunes for only $1.29. All proceeds go directly to the East Africa food crisis appeal.

Watch this video to get a little better insight on who needs the help right now.



If you're under 18, talk to your parents about donating or purchasing the benefit package on iTunes. Every penny helps these dying people. It's almost silly for us to think that we're worried about our economy and filling our fuel tanks when these people are the ones who truly need help. Too many people are needlessly dying. Children. Families. Can't we spare three gallons' worth of gasoline to help millions of lives?

If you're unable to make a form of donation, I understand. Times are risky right now for a lot of people. But if you decide not to donate, please spread these wherever you can. Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, blogs, forums... everywhere needs this!

Lets take care of our neighbors.

________________________________

Offical I'm Gonna Be Your Friend site: http://www.imgonnabeyourfriend.org/

Download link to iTunes: http://itunes.apple....re?id=455043341 "

Children's Church -- R.C. Sproul

Here's a very thought provoking article that I recently got in the mail. I think I'll let it speak for itself.

---

Children's Church

by R.c. Sproul Jr. on Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 12:01pm

It was Mark Twain who quipped, “In the beginning God made man in His image. And man has been returning the favor ever since.” It was John Calvin who argued in the opening pages of his Institutes that if we would know God well, we must understand man, and if we would understand man well, we must know God. There is a necessary correlation between creature and Creator. The principle holds, however, even when the creature affirms a false creator. That is, though the God of heaven and earth, the God of the Bible is the creator of Muslims, we ought not be surprised that Muslims tend to look an awful lot like Allah. We ought not be surprised that the Greek pantheon looked rather like the Greek culture. It goes both ways of course. We form our vision of God by starting with ourselves, and we form our vision of ourselves by looking at the god we have created. Which is why it makes perfect sense that the evangelical church has rushed headlong into worshipping a baby Jesus.

 

As always, we justify our betrayal of Jesus on the grounds that we are only trying to win more people. We set aside prophet and king, and present Jesus as a limp-wristed priest. The dreamy, distant looking eyes, the silky soft skin, the gentlemanly behavior of knocking on doors and waiting for an invitation, the pleading, pleading, pleading, that won’t you please let Him in, all match our character perfectly. We too are weak-kneed sissies, little boys in knickers. If we make Jesus inviting and inoffensive, just like us, then maybe the lost will come in. All of which is actually designed to make Jesus safe and inoffensive to us. Where once men thundered from pulpits across the land, in our day we have boys, dressed like Mr. Rogers, sharing behind Lucite lecterns. We have replaced the proclamation of the potent Word of God with Show and Tell.

 

Lest we wake the giant of the glory of our Maker, we likewise play lullabies when we gather together to worship. Of course worship looks rather more like the nursery. We sing dreamy, distant-sounding songs that evoke the memory of His silky soft skin, and His gentlemanly behavior of knocking on doors and waiting for an invitation, the pleading, pleading, pleading won’t you please let Him in. There are any number of objections that could be raised against the insipid dreck we have the gall to call both worship and music. But the greatest is right here—whatever the words may say, the music itself says God is safe. We want safe, because we are children.

 

We want to come as we are. We refuse to dress like grownups. We want to be on our way back home soon. After all, little minds have little attention spans. Because we insist on comfortable seats and soft lighting, we insist on getting our bottles of Starbucks in the lobby on the way in. There we sit, laughing at the drama team and sucking down our sweet caffeine. And all of it is stunting our growth.

 

The statics are damning proof. The church growth movement does not bring the lost into the kingdom. The membership rolls of mega-churches consist of what was the membership rolls of bitty churches. We aren’t winning the lost; we are dumbing down the found. We are pandering to Christians in Pampers and leaving them sitting in their own stink.

 

It is time to grow up, to mature, to become complete, to be men. This will only happen when we learn to meet with the true and living God, the God of our fathers, the Ancient of Days. Some have argued that contemporary worship emphasizes the immanence of God, while Puritan-style worship emphasizes His transcendence. But when we renew covenant we are blessed with both. As we draw near to the King, as we lift up our hearts, as we are confronted by God in His nearness, His immanence, what we discover is that we do so not so much because he has condescended to us, but because He has lifted us up. We meet Him, the One Who burns and smokes, Who causes mountains and men to tremble, not on our level, but on His, “But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel” (Hebrews 12:25-27).

 

We ought not to have children’s church, because we are the children’s church. We are the spirits of children deemed just, being perfected, who on the Lord’s Day join with our fathers in the faith. We are the church militant joined together with the church triumphant, a noble army of men and boys who aspire to be men. Nothing will mature us faster than we would behold His glory. Men are made of such things.

 

The God we worship is from everlasting to everlasting. Before Abraham was, He is. His calling to us is that we would be like Him, that we would grow in grace and in wisdom. We are indeed His children, but we are likewise judges over all the earth. We are the very elders at the gate. May our Father, in His grace, drive with the rod of His wrath, folly far from us, for it is bound up in our hearts. May our Father, in His grace, and through His Spirit, lead us into all things, maturing us, making of us workmen who need not be ashamed. May He take us from our diapers and gift us with the mantle of a prophet, that we might, with the very voices of men and angels, proclaim the glories of His name. May He teach we who are the Sons of God, to be men of God.

 

 

From the Jan/Feb 2006 issue of Every Thought Captive magazine. by RC Sproul Jr.

 

More articles can be found at: http://rcsprouljunior.blogspot.com/