Know the steps to know the dance - how beautiful it is!!

Men and women today are in a power struggle of epic proportions. Women run multi-billion dollar companies and leave their infants with nannies or stay at home dads.

Women flaunt their bodies all over billboards across the world, selling everything from cars to toothpaste, selling their bodies, and calling it liberation. Calling it power.

Look at popular sitcoms. A thin, attractive women runs the household and tramples all over her husband's life an self-esteem. She impatiently grabs the reins from him every time he screws up, fixes all his mistakes, tells him what to do, and calls him an idiot. Then she criticizes him for not being a "man." For being unable to make decisions for himself.

Did she ever give him the chance to try? Where in their marriage was he given the opportunity t o learn?

We are sold a philosophy that men and women are equal on all terms. Women can do everything men can do. Just as well. Just as legitimately. Women are serving in the armed forces in larger numbers than ever. Know what other numbers are up? Infidelity among soldiers cheating on their spouses while away at war.

We are equal in humanity. Equal in God's eyes. But we are different. How drastic is it really, to think that we can act out our equality in different ways? Wasn't God's established order at creation designed with our best in mind? Weren't the differing roles of men and women designed by the One who is Love and Wisdom Itself?

Here is what John Piper had to say about the directions were are given today, what society has pushed at us as the road map to manhood and womanhood, if such a distinction is even made any more. (It is slightly paraphrased, as I was typing it while listening to the sermon):

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Its like saying to two dancers, ballet dancers or people who are about to perform a drama:

“Now remember when you go out on the stage: you are both excellent dancers, you are held in equal esteem in the guild and respected highly in the world of drama or dance. You must respect each other and be complementary of each other’s movements on the stage. And remember: you will both enjoy the applause and the limelight at the end of the performance.” Now that’s important to say - it will affect how the performance goes.

BUT if that’s all they know -

THEY WON’T DANCE!

To dance or perform the drama, they have to know who’s going where, when!
Who will fall and who will catch.
Who will stand and who will run.
Who will speak and who will be silent.

If all you know is that you are to respect one another – you WILL NOT DANCE.

There will be mass confusion on the stage if you are given only 6 “moral visions” of how to respect one another. You will be up there bumping into one another.

I say these instructions are only part of the answer.

And today they are given as the whole answer.

We have to ask this question: in the drama of life between man and woman, before the fall, as God intended it to be, did God intend for some responsibilities to fall heavier on the man and some responsibilities to fall heavier on the woman, or didn’t he? They are both supposed to be equally respectful of each other. But are they supposed to show respect for each other in precisely the same way? Yes, there should be peace and harmony through mutual servitude. But might there not be forms of service especially designed for harmony from the man, and forms of service especially designed for harmony from the woman?

Do you see how incomplete the answer is, to say, “equal in personhood, equal in dignity, harmony, mutual respect, complementarity and unified destiny.”

It doesn’t tell you much where the rubber meets the road.

I believe the Bible does teach that men have unique God-given responsibilities and women have unique God-given responsibilities.”

They’re not identical; they’re not dependent on gifts. They’re dependent on who we are as man and woman as established at creation. They are not limited to biological functions; They’re deeper, higher, broader, and more pervasive than that. These different responsibilities go right to the heart of the meaning manhood and womanhood as God created us

and these are under tremendous attack from inside and outside the church today

And the result has been what?

Confusion. Mass confusion.

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More to come on this. I realize this posting is horribly devoid of any Scriptural evidences. For starters if you're interested, read
*Genesis 2
*1 Corinthians 7
*Ephesians 5:22-33
*Colossians 3:18-19

Ok, I have to put Ephesians in here, its my favorite:

Wives and Husbands

22Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

25Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
27so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.^[a] 28In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30because we are members of his body. 31"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." 32This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Sleep

I have had sleep anxiety problems since I was 11 or 12. As a kid, I would always lay in bed for hours staring at the ceiling, my mind spinning, unable to quiet it enough for me to fall asleep. Eventually I would go into my parents' room and wake up my mom. I was so anxious I couldn't stand to be alone any longer. Someone needed to know that I was having trouble and comfort me. There wasn't much she could do, but I was just more settled knowing that she heard my complaint. Invariably she would tell me to read a book until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. Sometimes she would make me a cup of warm milk with honey in it, it would make me sleepy she said. I still struggled to fall asleep, watching the red numbers on my clock change, but eventually I always drifted away.

When I started swimming as a freshman in high school I started to fall asleep more easily, but still had nights, sometimes weeks in a row, when my brain wouldn't let me relax. I still woke my mom up, but by this age I knew about sleeping pills and would beg her, frequently in frustrated tears, to let me have one (she took them for a while and I'd seen how they could knock you out). She would never let me have one, but I would take anything she offered instead; Nyquil, allergy medicine, Tylenol PM, etc. Thus began my love for drugs, for multiple purposes.

When I was fifteen and sixteen a whole new slew of problems came. I became incredibly depressed, pushed to my limits by the pressures of performance in school, swimming and socialization. For nearly two years, my only release came in cutting myself. This was the preferred method of stress relief especially at night, when my anxieties built up such tension that I would literally, physically shake. I would remain in a half-crazed state, unable to think or relax until I drew blood and the endorphins that come with pain circulated through my blood, draining the stress from my muscles. I could think clearly again. I had made the dangerous discovery that my body makes its own euphoric pain killer- and that to tap into it requires only a sharp little knife or scissor.

By God's grace, I was saved at 17 and I never cut myself again. But the sleeping anxiety in itself was not resolved.

College came. Sleeping became more of a struggle in the freshman dorms than it had ever been. Despite waking up at 5:00 in the morning and training more intensely than ever, sleep was elusive and coveted. In a building with 500 students who stayed up at all hours of the night, the noise, the lights, and the vibration of floormates dancing, running and jumping around were too much. I found out quickly that I was not alone in my sleep problem; many others on the floor had the same issue. But they had something I didn't have: those magical sleeping pills. Sharing was a virtue we all learned well in kindergarten, so it was very easy to get my hands on these pills almost every night of the week. Half a dozen kids had them, so would rotate through them each night, therefore not depriving anyone of their stash while also not getting addicted to one particular kind. This habit, combined with the 2400 (yes, twenty four hundred, not two hundred forty) mg of Ibuprofen I was prescribed daily for my shoulders, has probably not done wonderful things for my stomach.

So here I am again, sophomore year (now with housemates who love to drunkenly make pancakes and popcorn at 3:00am Wednesday through Saturday, in the kitchen adjacent to my bedroom) faced with the question of sleep. I have more resources than ever at my disposal: after two surgeries I have a few months worth of Vicodin and Percocet in my "drug drawer" along with cough medicine, allergy medicine, over-the-counter sleeping aides, leftover Ibuprofen(the biggest pills I've ever seen) and every other painkiller known to man. I have ear plugs and an eye mask. But I still cannot sleep.

I admit to taking half a Percocet about half an hour ago. I need to break this cycle. It is utterly ridiculous how this saga of sleeplessness has taken over much of my life and created horrible habits. I have contemplated going to the sports med doctor and asking for a prescription for sleeping pills. He would give it to me. But I have a strong conviction not to. I feel like I should be praying. God CAN help me sleep. I know He can! He can calm my mind and release the stress in my body. The problem is, for some reason, I am not believing that when it comes to the test. While I refuse to go get a prescription, as though that would be a cop-out, I still nightly, give in to the last resort of taking a post-surgery painkiller. When it is 3am and I have PT at 8am, I give in. I don't know what to do exactly, but I need to be praying more. I need more faith.

I see this pattern of drug use in my life, and I know that it has control over me. I have a new life in Christ to be set free from such dependencies! I don't believe there is anything fundamentally wrong with sleeping pills, but for me, in my situation, I know that it is something I need to overcome.

If you are a Christian, please pray for me to have faith and childlike trust in God! That I run to him for comfort the way I used to run to my mom and wake her up in the middle of the night! And to resort to warm milk and honey before any more painkillers!


From Valley of Vision:


Valley of Vision

Blessed creator,
Thous hast promised thy beloved sleep;
Give me restoring rest needful for tomorrow's toil.
If dreams be mine, let them not be tinged with evil.
Let thy Spirit make my time of repose a blessed temple of his holy presence.

May my frequent lying down make me fammiliar with death,
the bed I approach remind me of the grave,
the eyes I now close picture to me their final closing.
Keep me always ready, waiting for admittance to thy presence.
Weaken my attachment to earthly things.
May I hold life loosely in my hand,
knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender
As pain and suffering betoken transitory health,
may I not shrink from a death
that introduces me to the freshness of eternal life
I retire this night in full assurance of one day waking with thee.

All glory for this precious hope,
for the gospel of grace
for thine unspeakable gift of Jesus
for the fellowship of the Trinity.
Withhold not thy mercies in the night season;
thy hand never wearies,
thy power needs no repose,
thine eye never sleeps.

Help me, when I helpless lie,
when my conscience accuses me of sin,
when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts,
when my eyes are held awake by personal anxieties.

Show thyself to me as the God of all grace, love and power;
thou hast a balm for every wound
a solace for all anger
a remedy for every pain,
a peace for every disquietude.
Permit me to commit myself to thee awake or to sleep.

The Valley of Vision

I highly recommend both the book and the CD titled "Valley of Vision." The book is a collection of Puritan prayers and devotions. They are my favorite thing to read for my devotions (second to the Bible) as they are like New Testament psalms! They reveal so much about the character and the glory of God in contrast with our pitiful state as humans. They pray for things I would never think to pray for, out of a truly humble sense of total depravity that I want to much to be mirrored in my life. I wanted to post a few on here so everyone can get a look.

The Valley of Vision

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter Thy stars shine;
let me find Thy light in my darkness,
Thy life in my death,
Thy joy in my sorrow,
Thy grace in my sin,
Thy riches in my poverty,
Thy glory in my valley.

Purification

Lord Jesus, I sin.
Grant that I may never cease grieving because of it,
never be content with myself,
never think I can reach a point of perfection.
Kill my envy, command my tongue, trample down self.
Give me grace to be holy, kind, gentle, pure, peaceable,
to live for Thee and not for self,
to copy Thy words, acts, spirit, to be transformed into Thy likeness,
to be consecrated wholly to Thee,
to live entirely to Thy glory.

Deliver me from attachment to things unclean,
from wrong associations,
from the predominance of evil passions,
from the sugar of sin as well as its gap;
that with self-loathing, deep contrition, earnest heart searching I may come to Thee,
cast myself on Thee, trust in Thee, cry to Thee, be delivered by Thee.

O God, the Eternal All,
help me to know that all things are shadows, but Thou art substance,
all things are quicksands, but Thou art mountain,
all things are shifting, but Thou art anchor,
all things are ignorance, but Thou art wisdom.

If my life is to be a crucible amid burning heat, so be it,
but do Thou sit at the furnace mouth to watch the ore that nothing be lost.
If I sin wilfully, grievously, tormentedly, in grace take away my mourning
and give me music;
remove my sackcloth and clothe me with beauty;
still my sighs and fill my mouth with song,
then give me summer weather as a Christian.

Heart Corruptions

O God,
may Thy Spirit speak in me that I may speak to thee.
I have no merit, let the merit of Jesus stand for me.
I am undeserving, but I look to Thy tender mercy.
I am full of infirmities, wants, sin; Thou art full of grace.

I confess my sin, my frequent sin, my willful sin;
all my powers of body and soul are defiled:
a fountain of pollution is deep within my nature.
There are chambers of foul images within my being;
I have gone from one odious room to another,
walked in a no-man's-land of dangerous imaginations,
pried into the secrets of my fallen nature.

I am utterly ashamed that I am what I am in myself;
I have no green shoot in me nor fruit, but thorns and thistles;
I am a fading leaf that the wind drives away;
I live bare and barren as a winter tree, unprofitable,
fit to be hewn down and burnt.
Lord, dost Thou have mercy on me?

Thou hast struck a heavy blow at my pride,
at the false god of self, and I lie in pieces before Thee.
But Thou hast given me another master and lord,
Thy Son, Jesus, and now my heart is turned towards holiness,
my life speeds as an arrow from a bow
towards complete obedience to Thee.

Help me in all my doings to put down sin and to humble pride.
Save me from the love of the world and the pride of life,
from everything that is natural to fallen man,
and let Christ's nature be seen in me day by day.
Grant me grace to bear Thy will without repining,
and delight to be not only chiselled, squared,
or fashioned, but separated from the old rock
where I have been embedded so long,
and lifted from the quarry to the upper air,
where I may be built in Christ for ever.