Friday, August 7, 2009

Stick to the Plan - 1

The saying goes, why reinvent the wheel? It makes sense, but that doesn't stop people trying to do things their own way - and messing up badly sometimes.
This is all pretty direct, but then life's like that. Things need to be said.
Back in the 1960s something happened which they call the 'sexual revolution'.
It was meant to bring in an era of universal love and peace, with everyone loving everyone else and no fighting, no being possessive and controlling, and so on.
It failed. In short, it failed because it tried to do things differently from how the Maker of all things meant them to operate. More specifically, it failed because what it expected to happen was simply impossible. Human nature did not allow it.
For the idea of 'universal love' to work, everyone would have to feel included. Everyone would have to feel that they got their share of the love. Nobody should be left out, and feel rejected and unwanted. As soon as someone was, then the 'revolution' was not doing what it claimed. It was not freeing everyone and making them all feel loved and happy. What happened in the 60s was, it simply degenerated into a lot of casual sex, and a lot of emptiness and resentment.
This is the trouble with casual or promiscuous sex, sometimes called 'free love.'
Some people attract far more partners than others, and have a queue waiting to get near them. Others are always waiting in a queue. And this draws attention to the fact that, in human terms we're not all equally advantaged in the way we're born. We're all equally human, and all equally valued by God, but we are not equally valued by each other. Some people are much more admired and respected simply because of the way they look or the talents they are born with. And they have suitors by the hundred. Others just don't turn heads everywhere they go. They only look good to those who know them and see the worth of them as people. And the 'sexual revolution' drew cruel attention to the fact! Instead of making us all free and fulfilled it made the problem worse. Some people had a wild time until it all turned sour because of the shallowness of it, others were constantly reminded that they did not attract others.
Add to that, the fact that casual sex was about using someone for one thing only, and not really connecting with them as anything more than a physical body. How ironic that the 'free love' advocates talked about reaching out to others, when in fact they were making human relationships incredibly shallow.
The race started out with a man and a woman. It was not a man and several women, or a woman and several men. It was one to one. And that was the template, the Divine Plan. People who thought they knew better had slogans like 'smash monogamy', and 'share the love'; and what they got was widespread divorce, anger, estrangement, lonliness, rejection - and an epidemic of STDs. So where did they go wrong to start with? They thought they could trash the way God set things out. What was also forgotten was that sexual relations sometimes have this side effect called conception- it leads to the birth or children. Yes, that comment is ironic. But people act as if intercourse was just like having a dance, or something, with no lasting consequence at all. Another thing they forgot was that it can be immportant to know who is father to a child, which might not be known if there has been too much 'freedom' in partnering. It has happened that people who do not know, accidentally form relationships with their own siblings.
God knew what He was doing. Who were these people who reckoned they knew better?
Stick to the plan.

4 comments:

Tamela's Place said...

Yeah and people continue in this mode of "I know Better" How truly sad.. God is for our good and not our harm and when we do things His way things will go well for us, if only people could see that.. Well one day they will but in the meantime it just seems to be a growing battle.

God bless you Andrew :)

Marshal Art said...

You've hit the nail squarely on the head, Andrew. It's been forty years since Woodstock, an event some mark as a seminal event (pun only mildly intended), in that it supposedly began a revolution of sexual understanding. Nonsense. It was total hedonism poorly disguised as something more. As you've indicated, the consequences have been sad and many.

I think those consequences are the result of choosing our way over God's way, or as Tamela said, the "I know Better" attitude. So many think that OT restriction against certain sexual practices is the result of ancient understanding of human sexuality, the notion that they didn't know what we know now. This self-serving attitude suggests and assumes that God doesn't know what He's doing. Yet, I'm sure that even if God listed a litany of reasons for the restrictions, such as spreading STDs, "unwanted" pregnancies, abortions, divorces, psychological and emotional difficulties, suicides, etc., other excuses would be put forth and the restrictions would be ignored nonetheless.

To "stick to the plan" has then two purposes: to protect us from ourselves and to help us live more holy lives in tune with God's Will.

Andrew Clarke said...

Thanks, Tamela. It's good to hear from you. Many Blessings.

Andrew Clarke said...

Right on, Marshall! Remember what Jesus Himself said about people: they will not hear what He tells them. On that subject, I see another church is debating whether to admit practicing homosexuals as pastors. Same story - they think they know better than God, or that what He said in the past no longer applies, even though He said: "Heaven and Earth may pass away, but My words will never pass away."