Month: March 2024

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Beauty’s in the Eye of the Beholder, But Don’t Give His Eyes Too Much

This one’s kind of tricky because it’s easy for this post to get crass quickly. I’m talking mostly to my sisters in Christ here. I have to say right up front…the information in this post has the potential to be very helpful for others if you use it well, but you can also harm them tremendously with it. Please, please, please…use it for good. If it turns out you’ve been doing some of this stuff unknowingly, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. If you use it with bad intentions though, you’re going to have to stand before the Savior and answer for it someday.

In some way or another we’re all guilty of saying to ourselves “that’s not how I think” or “that thought never even occurred to me.” Okay, well, that might be true, but not everybody thinks (or doesn’t think) the same way as you. Believe me, this is a thing.

Have you ever just been going along, minding your own business (even trying to be on good behavior), when BAM! A thought from left field comes and completely derails you? Sometimes you know what triggered that derailment, other times it’s a mystery. Now imagine discovering you’re the one that derailed someone else in that same manner.

Unfortunately there’s no way to look at someone and accurately judge their character flaws, so you’ll have to treat the following statement as if it’s true all the time, because you just don’t know. While it’s certainly not universally true, a lot of us men are pigs. There’s not really an easy way to say this. Ladies, many of you are making your brothers in Christ stumble because of the wardrobe choices you make.

Here’s the part I’m trusting you to use good judgment with. When it comes to the female form, our piggish eyes tend to be drawn to at least one of three areas (aside from your lovely eyes, of course): chest, caboose, and legs. I know this from years of being a guy and from years of being around guys in the field of construction and in the Department of Defense. If you’re blessed in one or more of these three areas, believe me, there are lots of dudes that are very, very happy for you, even prompting some to spontaneously praise the Lord. Unfortunately, there is a very large number of men out there that struggles with lust, and the struggles that come from our sisters in Christ seem to be unnecessary.

Now some will balk and say “oh, come on, it’s nothing they don’t see everywhere.” While absolutely true, that’s the problem. If you let a guy see a little too much, it’s one more knick in the “death by a thousand paper cuts” idea. The choice of whether or not to indulge in sinful thoughts or actions ultimately lies with the individual, of course, but if you’re his sister in Christ, the way you dress shouldn’t prompt thoughts that shouldn’t be there. Shouldn’t a man be safer from temptation-inducing thoughts when he’s around a fellow Christ-follower?

Now I’m not saying you need to wear a burqa or puffy clothes everywhere, not at all. Here are some things I’ve noticed, though. In church, I’ve seen dresses or tops that are a bit more low cut than they ought to be. Is that dress or are those pants a little too tight in the rear? I’ve seen dresses or miniskirts with hemlines higher than the wearer’s extended fingertips. Probably the most common “visual stumbling block” to your brothers in Christ out there now is the prevalence of leggings/workout pants. I totally understand wanting to avoid loose-fitting clothes when working out or participating in activities where you don’t want clothes flapping around, but if you’re not engaged in anything like that and you’re walking around in skin-tight pants out in public, you can see how this might be a problem for a guy who’s trying really hard not to look. Heaven help us when we go to the gym and there are attractive, fit women wearing clothes that draw attention to all three of these areas. Again, the individual man is responsible for his thoughts and actions, but he can’t always control the things that prompt certain thoughts. Imagine if you’re a recovering alcoholic and when walking down a busy sidewalk, store owners are handing out samples of booze. No, alcoholics know they need to avoid certain places, but for “lust-aholics,” church, along with environments known to be populated with a high prevalence of Christians, should be safe places to be.

If you’re already aware of this phenomenon and dress in a way that makes it easier on us, thank you. Fellas, I’ll bring you back into this now. I’d ask that you, along with your ladies, please influence your sisters, daughters, nieces, and granddaughters with these things in mind.

For the young ladies out there, your clothes go a long way in determining the type of guy you attract. Dress like you respect your body and you’ll probably attract one that treats you better over the long term. Dress like you want guys to ogle your body and you’ll attract the kind that might treat you really well in the short term, but the nice treatment probably doesn’t last real long and you’ll likely end up going through more relationships. Believe me, the quality guys will notice too, but they’ll be crowded out or intimidated by the chuckleheads licking their chops while circling you.

Now, within the context of marriage…how do I say this? Green light. Full throttle. Go to town, especially if you worked hard for it. Christians don’t need to be prudes. Have you read Song of Solomon? If you got it, flaunt it (to your one and only). Try to make the hubs say “God created woman, and he saw that it was goooooood.” Desire is a powerful thing, and marriage is the only place God intended it to be fulfilled. For both husband and wife, don’t give up and throw in the towel on your appearance after the “I do’s.” Honor, respect, and appreciate one another for the long run, in all kinds of ways.

Finally, for those out there that may be struggling to find their calling…maybe someone reading this needs to consider trying the very challenging task of designing or making new lines of very fashionable, yet perfectly appropriate clothing. It could be any type: street clothes, professional clothes, athletic apparel, you name it. Give it a shot. God will probably bless you if it’s your calling.

On a lighter note about the differences between male and female bodies…

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Only Jagger Moves Like Jagger. Try Moving Like You.

In my early Air Force days, I pursued training to become a survival instructor. The Air Force is the only branch of service where you can spend a whole military career as a Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) Specialist. The other military branches have them, but they’re only temporary assignments, something you do for a few years at most before returning to your regular job. Anyway, that’s free info; now back to my story.

The main SERE school is at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Washington. The course all SERE Specialists were required to pass only started twice a year, so folks put together a program to keep us busy and out of trouble while we were waiting around for class to start. We were together just about all the time. Every weekday we worked out in the mornings, and then afternoons varied. One day a week we’d do a full PT test in the morning and a timed 7-mile ruck march after lunch. One afternoon a week we’d have details (more or less do chores, restocking supplies, cleaning up or repairing things around our building). Once a week we’d go to a state park or something similar and go for ruck marches up and over mountains, where we’d practice our land navigation and keep our bodies accustomed to carrying heavy weight for a sustained period. There were lots of other odds and ends to keep us busy while we waited for class to start (help unpack moving vans for the families of students who had started class and were out in the field, help perform maintenance on the equipment getting used by the class ahead of us, etc.).

One of the standard activities we did was to spend time in “the back 40.” The back 40 was a section near us where we went to learn and practice some of the skills we’d need once we started class. Here we learned to sharpen and swing an axe, how to start fires with the stuff around us, how to build a shelter out of parachutes, all kinds of skills you’d need to survive in the wild. The course we wanted to pass had a high failure rate, and the instructors found that this type of orientation helped prepare students for the training, resulting in fewer washouts.

We were all part of a very physical career field, and as a result, it seemed like someone was always heading to the doctor. Although we’d all gather at a certain spot before heading out to the back 40, it became common practice for those returning from appointments to meet up with the group at a certain spot the group passed on their way to the back 40. One day we were all heading out to the back 40 when we saw a guy in the same uniform as us, wearing his ruck sack just like we were, standing motionless and waiting for us at this spot. Someone among us asked “who’s that?” We all took a look up ahead, trying to figure it out. Someone said “he stands like Jones.” A quick look around the group verified that Jones wasn’t among us, and as we got closer, it turned out that it was indeed Jones. We spent so much time together that someone in our group was able to identify someone off in the distance, who was dressed just like us and had the same haircut, simply by the way he stood.

There’s a story in the Old Testament where something similar happened. In 2 Samuel chapter 18, an aging King David was waiting for news from a battle. As he sat near the city gate, the watchman on duty announced two separate men running toward the city. While they waited eagerly for the messengers to arrive, the watchman said in verse 27 “I think the running of the first is like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok.” Here again is someone who’s able to identify another from far off by the individual’s kinesthetics. The way their body moves, or their posture, gives away their identity. Each of us is so different from one another that the way our bodies move gives us away, like a fingerprint.

Of all the people God could’ve chosen to live the life you’re living, He chose you. We’re unique individuals God stitched together, with no two looking, moving, or behaving exactly alike. In all that uniqueness, God prepared challenges for you in this life that you’re superbly qualified for. Other people could do it, but God chose you to do it. Embrace your uniqueness, whatever that looks like, and live the life God’s called you to live. You’re the best person for the job.

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What do Giraffes Have That Nobody Else Does?

The answer, of course, is baby giraffes. Let’s talk a little bit about Evolution.

Before we get into that, though, I’d like you to think about a traditional mousetrap. It’s a simple machine that’s been mass produced and has sold millions of units. Yet what would happen if any of the mousetrap’s components was removed? Take away the trigger, the holding bar, the spring, or anything else, and what happens? Removing any single component means the trap isn’t catching any mice.

Instead of a mousetrap, think of a complex biological machine, say, the human eye. Evolution says that simple, one-celled organisms changed over many generations and long periods of time to become highly complex living systems. If this is true, there had to be a series of pretty spectacular leaps forward to move from a single-celled organism to an organ that can sense light, then again to today’s human eye. It just doesn’t make sense. What was the immediate predecessor to the current version? What can you take away from the human eye and have it be almost as capable as the version we know today?

The theory of evolution has a problem. Animals that need to evolve fall into one of two categories: they either fail to evolve quickly enough (and thus fail to pass along genes that will enable future generations to acquire new characteristics), or they undergo massive mutational changes during a single generation (which seems very unlikely). Let’s use the giraffe as an example.

Let’s assume for a moment that Evolution is true. Imagine what giraffes looked like before they had long necks. It was more like a funky moose. For this conversation we’ll call it a stubby giraffe. Evolution claims that as food got scarce for individual stubby giraffes, they were forced to look for sustenance in areas beyond their normal reach. Let’s look at a few possibilities for what happened next.

Possibility number one: starving stubby giraffes did not consume enough calories to carry and give birth to baby stubby giraffes, so they died without birthing any healthy calves. – Unsuccessful evolution.

American, North Korean, and South Korean (left, center, right) soldiers

Possibility number two: the bodies of stubby giraffes, in the span of a single lifetime, while suffering from malnutrition, activated biological mechanisms which altered their own established DNA blueprints and triggered explosive leg and neck growth (while malnourished), enabling its survival. Malnourished bodies, however, experience stunted growth, not accelerated growth. North Korea’s people are starving and its children don’t get enough food to eat during their bodies’ crucial stages of physical development. As a result, many North Korean adults have a much smaller stature than their counterparts in other countries who had sufficient nutritional support during those stages of physical development.  – Implausible.

Possibility number three: stubby giraffes did not experience rapid alterations, but they did experience incremental amounts of extraordinary growth (growth beyond what its DNA stipulated) with each passing generation. As these “hybrid giraffes” gained the ability to reach food they hadn’t been able to access before, they consumed all the food stubby giraffes could reach, and the stubby giraffes died out. But the same problem remains: if hybrid giraffes weren’t getting enough to eat and were forced to either evolve or die, how did their starving bodies find it within themselves to boldly step outside the bounds of their DNA and add inches or feet of bones, muscle, and corresponding tissue and blood vessels? On the other hand, if they were getting enough to eat, why did they need to evolve any further, and why haven’t they shrunk since then? After all, in terms of calories and energy, extra muscle mass is expensive.  – Implausible.

There’s no logical scenario where this kind of evolution happens. Logically, people would have to buy into possibility number four: the giraffes you see today are similar (both in appearance and genetically) to the first giraffes that walked the planet. Hundreds or thousands of giraffe generations all followed the same DNA blueprint, passed that blueprint along to the next generation, which passed it to the next, and so on. Whoever designed these things established the originals along with a pretty solid process of reproducing themselves.

Did you know that a giraffe’s neck is strong enough to support the weight of a human climbing on it? Also, I got banned from the zoo today.

Here’s an example that will make you think. What if I, as a human, suddenly needed to evolve quickly enough to be able to hold my breath for 10 minutes? With practice I can increase my breath-holding capacity to over two minutes, but if I’m thrust into a situation where I need to hold my breath for 10 minutes, I’m not going to make it. That’s a Pass/Fail test, and it’s not looking good for me. What if we take a more incremental approach to this problem, though?

The Bajau people of Southeast Asia have long relied on their skills at free-diving for their livelihood and for food. They spend an extreme amount of time repeatedly holding their breath and diving below the surface to obtain food and pearls on the seafloor. This lifestyle has led to enlarged spleens among the Bajau. (The spleen plays a role in the oxygenation level of blood, among other things.) This adaptation enables divers to stay underwater longer. Here’s the interesting part though. Even non-divers among the Bajau people have enlarged spleens. This finding suggests conditioning the body has an impact on DNA, but it also means this adaptation was not the result of an “evolve or die” scenario, because death was not imminent before it occurred. Is it possible that evolution is taking place here?

I can’t find it online, but when I was in high school I was taught something I think called “Color Theory.” It helped explain the wide disparity in physical characteristics of people across the globe. I’ll run through a few examples. The Massai people of Kenya and Tanzania in eastern Africa have one of the tallest average heights in the world, at around 6 feet, 3 inches. They have tight curly hair and very dark brown (or even black) eyes. Spending many generations primarily as herders of livestock, they’ve traditionally spent long hours in the hot equatorial sun. Their height enabled them to see predators sneaking through the grass to attack members of their herd, and their dark skin, dark eyes, and tightly curled hair provided various forms of protection from the intense sun.

In Asia, the Gobi Desert straddles Mongolia and China, two of the world’s oldest and most storied cultures. The desert played a significant role in the type of genetic characteristics that manifested themselves in people that lived in the area. Being over six feet tall and having curly hair is no picnic during and after a sandstorm. The people in the region were generally much shorter, had straight, coarse hair, and had eye shapes and structures suited to providing protection for their vision. All of these characteristics made it easier to cope with the realities of living in regions with large volumes of sand blowing around.

Finally, the people of Scandinavia in northern Europe have their own unique characteristics. Living at high latitudes means the sun’s rays are not nearly as intense as other areas of the world. Weaker solar rays warrant fewer protections from the sun, so those traditionally living in this region are normally fair-skinned, have thinner (or more fine) hair, and have light-colored eyes. This makes them well suited for geography where, for months out of the year, the sun’s max intensity approximates dawn/twilight.

I share this with you to illustrate the following point. These four examples (Bajau divers, Massai, those around the Gobi Desert, and Scandinavians) all have unique adaptations for their native geography, but none of them are on their way to starting a new species. They are all unquestionably human, and they are all undoubtedly going to stay that way. They in no way represent a departure from the human race.

We are all human because God made us all in His image. We all descended from sinners and are sinners ourselves. Accordingly, we all have need of the same Savior, and that is Jesus Christ. If you’re one of His, there are plenty of other people out there who are waiting for you to share Christ with them, even if they don’t look like you. Take up the challenge to spread the good news with them.

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The Principle of Progressive Collapse

In the 1960s and 70s, the U.S. military extensively used the UH-1 Iroquois helicopter. Better known as the “Huey,” it gained widespread fame in Vietnam for its ability to carry troops in and out of battle and conduct medevac missions in hot combat zones.

Huey (foreground) and Blackhawk (background)

The venerated chopper has served its nation reliably since the 1950s, but it doesn’t have the best safety record when it has to make a hard landing. It doesn’t have many safety features to help occupants survive a crash. In the 1970s, a new helicopter came on the scene: the UH-60 Black Hawk.

Versions of the Black Hawk are still widely in use in today’s military. It’s larger, smoother, tougher, and more versatile than the Huey. It also has some safety features built in to help protect the crew from hard landings.

In 1993, U.S. Special Forces served in the African nation of Somalia to intervene in a situation where local warlords were taking advantage of a severe famine. On one particularly bloody October day, local fighters were able to shoot down a U.S. Black Hawk chopper during a military operation in the capital city of Mogadishu.

The pilot, Mike Durant, was the only survivor of the crash. The impact knocked him unconscious, but when he came to, he was surprised to find that he could no longer see over the “dashboard” of the helicopter. As it turns out, the front seats in the Black Hawk were designed to withstand a certain amount of force, after which they’d progressively collapse to the floor. This safety feature was intended to spare the seats’ occupants from absorbing all that force with their own bodies. By building the structure of the seat this way, the large amount of force that would have been transferred directly into Durant’s spine got dissipated enough to allow him to survive. The crash still broke his back, but he eventually recovered (despite being captured and held hostage) and returned to duty. The events of this operation are depicted in the movie “Black Hawk Down.”

The front seats in a Blackhawk are designed to absorb a portion of the force in a crash landing

Nowhere in scripture are Christians promised a life free of hardship. On the contrary, we will be hated and made fun of, and our lives can quite possibly be made more difficult by announcing our religious convictions to the world. The heat will get cranked up and all will get to see what our faith is really made of.

In those times, sometimes we’ll be made to bend, but not break. Other times we’ll be broken, but not killed. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that God never gives us more than we think we can bear; yes, that happens to people. The tough times I’ve been through pale in comparison to what some others have endured, but it seems like God’s purpose of the pain, the “why,” is never apparent during the pain. It also seems, however, that He designs situations in such a way that parts of you, or perhaps parts of your character, are protected while others crumple and break around you. When it’s over, the parts that He didn’t want are broken and have fallen away and the parts that are left are the parts that He still wants to be there. It may very well be that He arranged that set of circumstances specifically to refine your character or your outlook on life.

If you’re going through something really hard right now, hang in there. It won’t always be like this.