Hard Times

Marines have a motto: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Or maybe you’ve heard the slogan, “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” These slogans sound good. We should face our struggles with faith and just get on with our lives, right?

The very real truth is that life’s trials hurt, and it is not often easy to “just get on with things.” The human experience is full of hardships: sickness and accidents; disappointments, strained and broken relationships. Difficulties in life will come and we must not allow them to keep us down.

A clear understanding of the value of these hardships will make it possible makes it possible to have a positive attitude in the face of struggle. Here are some points for you to consider as you face the troubles that you are either dealing with now or are sure to face in the future: 1) Adversity can both mature us and can bring out the best in us; 2) Suffering and distress can produce perseverance and endurance.

Perseverance is not a passive acceptance of circumstances. Perseverance instead refers to the ability to display steadfastness and constancy in the face of the most formidable difficulty. It is a courageous resolve in the face of suffering. It is continuing on even when times are tough, no matter the circumstances. Hard times can have a purifying quality; they are the arena in which, and the process through which, a tribulation transforms into a blessing.

But to truly learn and grow, we must persevere. Too often, we want to get our difficulties over with quickly. There are times when the best course is to bear up patiently instead of grumbling and complaining. We need to simply endure, and to continue doing well, understanding that perhaps the trial is meant to refine something in our life.

A journalist once wrote, “When nothing seems to help, I go to look at a stonecutter, hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times, without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet after the one hundred and first blow, it will split in two; and I know that it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” Letting patience do its perfect work is not easy. If we wish to run the race of life well we need to develop patience. That patience, in turn, will come only through a form of “resistance training,” that consists of doing well in enduring the misfortunes of life.

Our goal should be to turn trials into triumph. Remember that patient endurance of adversity can accomplish much good and spirituality can be a powerful tool in developing the wisdom to help us gain a proper perspective toward our hardships.

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Pornography In the Marriage: Where to draw the line?

I wrote this article for the Marine Corps Air Station, Yuma Desert Warrior (the station newspaper):

In the June 30^th edition of this paper, the Tell Us Your Opinion question was “Pornography in the marriage: Where to draw the line?” This is a topic of discussion that we bring up in our PREP marriage classes and is, I believe, a topic of vital importance to the health of Marine Corps marriages. In responding to issues, it is common to give the BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front). BLUF: “Pornography has no place in marriages and is destructive in marital relationships.” Bear with me as I unpack the BLUF (from a male perspective).

Romance, love and sexual pleasure are God’s good gift to us. Lust is the opposite of the purity of romance, love and sex as originally intended. Lust can be defined as deformed sexual desire and as an excessive desire for one’s own sexual pleasure. Lust is self-centered and is focused on one’s own self-gratification. Lust has been rehabilitated in our culture. There is a prevalent belief that the only damaging thing about lust is suppressing it. Society has divorced sex from morality and sees it as just a physical need to satisfy and as long as it is consensual, it is just harmless fun.

Entire books have been written on the topics under discussion in this article, space only allows me to provide a brief summary. Within the marital bond, sex is good, lust, not so much. Pornography creates a warped perception of people, relationships and sex. Pornography teaches unrealistic and inappropriate sexual experiences, it decreases satisfaction with monogamy and lowers family loyalties, it objectifies and degrades women, it encourages promiscuity, and it increases susceptibility to sexually acting out in ways harmful to others. Additionally pornography objectifies men and women, portraying them as sex objects whose worth lies in the size and shape of their body parts. It should be noted that men tend to be very visual, and when they look at a nude woman, they spend more time looking at her body and less time looking at her face – the focus is on her body parts – she is an object to be viewed and consumed.

Pornography leads men to have unhealthy views of women. Women are not valued for who they are as people, they are seen as objects meant to satisfy our desires. The best book that I have read on the issue of pornography is Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain by William M. Struthers. In the book, he writes on neural pathways. Like a path is created in the woods with each successive hiker, so do the neural paths become wider as they are repeatedly traveled with each exposure to pornography. They become the automatic pathway through which interactions with women are routed. All women become potential porn stars in their minds. They unknowingly have created a neurological circuit that imprisons their ability to see women rightly – as images created with value as people, not as objects to be used.

Finally I remind the reader of the emotional connection that is supposed to exist only between husband and wife. When we give ourselves over to pornography, we create an emotional connection with an object of illicit desire. We rob our spouse of the oneness that is essential in keeping the relationship mutually fulfilling.

BLUF: “Pornography has no place in marriages and is destructive in marital relationships.”

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Sermon Notes

I will be preaching my first sermon tomorrow (Sunday, November 22, 2009) in the Marine Corps Air Station Chapel as the Station Protestant Chaplain. My text will be Colossians 3:1-11. My sermon title will be Live Holy, No Matter What. Below are my main points:
I. Seek the Heavenly (vv. 1-4)
A. Set your minds on things above
B. Reasons to seek things above
II. Slay the Earthly (5-9)
A. We must "put to death" the sensual sins
B. We must "put off" the social sins
III. Strengthen our Christ-Likeness (vv. 10-11)
A. For we have put on the new man
B. For the goal is "Christ is all and in all"

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Born to Run

Book to read.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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Just got back from playing three mean games of racquetball. It has been a few years since I have played and things did not turn out the way I wanted. Hopefully I can get my game dialed in and have more success on the court in the future.

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I have much to be grateful for. After a difficult 2008, God has blessed our family with the adventures of active duty Navy Chaplaincy.

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Graduation Day

After five long weeks, my graduation day has arrived. Thanks all for your prayers.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Posted via email from chaplainwoodard's posterous

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