Imagine a tree, deep roots, large thick trunk, and branches growing in many different directions. It has large leaves, and abundant shade. At some point in history that tree was only a seed. That seed got watered, adequate sunlight, and plenty of room to grow. And over the years it grew, thickened, and started to spread. Some of it’s roots started to seep into the underground sewage systems of the houses it grew beside. Basements started flooding, untold damage done to the foundations, and financial burdens start to add up. What looked like an innocent tree has turned into something damaging. The tree has to now come down. Trimming the branches won’t make any difference anymore.
In our society today we have many of these systemic trees growing. They look harmless on the outside. We try to prune the branches, and even try to cut some branches off, but they grow back in another spot.
Last month I went for a job interview. I was hoping to get a part time position teaching travel and tourism at the local college. During the interview process, the interviewer told me that part of the curriculum is teaching the students about sex tourism. WHAT?? I told her that I hoped we taught the students that this was a horrendous thing…she nodded and told me yes, but we still need to stay current. This is a growing business in the travel industry.
This is just one of the branches growing from the deep rooted tree of pornography. 27 million slaves in this world today, and it’s just growing. Little girls and boys, and even babies, are being sold in countless markets in our world today to accommodate this growing epidemic. Children are being kidnapped everywhere, sold to brothels and harems. Yes, there are great organizations fighting this, and I hope and pray more rise up to fight, but the root needs to be addressed as well.
Our new sex ed curriculum. Yes, another branch on this tree. Our children, between the ages of 8-10, and even younger, are starting to post pornographic pictures of themselves online. “Well, we need to educate them, this world is so confusing these days. How are they going to know what sex they identify with unless we help them through this hard time?” I can understand the thought that we need to educate children, but who is stopping the adults from indulging in lifestyles and choices that confuse these children? You raise children in a house where porn in encouraged, and even laughed at, well…what do you reap? You reap a generation of confusion, and deep despair. Over 50% of divorces these days cite porn addiction as one of the reasons for the separation. The children grow up, many of them addicted to something, often porn. Love is confused with adultery, abuse, and physical sensation.
“Saara, you’re just leaping to judgements now, these things can’t possibly be connected.” So you might say. “We need to stay current. Porn, hedonism and narcissism…those aren’t things that most of us even need to worry about, that’s just what’s on TV/internet. We can tell the difference between entertainment and real life. And there are countless organizations fighting the sex slavery industry now, we can pray and support them.”
Really?
Much of the “entertainment” coming out these days involves some form of violence, graphic sex, and racism. What goes in, must come out in some form or another.
“Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life.” (Galatians 6:4-5, 7-8 MSG)
Think about it. We reap what we sow. Our society didn’t become the way it is now without people ignoring God, and doing what felt good. What are WE PERSONALLY doing to make a difference? It’s easy to bury a head in the sand, and most will. It takes effort, and sometimes difficulty, to start standing up for something.
There is a constant ripple effect to what we do. We live according to our core beliefs. And if our behavior involves sin, then our core belief means that we haven’t truly repented of our sins. We live lives with masks on, hoping to fit in, not make waves, and often have to “medicate” ourselves just to make it through another day.
I spent many years addicted to novels that involved something sexual in the content. These cheap thrills affected my core beliefs in so many ways, and I was a shell of a wife when I needed to express love. I didn’t know what love really looked like. And I’m not even talking about sexual love…it’s the sensationalism of the romance that I was looking for. I wanted what I read in the books…well, that isn’t reality at all. Not for a long term healthy relationship. We are seeing a growing epidemic of books like this being sold now. The latest one to come out is written to make us women sympathetic to the abuser. How can we judge a violent sickness when someone has issues? HA!! Yes, another branch in the tree of porn. (I could rant more about this…but maybe another blog.)
There has to be a change, or the world our children/grandchildren will live in looks quite frightening.
“If ever there comes a time when the women of the world come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known.” – Matthew Arnold, 19th century British poet/philosopher.
Can you imagine what would happen if we stood up TOGETHER, as WOMEN that LOVE JESUS, and started speaking out against the things that harm our children and our families. Our society would change drastically.
Just think about it…