 Question: Doug, I'm married
and know that 1 Timothy 5:1-2 says, "Treat … older women as mothers,
and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity" (NIV). But I
struggle with impure thoughts when I'm around women. What is the best
way to keep my mind sexually pure?
Answer:
I recommend a few strategies. One, wear a rubber band on your wrist and
every time you lust at a woman, snap it. This will stop reinforcing
this behavior. Two, memorize some Scriptures on purity so you can
access them when in need. Three, do what 1 Timothy 5:1-2 suggests—view
all women in the context of a relationship.
Have you ever had mixed thoughts and emotions about your spouse? I have-just this morning, in fact.
Today started out as any other day, but for some reason things just affected me differently than they usually do. I got out of bed and began my regular devotional time with the Lord, reading the Word, studying a powerful book, and praying. When I stood to my feet, I was filled with peace and gratitude.
"I feel great!" I thought to myself. And off I went to begin what I thought was going to be a wonderful day.
The kitchen was first on my agenda. I don't know why, exactly, but I have a plaque over my stove that reads, "A kitchen is the heart of the home." When I was growing up, my mother always kept a clean kitchen, with a pot of something deliciously fragrant simmering on the stove.
The only thing fragrant about my kitchen this morning was a hot, empty coffee pot, left sitting on the coffee maker with the switch in the "on" position, by my husband.
"I get so tired of this," I thought. "Why do I have to clean up his mess?"
I picked up the pot and carried it over to the sink. There I discovered the spoon he'd used to stir the sugar in his cup. It had been set beside the sink and now lay in a brown, sugary puddle. I grabbed a cloth and began to wipe the counter-muttering the whole time.
"That man!" I said in frustration. "Why can't he just put the spoon in the sink where it belongs?"
I decided to tackle the bathroom instead. You can probably guess what I found-beard clippings and blobs of toothpaste in the sink, and puddles of water on the counter top. I turned to grab a towel.
As I did, I looked at my towel, folded neatly in thirds over the rack (Mom said double is allowed, too, but not as nice looking). My husband's towel was bunched and crumpled, as if he doesn't care at all about being neat. I stood there staring.
After a few moments, I started to unravel and re-fold his towel. But something happened to change my whole mind-set and along with it, my feelings. I looked from his towel to mine, back and forth.
I felt myself begin to soften. I started to appreciate and praise God for our differences. Feelings of love, softening my heart, began to manifest. I tenderly touched his towel, leaving it as it had been.
Then I went back into the kitchen to clear the table, where he had been sitting and drinking his cup of coffee. My eyes caught sight of his open Bible and a yellow highlighting pen. I remembered the early morning I discovered him sitting in the same chair with closed eyes and folded hands, offering up a silent prayer to God.
 Review: "It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine." When piano-bar musician Tony Delgatto (George Segal) croons those R.E.M. lyrics to a sloshed crowd in the new film 2012, he has no idea he's performing the intro to a seismic disaster that's about to take center stage on planet Earth.
It isn't long, however, before everyone, everywhere in this apocalyptic movie, which opens Friday, realizes Mother Earth has started to reel like a drunken sailor and that something is terribly wrong with her. What unfolds is a special-effects bonanza about the collapse of the world and the story of those who survive it.
Set from 2009 to 2012, the film opens with a discovery that the Earth's core temperature is rising rapidly. Causing this is an astro-physical phenomenon brought on by a freakish planetary alignment that occurs once every 640,000 years, according to ancient Mayan astronomers. They calculated the next alignment would start in 2010 and end on the winter solstice of 2012, or Dec. 21.
Right on cue, the planets line up, causing the sun to microwave the Earth's molten core and "melt" the world's landmasses. The result is a gargantuan displacement of Earth's crust—fault lines rip open, bodies of land implode, underwater earthquakes spike the seismographs and roll the planet from pole to pole with 4,900-foot tsunamis. Geological carnage is wreaked on a world that, thanks to joint governmental conspiracies, is clueless that an apocalypse is brewing.
At the center of the action are Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) and Kate Curtis (Amanda Peet), a divorced couple with two preteen kids. The four are reunited by circumstances just as the catastrophe strikes Los Angeles, where they live. Jackson Curtis, who works part time for a livery and was famous once for his best-selling science-fiction novel, has amazingly gotten wind of what's happening in the disturbed belly of the Earth. He's made it his mission to save his family, no matter what.
He piles everyone into his company's limousine to head for a local airport, where he's chartered a flight out of the city. Just as he does, Los Angeles begins to writhe and belch its molten guts out. Streets curl, jerk and snap like a bullwhip while Jackson drives pedal to the metal, dodging collapsing freeways, exploding gas lines, falling parking garages, disintegrating high-rises and pesky ground fissures.
Director Roland Emmerich does a decent job of pairing the film's unrelenting action with some lighthearted comic relief, just as he did with Independence Day. For one, he gives us Woody Harrelson as Charlie Frost, a pickle-poppin' hippie who lives in Yellowstone National Park in an ancient RV, from which he does pirate-radio broadcasts to expose government cover-ups about 2012.
The onscreen action is practically nonstop over the course of 2012's gargantuan 158 minutes, but you might lose count of the number of times you'll think, The chances of that person surviving that disaster is, oh, about a gazillion to one. And be prepared to roll your eyes at the lack of fear some of the characters exude in the face of utter devastation or certain doom. How many of us could really make wise cracks while we're standing under a sky that's raining fire?
The film also erroneously states that Christians refer to the end of the world as the rapture. And it pits the conclusions of Mayan seers against the Bible's teaching that humanity does not know the precise time (certainly not to the year) when the world will end.
You can be certain that 2012 is a cinematic thrill ride. But also know that the price of admission to this adventure is a hefty helping of absurdity you'll have to buy into to believe anyone, anywhere could escape the snapping jaws of our tranquil planet turned killer beast. But, after all, it's only a movie; so buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Content Watch: 2012 is rated PG-13. This movie is about disaster. There may be scary sequences that involve disasters killing countless people. Scenes may be too intense for young children. There is one momentary view of gore and no sex or nudity.
 Have you ever asked God why? "Why me, Lord?" "Why not pick somebody else for this?" "Why am I always the one going through the fire?"
In the good times we say, "Lord, I love You." We quote, "Oh, in the volume of the book it is written of me I delight to do Your will, O Lord." Then we add, "Father take me, mold me, use me. Take my life, and let it be consecrated to Thee."
 If you have fathered a child, you have already discovered that a baby is the most effective form of birth control ever invented. It may have taken you awhile to figure this out, because a baby is so deceptively cute and disarming that we utterly underestimate his or her ability to scheme against us.
But the brutal fact is this: When you bring a baby home from the hospital, you invite into your home a small-but-willful being who realizes, at a very young age, that if he prevents you from ever having sex again, he gets all the toys for himself. Think I am exaggerating? Then tell me, Dad, have you ever experienced the following scenario?
You are looking forward to a sweaty little round of conjugal fellowship with your wife, but you first need to put the baby to bed. You gently place him in his crib and tiptoe out of his room, confident that you have a minimum of a few hours before he will awake.
About 30 seconds after you and your beloved get naked, little Tommy begins wailing like an ambulance. Now you, as a guy, can ignore this because once you get naked, you, as a guy, could ignore a meteorite smashing into the living room. But your wife can't even ignore a dripping faucet three blocks away much less ignore the pitiable shrieks of her helpless and dependant infant.
So you throw on your robe, scamper down the hall and check the diaper, which has the moisture content of the Sahara desert. He does not need to be changed. You try rocking him but that only makes him fussier. So you bring him to your wife to see if he wants to nurse, but he just nestles into her breast and says "guuu ehhh gaah ahhh," which is how babies say, "Don't you wish YOU were here?"
Thirty minutes later he drifts off to sleep, so you pick him up with the same caution you would use if you were picking up a beaker of nitroglycerin and tuck him into his bed. You climb into bed and snuggle up next to your bride, who is now in a possum-like state of unconsciousness. You gently rub her back, hoping to ease her back into a state of amorous wakefulness, but she begins snoring like a Husqvarna chain saw. You are about to burst into tears when little Tommy emits a small gurgle, which snaps your wife back into a state of wide-awake panic.
"I think he is choking!" she whispers.
"He's fine! He just made the same little noise he always makes!" you reply.
"Honey, I won't be able to get back into the mood unless we make sure he is OK," she says.
So you creep right up to his crib. No sound. You reach gently into his crib and give him a little wiggle to see if he will make a little noise. He does not. Rather, he makes a vast quantity of noise, akin to a buzz saw cutting into concrete. And your evening now has all the romantic potential of a root canal.
I cannot even begin to count the number of times that our first child thwarted my romantic intentions. I have to confess that I actually got mad at him. I got angry that a 6-month-old baby had the audacity to be, well, a baby. Yes, I was that shallow. And, yes, I am embarrassed about it now.
Those frustrating times of deferred pleasure forced me to learn to sacrifice and to put the needs of my son before my own desires. God was showing me my true colors and also building character into my soul as I rocked my fussy son.
I also learned to be creative and to look for other opportunities to engage in romantic interludes with my wife. I never knew traffic jams could be such a blessing. Hey, I am a guy.
Dave Meurer is an award-winning humorist and the author of Mistake It Like a Man (Multnomah). This article was orginally in New Man magazine.
 When my oldest sister got engaged, I jumped right in to help. I was happy that she was so happy and eager to share in her joy. But what I saw as helping, my future brother-in-law viewed as interference. Our relationship went from bad to worse; my pride had been stepped on and I was hurting. I was treated like the scum of the earth, which only served to fuel my anger at his arrogance.
The more I thought about him, the angrier I became. Soon it was all I thought about. I was angry, bitter and stressed. My thoughts turned to revenge—surely there was some way I could hurt him back. I would have been perfectly pleased if he would have just dropped dead.
 My book agent is an unusual combination of business partner, coach and mother. Even though my agent is a guy, he is still like Mom because he frets about my future and hopes he can be proud of me someday if I grow up to be a successful and mature writer before he throttles me for misbehaving. I recently told my agent that I wanted to write a book titled Finding God in Bed. He replied, "Well, that would certainly be provocative," which is agent/mother-speak for, "You have lost your ever-loving mind, and no Christian bookstore would ever carry a book like that, and you are going to be the death of me yet, and wouldn't you feel better after a nice nap?"
 Have you ever read the book of Acts with longing to be back in that time so you could experience the miracles and the move of the Holy Spirit? Don't worry; right now, today, God is turning that water into wine. In fact, He has saved the best wine for last, and the glory of the latter house is going to be greater than the glory of the first (see Hag. 2:9). We are going to walk in such miracles that there will be no comparison. I would rather be in this move of God than to be in the book of Acts, because this wine tastes better.
In the book of John we read that miracles are manifestations of the glory of God: "This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him" (John 2:11, KJV). You may say, "Well, Brother John, why do you need miracles?" The answer is simple: We need the glory.
"Well, Brother John, why do we need the glory?" The answer is because it is only the glory that will change us into the image of Jesus Christ. Prophecy comes, miracles come, the glory comes and then change comes. We are changed into His likeness.
It is the glory of God that will change us into the image of Jesus Christ. There is no way we can come into contact with the glory of God and not be affected with a positive change.
I am sure that most people have not yet truly come into contact with the glory of God. How do I know? Because people can regularly attend church year after year, hear the Word, and go through all the religious motions, yet they never seem to change into the image of Jesus Christ. They stay the same. They are stuck.
People can pray, read their Bibles, and still never experience the change that God desires—until they come into contact with the glory of God. But the glory of God has not been manifested in a lot of churches; they have neither the unction nor the anointing of God.
It doesn't matter how much people may want to change. They need something more so they can reach the fulfillment of their desires. And that something more is the glory of God. Scripture says that we are changed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord (see 2 Cor. 3:17-18).
We must have the glory of God in our services in order to experience change. What is the glory of God? It is the tangible, manifest presence of God. What do I mean by that?
Most people understand that God is omnipresent; people realize that God is everywhere. People therefore know that God is present whether you feel Him or not. The Bible says the eyes of the Lord are everywhere, beholding the evil and the good. And yet, chances are you are not going to feel the presence of God in a bar. Instead, you are going to feel the presence of demons, sin and darkness.
The glory of God is something you can feel, sense and see. In the Old Testament, the glory of God was manifested in a pillar of cloud during the day and a pillar of fire by night. It was also manifested sometimes by smoke, although it was not literal smoke but rather the palpable strength of His presence.
When the glory of God comes, when the tangible anointing and presence of God are in a building or in a person, a person cannot help but be changed. When this happens, you are able to sense the presence of God beyond the faith realm. The influence of God is very heavy because He is manifesting Himself. His manifest presence brings a change.
People cannot come into contact with the glory and presence of God and not be changed.
I want you to notice that the best is yet to come. The Lord has kept back the good wine until the end of the age. You talk about miracles, signs and wonders—you haven't seen anything yet!
We need to pursue the glory and the presence of God. Let's decide today to pursue Him and His glory so that He can change us into His image and experience the best that is to come.
Adapted from God Still Speaks by John Eckhardt, copyright 2009, published by Charisma House. This book combines instructive, narrative teaching with powerful truths that helps bring moving in the prophetic easily achievable, while sparking your zeal to pursue the presence and glory of God and be forever changed. To order a copy click on this link:
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