Tina Turner, married to Ike Turner, one of the world's stormiest marriages wrote and made popular the song “What's Love Go to do With It”.
Statistics prove that arranged marriages usually work out better than the lustful unions with which we are familiar. Usually a matter of lustful-lawful rather than love, the divorce rate in America is over 50%... even among ministers, particularly evangelicals. Arranged marriages have always been essential with royalty... power, wealth, historical boundaries. In India, I saw arranged marriages taking place in large hotels. The excitement of the groom riding on an elephant. Earliest Jewish marriages were arranged, a time for parents making financial arrangements, a time of betrothal, and then a time of ceremony. The great preacher Dwight L. Moody said, “When God is your partner, you can make great plans.” Most marriages do not last much beyond the unwrapping of gifts.
We live in a kleenex, fast food, unthinking society in politics and economics. Life at the school house, the courthouse, and certainly the drug store, we attempt to get the cure at the same place we caught the disease.
We have abandoned good sense, civilized traditions. The popular mantra, started in 1960, “Do your own thing.” At Woodstock, 1969, Jimi Hendrix-Joan Baez-The Who, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. Hippie looseness came from such apostles as Timothy Leary... drop out, psychedelic drugs which caused irreparable brain damage. It was a time of rebellion, women vaulted for liberation. Eleanor Roosevelt headed a committee which became NOW (National organization for women) Betty Friedan, 1963, wrote the feminine mystique stating that women needed a man like a fish needed a bicycle. In San Francisco, Alan Ginsberg, poet, lectured to 20,000 about life. The Beetles, on every radio station, proclaimed “All you need is Love” and, on his way to hell, Sinatra is still singing, “I did it my way.”
One of my assistants, working with the local movie studio, was assigned the job of assisting when Sinatra performed here. He said, “Getting him off his plane, he looked and acted like a real old man but, in makeup, in tux, on the stage, he was a very alive performer. He said, “Taking him back to the plane, he was old and slow again.”
Is this the answer?, Is life just a performance? or, are we here for a reason? Remember life is not a dress rehearsal, you go around the track only once. In it's very short span, are you destined to make a contribution?
For many of us, the tougher we are, the tougher the test. God may allow you to get knocked down... chronic illness, wheelchair, white cane. He does test us. With me, I wish he would try some fresh meat but, the test is not what happens when all goes well but, when all goes wrong.
Without faith it is impossible to please God. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Hebrews 11:6) I truly believe that 90% of faith is just raw courage. I truly believe that faith is a verb... action, based on belief, sustained by confidence.
Attempting to survive, most have become dumpster divers. It is so depressing when news headlines tell us about illegal stock trading involving politicians, such as California's Dianne Feinstein and Nancy Pelosi. If I were an atheist, I would surely believe that there must be a Higher Power to mete out justice. Martha Stewart went to prison for stock adventures for which every stock broker is guilty. Even Bernie Madoff said, “The game is fixed.” Everyone knew what Bernie was doing , even the SEC. Everyone knows congressional manipulation of the stock market. Instead of the occupiers condemning Wall Street, molesting hard working citizens, why don't these Obama-loving, ACORN supporting, democrat voting, malcontent unhygienic occupiers, protest congress and the White House?
Jesus taught us that we should love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12) Too much tinkering with Christianity but still remains, love of God, family, country.
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