Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Greetings, dear ones.

I just heard the wood splitter start up…so Thano is finally at it. We still have a good deal of firewood logs to be bucked and split so it can be drying and ready for burning this winter.

Becki and I did our WOG earlier. Good time. Of course, we’ve been doing so without a dog lately. We intend to get a replacement sometime soon.

Lots on the list again. Time to move on. Blessings on your day

Love, Dad/Ray.

Against the backdrop of these implicit poetic expressions it’s pretty easy to figure out what’s going on. So it’s kind of tough to come up with a springboard FOCUS VERSE that I can present without some blushing. I give up! I’ll just cite the one above and go ahead and blush.

To be sure, this phenomenon of gender attraction—a man and a woman/a woman and a man—and all that goes with it is clearly a God thing. There is absolutely no way that mindless dirt could have thought this up! And making sure the personal side of the phenomenon is a God-honoring thing is the goal of Biblical instruction. The godly ideal, of course, is a delicate conscientious balance between the extremes of loveless sex and sexless love. We are wise to do everything we can to get it right and to train our children toward getting it right. The phenomenon is simply too important and influential to neglect and leave to trial and error learning.

My own parents, for whatever reason, chose to be silent with this kind of training. Absolutely silent. Adolescent speculation, dirty jokes, and pornography prove to be lousy avenues for exploring this mystery of life. A negative message about the whole thing was given me when my mother sent a note to my third-grade teacher after she learned that square dancing was being introduced in our class. Before she found out, I quite enjoyed it. The opportunity to just hold hands with a girl in an acceptable setting was enchanting. But I was led to conclude that there was something evil about my enjoyment.

The first two years of my attending Northwest College was under the presidency of Dr. C. E. Butterfield. I will never forget and will always appreciate his forthright candor at addressing this difficult and captivating mystery right there in our chapel periods—with a mixed audience! What a welcome message to have the mystery sufficiently unveiled and given a place of dignity, beauty, and godliness that had largely eluded me till then.

Without attempting to read a bunch of spiritual meaning into this piece of literature, suffice it to say that we’re talking about something good—something of the Creator’s design—something He wants to bless. I’m convinced that the best way to treat this special gifting is with a sense of marvel. In fact, I think that’s the best way to treat the rest of His gifts. When humble marveling is lost (or not present) we have a recipe for arrogance and failure. So please marvel. Never stop marveling.