Becoming a Man

Sean Johnson, a pastor and a friend of mine at Northwest Community Church, has been speaking a lot lately in the young adults group about the role of a man as a leader of a household. Since I’m not in that position, nor am I in a relationship of any sort, I can ask myself, “What do I need to do RIGHT NOW to prepare myself for a calling such as this?”

Sean covered three main points of responsibility that the man will have in a marriage relationship. These are the priest/prophet, the provider, and the protector. As a priest and a prophet, a man must be able to know the word of God and teach it to others, as well as lead his family in the way of the Lord. As a provider, the man is called to provide for his family in both a monetary way, i.e. “bringing home the bacon,” but also for any other needs, such as emotional and time-based needs. As a protector, the man must make sure his family, especially his wife, feel protected at all times. This does not mean a simple physical security; rather, it covers a wide range of protection needs. I’ll elaborate a little later.


Here are the ways I’ve decided I can strive towards these goals.

1. Priest and prophet: I must devote energy to studying and understanding God’s word. As I stand right now, I do a pathetically small amount of this. I must increase in my knowledge if I am to teach others at some point.

Proverbs 1:7 - The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

2. Provider: This is a relatively simple (theoretically speaking) goal for me right now. I must diligently work towards a solid education--one that will give me a chance to succeed in my field of choice once I graduate in a timely manner. This means I have an obligation to avoid slacking on homework and other school assignments.

3. Protector: Since I’m not the head of the household I live in right now, I am not responsible for the main preservation aspects of it. I can do my part, however, to make sure my mom and family in general feel protected by the knowledge that I will not only protect them from bodily harm, when needed, but the knowledge that I will carry out any assigned tasks in the household in a timely manner, so that I can prove that I am worthy of being trusted in larger matters. (Excuse the possible run-on sentence, I’m typing this late at night.)


I hope that my brothers and sisters in Christ (and yes, this means even my siblings) will try to help me in my goals here. This means I am officially opening myself to constructive criticism or rebuke. I hate being told what to do, especially when I have my own agenda and timetable, so this is going to be a serious exercise in humility.

A man’s responsibility is to serve his household, not lord over it in a domineering way. This means making his own priorities the lowest, and the priorities of others around him the highest. Honestly speaking, I am a very selfish person. I pray that this can change in some way, and that I may become more like Christ as I get older. For now, I merely wish to have a modest, distinct set of maturity goals, with direct methods for achieving said goals.

On Words and their Meanings

I think I tend to write better late at night. I seem to be somewhat more self-reflective when I'm low on sleep—maybe because my thoughts have an easier time just flitting from place to random place. It's the organizing of these thoughts that's going to drive me batty for this post, though, I just know it. I haven't really had the time to do this whole writing thing for a while, due to school and other things keeping me from staying up late with any sort of pondering of topics other than homework or when I can just go to bed soonest.

Now that I've gotten that random bit of trivia out of my way, I'd like to bring you on a little pondering excursion. First off, I haven't been reading my Bible very often. A crime, I know. However, being in this ponderous mood that I am, I thought it very appropriate to go read a little bit of the book of James. Why James? Well, it was the first book that came to mind when I was thinking about words, because of its extremely profound section on the tongue. A funny thing, language is. Words are merely sounds put together to convey an idea, right? Well, maybe. Let me get into that a little more, later.

First off, words have their dictionary definitions. Many of my friends call me a walking dictionary, and with good reason; I tend to use many words in my everyday communication that my peers have never really heard. Take, for instance, the word “compunction.” This word, according to my trusty MacBook's dictionary widget, is defined as follows: “A feeling of guilt or moral scruple that follows the doing of something bad; a pricking of the conscience.” And yes, I'd use the term “moral scruple” if I thought it was appropriate, too. Most people would, instead of saying, “He had no compunction about doing thus-and-such,” say something more along the lines of, “He didn't have a problem with doing such-and-such.”

Secondly, though, words have their implied or generally accepted meanings. This implied meaning changes from peer group to peer group. Specifically, I'm thinking of words that are known as “curse words.” People in different groups will have entirely different reactions to these words. I could walk onto a college campus, for instance, and most people I speak with will have no compunction (see, I used it right there, and yes, it's the first word I thought of) about generously sprinkling their conversation with several of these colorful words. However, if I were to take that kind of language inside a church, for example, people would be shocked. To the young adult on the college campus, these words are nothing more than a way of emphasizing speech—generally harmless. It's slang. It's how they talk. It's merely a way of life. To the pious church crowd (I'm thinking of a nice, generic, middle-aged lady as a good example, here), though, it's a different thing entirely; it's crude, it's vulgar, it's offensive. What's the difference, here?

Obviously, the young adult doesn't attach the same meaning to the same word that the churchgoer would take such offense at. Why is this so? Is it just because the churchgoing, middle-aged lady is out of touch with the way language is shifting? Or is it that the more mature adult has a much more mature grasp on the meaning of the various words in the English language?

As a Christian, I think that it's my duty to intimately know what I'm saying. You see, words have deeper meaning beyond just general, vague ideas. You never know who might be listening to what you say; what you meant as a harmless joke or a benign statement could be interpreted differently by someone who doesn't know you as well as you do. If I'm supposed to represent Christ, would I want to say anything that he wouldn't say? This is a question I don't meditate on frequently enough, by any means. Do you really think Christ would “spice up” his conversation with empty or offensive words? No. Absolutely not.

I hope this makes as much sense to you, the reader, as it does to me. Until next time!

Recession Depression Questions

Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an authority on this subject. In fact, I am very much a non-authority. This is a result of my admittedly limited observations, based on some slight research. I am a college student, and have some very strong views which are subject to change in the future as I gain more knowledge. This is mostly just the outpouring of my head into print--welcome to a tour of my head.

The stock market crash in 1929 was partially a result of inferior technology. The archaic ticker tape machines in use at the time couldn’t handle the volume of transactions that occurred on October 29th. A record 12 point some-odd million transactions happened that day, and the machines fell far behind this volume. Since people couldn’t track their stock ownership, they tried to get rid of it as fast as possible, which led to the massive drop in the DOW.

The relinquishing of stock was a natural and logical response to the lag in the ticker tape--why hold onto it if you can’t track where it’s going?

Technology would have helped immensely here. Had we had the technology we now do--the internet, computers, databases, etc.--the stock market crash would probably not have happened, and we might have just seen more growth as usual in the late 20s and early 30s, whatever. People jumped onto the bandwagon and sold their stock as fast as possible, and the simple supply and demand laws were starkly illustrated; too many sellers, not nearly enough buyers. Stock prices, and therefore the economy, rocketed toward the ground.

People weren’t able to see that things would certainly even out in the long run--supply and demand works both ways. As supply goes down, demand goes up. Supply goes up, demand goes down. Once it gets out of balance, the economy WILL right itself eventually. Those that took hard risks may be out of luck, but anyone that didn’t do something stupid and bet the farm on their livelihood will be just fine.

Instead of letting things even out naturally, the Democratic party stepped in and pandered to the crass demands of the American consumer to “have it now!” The American attitude is as follows: “I cannot see the end, so I panic. I look for a source besides myself to try to quell my panic. Look! The government is offering me money! I’ll take it, and hope that the money comes from somewhere other than myself.”

This is a stupid outlook. The money the government hands out ALWAYS comes from YOUR pocket in the long run. You always have more money than someone else.

The recent recession was a bit of a different story. This one was a product of human greed--and on a very large scale. Many people did, in fact, “bet the farm” on their livelihood by taking out massive loans on housing that they couldn’t possibly pay back. The banks, too, were to blame, by even giving these loans out in the first place. The housing market wasn’t the only one to blame for the bubble, though. Americans were buying EVERYTHING on credit, and buying far beyond their means.

The government is now trying to get everyone to spend again to try and jumpstart the businesses (and therefore the jobs) that were hit by the crash. This is a bad idea, though. Where’s that money coming from? Joe Consumer, in the long run. How does this make sense at all? “Let’s take money from nowhere and give it to people!” Oh wait. Yeah.

This has been a very long and rambling post, but here’s a summary for you--the Depression was triggered by technological inadequacies, and prolonged by the stupid little Americans and their stupid little government. The current recession was caused by greedy people, and has been prolonged by greedy people putting empty promises in office. Big difference in a lot of ways (a stock market crash will never happen again based on a record-setting day in stock trading), but not so big in others (people are still uninformed and greedy, and the Democrats are back in power at this point). Also, never trust your friendly local politicians who promise to make it all better by giving you free money.

This concludes your tour of my head for now.

One Nation Under God?

I keep getting these requests on Facebook for a cause; to keep the phrase “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. I currently refuse to join such a cause, mainly because I believe it’s a lost one. Why bother keeping such a phrase in the Pledge when it’s very obvious that this nation has thrown God away?

This is NOT to say that one should not do things like pray for the nation and be a Christian citizen living in the US. I don’t consider myself a citizen of the United States, though. Legally I am, but my heart does not support this country. Instead, I consider myself a member of God’s kingdom. Much like the Jews under Rome’s government didn’t consider themselves as part of the Roman empire, so I live under the watchful eye of Uncle Sam, yet have no deep-rooted love for his empire. I am a law-abiding citizen, and I will dutifully give to Caesar what is his.

It’s obvious that the United States, by and large, has left God out of the government. In its eyes, the government is god. I’m not going to spend pointless energy trying to keep “under God” in the Pledge; rather, I will spend that energy increasing the citizens in God’s kingdom.

What say you?

The Firstborn Post

There's always a first post, isn't there? Welcome to my blog. Some of those that read this may know me as Michael Birch, which is my given name. Some others may know me under the name of Flexstyle, electronic musician. Still others may know me as Vortexx, fun-loving gamer.


In any case, this is where I shall post my various thoughts 'n stuff. This first post is really just a placeholder, but I'll have more coming soon. If you're reading this, thanks! I promise there'll be more soon; in fact, probably as soon as I get home from the coffee shop and find some notes.


Stay tuned!