LAUNCH OUT INTO THE DEEP!
 
With the advent of social media, connecting online with friends and relatives has never been easier. Along with that ease of connection are the increased opportunities to connect with faceless strangers (shared pictures don’t count) who often remain faceless throughout the duration of the relationship. This presents many unusual dangers.

Most everyone has heard of online sex predators that prey on the unwary. They alter their profile, their pictures, and even their words to lure in susceptible young girls (and boys) into a real meeting where the predator can then molest them. We’ve even heard of stories of mothers pretending to be their daughters and setting up sexual meetings with adult men! The perceived distance and thus the perceived protection of online dating is one of the dangers.

Here is a list of potential dangers of forming online relationships:

1.     False sense of security. Because the other person is not physically present, there is a built in sense of security. You are talking to a stranger from the comfortable environment of your home. You can cut the conversation off at any time, and you don’t have to witness their anger, surprise, or pain at your rudeness. They can’t physically touch you. You don’t have to worry about molestation or anything like that. Thus you feel more secure, and when you feel more secure you let your guard down! That is the danger. Many people will miss key indicators of potential disaster because they are hiding behind their sense of security.

2.     Tendency to be more bold and forward. Because of many of the reasons given in the first point, you will have a tendency to be bolder in what you say, text, or chat about with the faceless person on the other side of a digital signal. Many people find themselves more open with a faceless stranger than they do with family and friends. People will ask questions and post thoughts that they would never dream of asking or sharing with people they really know in their ‘real’ life. This is dangerous because it attaches you emotionally to a person who you have never truly interacted with.

3.     Shallow emotional attachments. True emotional attachments can only be achieved through actual interaction with someone in a shared environment. You need to witness a person’s total behavior under uncontrolled situations to really begin to know him or her. Your emotional attachment to an online relationship is more about your fantasy than reality. You imagine what he looks like in real situations and thus your attachment is to an idea, not a real person. Without actual interaction in the same environment, you cannot possibly know the real person.

4.     Degradation of communication skills. This danger seems, at first glance, to be a contradiction. If you are talking more and more to people online, how can that erode your communication skills? Because communication is not about text, chat, or video conferences. True communication is between two people within the same environment where the emotions, ideas, thoughts, and needs directly impact the life of the other. When you are forced to suffer the results of your words, your actions, and your interactions, that is where you become more conscientious of what you say. Over the internet, there is little fear of this and thus your communication skills become stunted, less refined, and shallower. What would a marriage relationship be like if the husband and wife communicated only through texting while sitting on the opposite side of the same bed? It would be absurd.

When it comes to dating online, these dangers are very, very real. Even if you don’t think you will be victimized by a sexual predator, these other dangers will haunt your online relationships. They must be taken seriously.

Dating, of any kind, is meant to explore the possibility of something more, something greater, something wonderful: marriage. Dating determines if you should or should not get married.  

Pray tell, how can a person possibly learn this over an internet connection?

The following passage about Amnon serves to illustrate the dangers. Amnon’s sister was forbidden from him by reason of his relation—they were half brother and sister. Still, he fantasized about her, desired her, and built in his mind something he thought he loved:

2 Samuel 13:1-2 - And it came to pass after this, that Absalom the son of David had a fair sister, whose name was Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her. 2 And Amnon was so vexed, that he fell sick for his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin; and Amnon thought it hard for him to do any thing to her.

He loved his fantasy of her, not her. After he got her, look what happened:

2 Samuel 13:14-15 - Howbeit he would not hearken unto her voice: but, being stronger than she, forced her, and lay with her. 15 Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. And Amnon said unto her, Arise, be gone.

This same mental and emotional process happens over and over again with online dating. The distant love creates a fantasy that becomes the object of love, not the reality behind that love. Once the real thing is encountered, the love often turns to hatred.

Press Play to Listen to a Chapter Excerpt from Launch Out Into The Deep titled, "Angels Watching Over Me."  The author shares how her insecurities and loneliness led to internet dating.  She is in for a rude awakening when she discovers that her date could have ended her life.

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Summary: Men and women, by nature, see sex in completely different ways. This is not only normal, it is Biblical. The differences in our sexual natures has led to complications, but handled correctly allows for true sexual satisfaction in a marriage.

Typically—though not always—men have a higher craving for physical sexual pleasure than a woman does. This does not mean that a woman enjoys sexual activity less than a man does. It means that the way a woman approaches sex and the way a man approaches sex are often from different angles.

For a man, physical pleasure translates into emotional satisfaction. For a woman, emotional satisfaction translates into physical pleasure. A man’s ability to be aroused and then to climax is much quicker and faster than that of the typical woman. A woman, usually, needs more time, more affection, more attention—more emotional satisfaction—before her arousal prepares her to climax.

A man finds emotional validation of his masculinity after having sex. This validation is often important to a male ego. Men are often known for ‘boasting’ about the quantity of their sexual triumphs, and a woman—if she brags at all—about the quality or who she slept with. For a woman, sex is a validation of her relationship with her man. If she is emotionally satisfied during sex, she will feel more secure in her relationship.

This is a very important distinction. A man defines himself by his work while a woman defines herself by her relationships. Ask a man to define himself, and he will tell you his occupation. Ask a woman to define herself and she will tell you who she is: wife, mother, or friend. This definition, or validation of self, carries over into sexual activity. If a husband takes the time to love his wife, to shower her with affection, gentleness, and romance, he gives to her the emotional security that is so paramount to her. She, in her own way, having ‘submitted’ her body to her husband validates his masculinity—a source of security for him.

In Ephesians 5:25, God commands the husband to love his wife: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” The word ‘love’ is the Greek word ‘agapao’ which means a deep abiding love. God knows that a woman has a need to be satisfied emotionally and therefore commands the husband to provide that satisfaction.

Likewise, we find that in Titus 2:4, God commands the wife to love her husband: “That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands…” But there is a difference, an important difference. The word ‘love’ here is a different Greek word. Here it is ‘philandros’ which means an affectionate or physical love. When a wife gives her body to her husband, she shows that physical love that brings security to a man.

It seems God understands our sexual natures quite well. When both a husband and wife’s sexual nature is satisfied, there is nothing like it. This works best in a marriage, because a marriage has made an emotional commitment that brings security and well-being to sexual activity. God understood that, and that is why He said in Hebrews 13:4, “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” Compare the level of satisfaction between the right way and the wrong way, and you’ll come to believe it too.

Press Play To Listen to a Chapter Excerpt from Launch Out Into The Deep titled, "The Secret Shame:  Confessions From Men."
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    Each of our lives is like a book.  It starts off like a prologue in the beginning of a novel. When each of us is born into this world everyone says such nice things. They tell us that we remind them of this person or that person when they were little. They tell you of their great inspirations and dreams and that you should have them too (even if they haven’t fulfilled their own dreams).

    The middle of the book is where a lot of people get stuck. You read one chapter and you either lose interest or you don’t understand what’s going on. So what do people do? You either put your bookmarker in and leave it for another day or you go back to other pages to understand what just happened. Some people return to it to finish and others forget about it altogether. Either way, we must learn not to stop on a certain page in our lives like we do in books. We must persevere. There is so much to learn by going forward and not stopping. There is so much we can impart to others as we learn ourselves.

    The middle of the book is also where you decide if it’s really worth it. We do the same thing in our lives. Is it really worth it to fight for this or that? Is it really worth it to go through heartache and pain in this relationship? You will not only question its worth, but also your passion along with it. That’s when you get stumped and lose interest and stay stuck in the past; stuck on that page in your life. But it’s available to all to make that decision to change; to turn that page in their lives so they can experience much more of what life has to offer.

    The middle of the book is also where you go back to previous chapters to remember what took place that caused the current chain of events. This can also stop a lot of people from moving forward in a timely manner to finish what they started. It's the same thing in our lives. We look at past events, places, experiences and even people and even dwell on the past so much that we don’t make any progress. We just can't move forward because we are still stumped, confused or hurt about previous experiences.  Some experiences are so traumatic that it may take going to a psychiatrist.  It may take a lot of prayer and counseling. But whatever the method that is used to correct the issue, it needs to be done proactively so that one can move on to the next portion of their lives.

    Our lives are just like a book. There is a beginning, middle, and an end. Every time we sit down to read a book, we are taking a journey -- that journey, just like our lives, is a process; a process toward completion. At the beginning of our lives, we started that process. We began our dreams and aspirations. At the end of our lives, the completion of our goals and dreams would be our final chapter. What would your final chapter say? The middle of the book, the process or the journey, is the period before the end of our destination.  It’s never too late to "turn da page in your life".



Click Play to listen to a Poem From Launch Out Into The Deep, titled, "Walls of Protection."
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Summary:  It is possible to abuse yourself sexually. When we think of sexual abuse, we think of sexual predators and sex offenders. But in general, most of the sexual harm done to our generation is not done by a second party; it is done to our self.The dictionary defines abuse as simply ‘to use wrongfully or improperly.’ One could define sin in a similar manner. Sin is something right done at the wrong time, or in the wrong place, or with the wrong person, or in the wrong order. Sex, in its rightful place, is something holy, good, and beautiful. Misuse it, and it becomes abuse.Perhaps the greatest reason why we abuse sex is because we are subjected to its misuse on a constant basis. Between the magazine covers placed at a child’s eye-level in grocery stores, television, sexual innuendos in the work place and at school, sexual pressure between friends, commercials and advertising, and the common everyday dress styles it is hard not to be bombarded with sexual misuse. Abraham’s nephew, Lot, chose to live in a sexually perverse city known as Sodom. The Bible in 2 Peter 2:7-8 has this to say about its effect on Lot: “And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds).” The overall impact on Lot’s life was profound. To begin with, he lost influence over his children, lost his wife to her love for the lifestyle of Sodom, and eventually had sexual relations with his own daughters (Genesis 19). Without realizing it, Lot began to abuse himself sexually. The continual affliction eventually helped him reach a point where he was willing to offer two of his own daughters to the men of Sodom to be raped and molested (Genesis 19:8).

We often think that we can ‘handle it’ when it comes to sin. We subject ourselves to it voluntarily when we watch television and we just pass it off as something we can handle. Sin has an eroding effect much like water and the sun will over time. Water, given enough time, will destroy anything. The sun has the same power. Sin, given enough time, will subtly change your perceptions, desires, and loves. This is the worst kind of self-abuse. We allow sexual perversion into our life thinking that our own maturity can ‘handle it.’ But the more we afflict ourselves with it, the more we are subtlety changed. Ultimately, the greatest sexual abuse perpetuated on us is not what others do to us against our will, but what we allow our eyes and senses to see of our own free will. People do change. Some change because of trauma—this is often an instantaneous change. Most, however, change slowly, a little here and a little there as they subject themselves to abuse—something used wrongfully or improperly.The mind becomes subtly altered when subjected repeatedly to something and begins to accept what once was considered unacceptable. Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, said, “If you say a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” And to those who chose to listen to the lie, eventually they will see it as the truth. This is self-abuse. For most of us, our problem is not sexual abuse, but sexual self-abuse.

  

 

Press Play to Listen to a Chapter Excerpt From Launch Out Into The Deep titled, "The Secret Shame:  Confessions From Men."
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Summary: A common complaint among women is that men seem to not want to commit to a relationship like a woman does. Is this a fact? Or is it just a myth? If it is a fact, why is it that men seem to struggle trying to commit?

There is, unfortunately, a lot of truth to the idea that many men struggle with commitment. With mounting sexual pressure from within our society, men are becoming less enamored with tying themselves down to just one woman. One young man in speaking to his pastor said, “It seems all my friends are telling me not to get married. They say once you get married, you can’t do anything anymore.”

This has become a predominate perspective in our society. Actress Cameron Diaz said, “Marriage is a dying institution.” This may be true largely because marriage, at its core, is commitment. There are vows in marriage. There are promises. Less and less people are getting married and settling for co-habitation, instead. The reason? They don’t have to make a commitment.

This trend seems to be more prevalent among men than women. The following are the typical reasons why men shy away from commitment:

1.     Men have begun to see commitment as the equivalent of bondage.

2.     Men have become less mature. Responsibility is the essence of maturity. Most men  don’t learn true responsibility until much later in life. This is a direct result of a sexually promiscuous society.

3.     Movies, magazines, commercials, and even video games send messages to men that true happiness is having many partners.

4.     Sexual addictions. Our society exposes boys to sex at such a young age that all the mystery, all the intrigue is ripped from their hearts and minds by the time they are young adults. Many men find that sexual satisfaction only comes as they delve into more sexual deviant lifestyles—lifestyles that would void a true committed relationship.

5.     Fear of being hurt. Some men have been hurt in a relationship and feel that if they simply don’t commit to another, they won’t get hurt again.

God understood that the health of any society would be directly proportional to the health of the marriages in that society. In Ephesians 5, God compares the relationship of the church to that of marriage:

Ephesians 5:31-32 “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

This ambivalence shows up in so many other areas of our lives, not just marriage. When is the last time you heard someone say, “Well, I won’t make any promises?” This reluctance to commit to something as important as marriage has played a large part in our moral decline. But what can be done about it?

It all boils down to a fear of bondage—a fear of dissatisfaction and unhappiness. Men need to understand that commitment is not bondage, it is freedom. The Children of Israel were never freed from Egypt until they first committed themselves to the God of Abraham (Exodus 12). Likewise, when a man is willing to commit himself to a woman, a marriage, he frees himself from other bondage's. Men are more likely to be satisfied sexually if they have committed themselves to a single relationship. They are more likely to live longer and find fulfillment and purpose in their life when committed to a single relationship.

God never meant for us to bounce from relationship to relationship. Those who live in such a way, find that this lifestyle poisons minds, hopes, dreams, and futures. Commitment allows a person to find real meaning within his relationships.

Click here to listen to
"The Secret Shame:  Confessions From Men,"
from Launch Out Into The Deep!

www.launchoutbook.com
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With all of the happenings in today’s world, human beings are seemingly terrified. Even though we’re living in the 21st century where things have become so much better and faster, we still can’t seem to solve the many everyday crises that surround us.

It is true that things in the 21st century are easier, faster and more convenient. But the downside is that it has also become easier to develop things of destruction. The reports on TV every night seem to bombard us with bad news. And just recently war in the Middle East and riots throughout England have hit the news.

These things lead us to ask whether there will be any good news left for the future. Hope and peace seem distant.

How often do we ask ourselves about the things happening in the world? How about the never-ending suffering we see around us? The questions are endless.

In 1951, Gen. Douglas MacArthur once said regarding war: “I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. Men, since the beginning of time, have sought peace. Military alliances, balances of power, leagues of nations, all in turn failed, leaving the only path to be by way of the crucible of war. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and more equitable system, Armageddon will be at our door. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh" (MacArthur, as cited in Aust, n. d.).

The constitution of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) says of peace: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” (Declaration of principles of international cultural co-operation, n. d.).

God has the earth in His hands. Yet, it is not He who causes pain and suffering, nor wars.

The original cause of war and its perpetuation is an actual individual, a fallen angel Scripture describes as “the god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4). This chief demon, the devil, is also called Satan, a name that means “adversary.” Indeed, the Bible directly calls him our enemy. (1 Peter 5:8, New International Version)

It is through Satan’s murderous philosophy, influencing mankind’s selfish, carnal nature (James 4:1-3), that all wars are fought. Massive wars erupting during a time of “great tribulation” (Matthew 24:21) will devastate the earth and threaten mankind with extinction (verse 22). “Initiated by Satan through gullible and evil men, these wars will kill literally billions of people.” (Revelation 9:15-18) (Aust, n. d.).

But on the day when Jesus comes there will be hope. The world will then finally know peace beyond today. As “He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.” (Isaiah 2:4) He will first put away human fighting and war (Revelation 19). Then He will put away the ultimate source of fighting and war, Satan and the demons (Revelation 20:1-3). The Lord is greater!

 Indeed, the whole earth will be filled with His glory as the waters cover the oceans. (Isaiah 11:9) What a glorious time that will be!

References

Aust, Jerold (n .d.). World Peace: The Impossible Dream?
Retrieved August 12, 2011 from http://www.ucg.org/doctrinal-beliefs/world-peace-impossible-dream/

Declaration of principles of international cultural co-operation (n. d).
Retrieved August 12, 2011 from http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13147&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html



Press Play To Listen To a Chapter Excerpt From Launch Out Into The Deep titled, "Living Water."
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