Ordered by Importance and Chronology.

Okay, I'm going to pad this one by saying, "I do not intend to insult specific people, it is your right to live your life however the heck you want, no matter how wise or retarded that may be, furthermore, aside from you feeling personally convicted, my viewpoints have nothing to do with you personally, so don't imagine that I judge you based on my own criteria for right and wrong, if you feel convicted about it, maybe that's something you need to take up with your own moral code and work out, I will not authorize your moral code regardless of how nifty you think it may be, but I do not condemn you for it either, I will however say that Jesus is better."

Now that we have the quasi disclaimer out of the way, I can make statements from my point of view that will thoroughly irritate anyone who reads this, which is probably why my wife is the only dedicated reader of my blog.

Some people get married first, then have kids, some people have kids then get married, and both of these couples have a tendency to make the VERY american mistake of putting their kids before their marriages as a priority.

Seriously, in the Bible, the whole, get married, do it, pop out babies, love your wife as you love yourself, discipline your children and then they get married and you kick them out of the house thing? Remember that thing? Well if you've never seen/heard/or read about it, it is there. And it's not just a suggestion, or an archaic way of thinking, or a mere chronology of how "Good little Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic boys and girls live their lives." It's actually a listing of not just chronology, but priority.

Often times, chronology and priority are mirrored. This is the case here. Let me give you an example. One that is not charged with millions of people's anti-religious beliefs, and poor choices. Therefore, we should, theoretically be able to establish a baseline. If you are already set to disagree on me about everything, well, bummer for you, you probably won't learn much.

Let's look at the idea of setting up a television.

1. Take the TV out of the box, position it where it is visible.
2. Plug it in.
3. Connect to an A/V source.
4. Turn it (and your a/v source) on, select the source (if applicable)
5. Enjoi

Is this chronology? Yes! Is it ordered by importance? Yes! The steps are important not just that you do thiem in this order, in fact you can actually do them in whatever order you want, but you will run into problems should you choose to do so. Furthermore, number one and two must be in place at all times for the rest to work. It is paramount that the Television be visible to watch TV. It is critical that the television have power, it is very important that it is connected to a source (unless you like watching Polar Bear in a Snowstorm, or Raccoon in a Monsoon, two of my personal favourite programs on disconnected TV) turning it on is also important, Finally enjoyment is optional, depending on what you do with the TV from there.

You can do everything but step one, and you will be thoroughly convinced that television is retarded. You can do all but number two and wonder what a television is good for, you can do all but number three, and you will continually say that some people have good televisons, but yours sucks and you want to get rid of it, you can do all but number four, and you will wonder why your tv doesn't seem to work right, and if you do all but number five, there's probably something wrong with either your TV or your attitude.

Now lets replace TV with marriage.

1. Grow up, be a good man
2. Find a good woman
3. Get married
4. Have Sex
5. Have Kids

Just like the TV, this isn't a chronological suggestion, we are well aware you can do all the steps in the wrong order and still get them all done, but just like the TV you have made it harder than it ought to be and the whole deal is much less enjoyable, and!!!

You can do everything but step one, and you will be thoroughly convinced that marriage is retarded. You can do all but number two and wonder what a mariage is good for, you can do all but number three, and you will continually say that some people have good relationships, but yours sucks and you want to get rid of it, you can do all but number four, and you will wonder why your spouse doesn't seem to work right, and if you do all but number five, there's probably something wrong with either your marriage, your parts, or your attitude.

Harsh, I know. But lets face it, Biblically, we ought to grow up first, learn the basics, be a man and not a boy, because marriage is for men! Then we need to find someone who has grown up, because marriage is for adults, not people over 18. Then we need to get married, because sex is for married people, not any two idiots who have the parts and can put A and B together. Being able to perform the act does not qualify you for the responsibility of sex. And finally have some kids, because sex is ALSO for kids, but!

All of it needs to STAY in the right order, If you get married and allow yourself to degenerate back to pre-human batchelor state, it would be like taking your TV and putting it back in the box in the middle of the superbowl (ie retarded, in case you couldn't figure that out) If you get married and don't continue to care for your spouse and encourage them to be the best human being they can be, it's a lot like pulling the plug on your television. Cutting your partner off is like setting your tv to antannae when all you have is satellite. So many people in these two situations say the exact same thing to me, "I don't know why it doesn't work, how did you get yours to work?" And if you don't have kids, frankly, I'm convinced you aren't enjoying your marriage to it's full potential. Most of the people that can't have kids WISH they could have kids, there are multitudes of old men married to old women, who are both amazing people, and their great kids are grown and gone, and they secretly wish they could be young again, not to skip out on the arthritis, not to get their hot bodies back, but so they could have just a couple more kids!

Now I want to point out the biggest mistake I see people making, they get through all the steps, even in the right order sometimes!!! And then! They unplug their cable box. They disconnect their x-box, they ditch their marriage, because they have kids now. This precious bundle of joy that you brought into the world is the most important thing, and being a mommy or daddy is the most important job you'll ever have, right? WRONG!

Your marriage was (or should have been) there before your kid, your marriage will be (or should be!) there after your kid takes off, your marriage is there through thick and thin, and here's the part that should freak you out! YOUR child is learning how to run THEIR marriage by watching YOURS. Pretty much everything a little boy knows of how to treat a woman, the stuff that goes so deep he doesn't even know WHY he does it, he learned from watching his mom and dad. The man a woman looks for is almost totally dependant on how she watched mom and dad act together. People often complain "I'm attracted to bad men, and I don't know why!"

Skip the therapy session, look at your parents, do things start to add up now? If not, maybe go get a therapy session but I dare say 9 of 10 times it makes perfect sense when you see what's really going on with your parents. And the same thing is going to happen with yours.

Yah, kids are tons of fun, yah sex is lots of fun, and yes, marriage can have its trials and difficulties along the way, and let me tell you, growing up is not fun, and being grown up when the people who act like infants get their way all the time is less fun, but doing those things ensures that the rest of it works.

So before you go complaining that your tv sucks, maybe you ought to make sure you have it at least out of the box, plugged in, hooked up, turned on, and on the right channel before you complain.