THE FEAR THAT KILLS

Isn't it amazing how something like a little virus can change the course of the world?  Our study into Christian Fatherhood was interrupted by the necessity of isolation due to the Wuhan Chinese Coronavirus.  I have some questions and some observations.  For the first time I'd like for you to leave a comment to some of the questions I raise.
My situation is unique, in that I've had the privilege of working in a rental house where no one lives. The financial pressures that have crushed so many of us in our little town haven't affected me, yet.  I currently have two outdoor jobs on my docket that don't bring me in contact with anyone except to receive my check, so I'm looking forward to about another two weeks of employment. God has never failed me, and the Wuhan Chinese Coronavirus can't stop his love and favor toward me.
As all of you know, I'm an introvert, which makes the whole social distancing thing easy for me.  Wake up, read, pray, go to work, come home, watch TV, read, go to sleep.  Yay!   All the introverts in the world are probably more relaxed than you've ever seen them.   Extroverts, my heart breaks for you.  I'm not insensitive, I know there are people who are more frustrated than ever.  For most people, the need to socialize is like life and breath.  That is why I'm interested in what you are going through right now.
For those of you who are young fathers, how has the social distancing worked with your children?   At first I bet most of them were happy about not having school, but then......Whew, you can only play so long by yourself.  Have you exhausted all of your video library?  Are YOU tired of Disney+ ? 
How have you done as a father in the midst of this?  Have you thrown everything on your wife?  Is she stuck at home while you do what little work you can?  Do you let the kids get outside?   Do you let your wife go outside?  Do you know that women make up about 60% of those infected with the Chinese Coronavirus in Arkansas? 
I'm just really curious as to how this all affected you. 
What I've observed over the last couple of weeks is an interesting, but subtle change to the community I live in. 
I don't see as many children. 
While this virus is deadly to old people like me, it is interesting that I don't see little children.  It doesn't matter what time of day I'm out and about, I don't see little ones.  It's as if we've hidden away our younglings.  Normally when I go into Home Depot during the middle of the day I can count on seeing at least ten or twelve children in tow.  I don't think I've seen a child in Home Depot in over a week.  I don't see little children in cars or trucks, in stores, or even outside just playing in the yard.  Hmmm, where are they?   It really does amaze me.  Are we afraid they'll get it?  Are we afraid they'll give the virus to some old geezer like me?  To be transparent with you, of all the things about this social distancing thing I dislike the most, it is the absence of the sound of children.  I miss the laughter. 
Do your children understand any of this? 
Have you used the extra time at home to teach and share more? 
Without the distractions of social interactions, have you learned anything new about your children? 
I don't expect this isolation mess to go on much longer.  I know it sounds cruel, but if the deadly side of the virus continues to target people sixty years old and upward, I believe a moral decision will be made to continue life as usual, and let nature have its course.  Don't get me wrong, I'm in the risk group, but I'm fed up with the destruction this fear has done to our nation.  I know there are people who hate the comparison to the annual flue death rate, but the facts are the facts.  We allow millions to be infected with the flue each year (for which we do have vaccines), and then every year we watch as hundreds of thousands of us die from it every year.  We don't social distance, we don't gasp in fear, we don't have the media giving us flu death totals every fifteen minutes on the chyrons  on our favorite 24 hour news service. It seems as if we've allowed the drunken town criers of our mainstream news media the power to lock us up in our homes with fear.  My greatest concern is what this is doing to our children.
Look into the eyes of your child, is there fear in those eyes.  If we live our lives in fear, we aren't living.  Fear is a healthy thing up to a point, then it becomes a mindless killer.  If you were really afraid of subjecting your child to the risk of death, you wouldn't take them in a car, ANYWHERE.  You wouldn't take your child anyplace with the risk of death, and you would kill them with your fear. 
I will be glad when our leaders come to their senses, then I'll hear the sound of children's laughter, the angry scream of demanding toddlers, and watch them play gleefully with one another as they head back to school. 
I miss the joyous children in our faith fellowship. Yes, I'm aware of the congregations who've held services, and ended up being infected with the virus.  I promise you, this bug will infect up to 75% of our population by the time its over.  I also believe we'll develop a vaccine for it.  I also believe we'll find a treatment for it.  It's what we do, we overcome.  However, if we succumb to  fear...we die a worse death.  Turn the stinking TV news off.
Let me know how the whole social distancing thing has worked for you.  As for me, I miss the kids. 

BUILD A CHILD

As we saw in last weeks homework, our lists of qualities were unique.  Building a child is nothing like going to the mall and building a teddy bear or a race car.  While it is still the stuff of science fiction, if God tarries, I believe scientists will eventually unravel the mysteries of our DNA, allowing  parents to design children with the qualities we would like them to have.  I’m not saying I like that idea, I’m just saying it is inevitable.  It may surprise you to know just how many of our traits are governed by our genes.  What we think are personality traits are actually  genetic tendencies.  They’ve already discovered that children are genetically wired  for selfishness, and other less desirable traits.  Even good qualities are rooted in our DNA.  It isn’t just our genes that shape us, but medical studies have also discovered that the mother’s emotional, hormonal, and physical health while she is pregnant influences a child’s nature. 

Your Spouse is a major factor in the ‘Build A Child’ process.  She is the stuffing of your precious little bundle of joy. Her incubator (womb) is not totally impartial, and your contribution through your DNA is affected by small things such as temperature, hormones, and her emotional condition.  Her womb, also affects gene development. While we know a lot about a child’s development in the womb, we don’t fully understand all the intricacies of that initial 9 months.   The old saying “I didn’t choose to be here.”  isn’t true.  A matter of fact, that one happy little sperm cell fought valiantly to be you. It was faster, stronger, and more determined than the other sperm cells in the contest. 

Having taken a DNA test, I have learned a ton of things I didn’t know about my DNA.  The most surprising knowledge was that the DNA stew that is all of us isn’t an equal amount of both partners. Dominant and recessive genes can go a long ways toward determining, YOU.  You can be a little bit more your mom, or a little bit more your dad.  A boy won’t necessarily be more like his dad, nor a little girl like her mother.  Traits can pop up from ancestors that lived hundreds of years ago.  Genetic tendencies toward health conditions can stay in families for hundreds of years.  I believe that someday, governments will demand that parents take DNA tests and have their genes evaluated for tendencies towards inherited diseases, and even psychological disorders.  If the Lord should tarry, I believe genetics will shape our ability to live in extreme environments.   What is now commonplace in our society was once science fiction, so I have no problem envisioning the ability to sculpt a child through DNA.  

Christians don’t want to discuss the effects of DNA upon behavior or other things we consider as ‘learned behaviors,’ but medical science has clearly shown that our DNA is responsible for the tendencies toward altruism, selfishness, generosity, addiction, sexual hyperactivity, celebacy, and even a tendency toward murder.  As more people take DNA tests, and answer their surveys, scientists will be able to associate certain genes to behaviors.  It may frighten you, but I promise you, we will see genetically engineered children in this generation because it can be done.  Someday, if we continue down this path, we will design a child without psychopathic tendencies, or pathological tendencies. 

HOWEVER, until that day, just because you may have the brain of a psychopath, or be clinically pathological, doesn’t mean you have to succumb to its power.  A matter of fact, it is estimated that nearly one percent of the population are psychopathic.  What parent wouldn’t want to remove the gene responsible for psychopathic behavior if they could?  Better yet, what society wouldn’t relish the thought of diminishing the tendency toward criminality through DNA?  This is what I referred to in the introduction to this study when I said that you may be the best Christian parent you could be and still have a child that is psychopathic.  It is a terrible discovery, and will make any parent doubt their abilities.  I’ve witnessed exhausted parents who’d done everything within their power to devote their lives to their children only to be confronted with a psychopathic child bent on killing them, and everyone around them.  If you combine that with any of the other clinical/ neurological disorders that exist out there, is it any wonder that the idea of building a perfect child through DNA has an appeal to prospective parents?   Someday we may see storefront malls where we can literally purchase a ‘Build A Child.’ Till then we have to do everything as Christians to guide less than perfect children into successful adults.

I’m not saying psychopathic disorders can be overcome by Christianity.  A matter of fact, I believe a strict Christian home could add to the conflicts in a psychopathic child.  I am saying that good parenting can help shape the lives of even psychopathic children away from criminal behavior.  I’ve said all of this so that you will realize that you contributed to the DNA of your child.  Written into that DNA is a host of latent tendencies that mankind has deemed as ‘morally’ wrong. 

At the same time, medical science would like you to believe that many expressions of human behavior that don’t fit nicely into polite society are the result of genetics when it is simply a life choice based upon societal and environmental inputs. Society, primarily the family, is the major sculptor of our sexual/ social  life.  I would even go so far as to posit that our worst genetic tendencies can be overridden through good parenting.  Our latent genetic tendency to survive at the cost of others, (murder) is inhibited by societal pressures, of which religion is the biggest factor.

As all of you know by now, I’m a science geek.  I’m not afraid of science, but I am afraid of those who treat it like a religion. Science does not love, it doesn’t make moral decisions, and it doesn’t create art. Our little build a child exercise was just to show you how much of your child’s behaviors and giftings are genetic, and how much power you have to help them embrace what you dealt them.  I don’t believe any of us are beyond God’s ability to save, or deliver us from ourselves.

My point to all of this, is that we do have a path to life, and godliness available to us even when our genetics work against us.  To quote Jesus; ‘You don’t understand the power of God.”  The man who steps into fatherhood with faith in God can ‘build a child’ able to overcome their worst latent tendencies.  There is nothing written in stone where God is concerned. I dread the day we have the ability to view a child’s DNA before birth with the express purpose to diagnose conditions that would be considered detrimental to society. It would not be a stretch to believe that parents would be pushed to abort the child, making society a worse criminal than the unborn child.  

Our societal shift toward safety at any cost is frightening. Rational thought, and basic respect for life is surrendered to fear of something that may never happen.  We could become a society where the rich can afford to have designer children, and the poor become slaves because they would be considered deficient.  The current arc of DNA research is headed this way.   We don’t have to succumb to the ‘Build A Child’ concept of genetic design.  Instead, we can put a little more effort into being good parents.  Someday, always comes, but till then doing the right thing will have to do.