*VJ* Same Seed, Different Fruit

I'm introducing a new series called the "Venting Jam".  Whenever I just have an idea or a thought that consumes me, and I do not have the patience to organize it into a college level English formatted and eloquently worded blog, I will do a VJ, a Venting Jam.  So, this would be equivalent to us getting coffee and I'm sitting across from you and I'm just ranting about something.  So.... 

Hello readers.  Welcome to my heart.  Let's begin.

I love my friends.  Very much.  I wish they knew how much I learn from them.  Maybe they will after reading this. 

I'm here today to discuss something that I have learned about, us.  The people.  People.  God's own.  Us.  I think we are more broken than we realize and care to admit. I have been apart of discussions or have heard about discussions about how we hurt each other.  Men devaluing women.  Women devaluing men.  We misunderstand each other.  We wrongfully manipulate each other.  We lust after each other.  Women hear this wrong, men say this wrong.  Women interpret things we say and do wrong, men's body language is wrong.  Men's intentions are wrong.  Women's intentions are wrong.  We provoke each other.  Tease each other. We're super critical of each other.  We question motives all the time.  And as you just read it, this rush of awareness of our hurt overwhelmed me last night and I just wanted to vent to you now, my readers.

By the way, thank you so much for reading today.  I hope all these blogs are a blessing for you.

So after discussions upon discussions about the differences in men and women, I think we need to admit some things---ready----we're different. You know that right?  Of course you do.  Equality only matters in value, not anywhere else when it comes to male and female.  Women, you're different.  Stop trying to men.  Get off our Sports Channels as anchors! (That's for another blog for another day.  Disregard that.)

But our relational differences are heaving us into continuing to have bad ones.  It's like we don't realize when we're just being women and when we're just being men.  Because I feel like that we both struggle with the same insecurity.  I think we as a people desperately search for our value and worth.  So, in an interesting twist, we are very much different, but very much the same.  To explain the title, I feel like we have the same seed steering us off track, but how we're different is shown in the different fruit that is produced from that seed.

Let me say it this way, the differences in the fruit that is produced is how we've decided or how it's been decided for us of how to gain it.  Women, you first.  It hurts me that women struggle with feeling beautiful.  And women don't even realize that they're feeding into the struggle by the media they choose to watch.  Things like the Victoria Secret Fashion Show comes on and women across the world are watching it, and without realizing they're watching a nationally advised fashion show, that has women on display, and communicating to all of you, THIS IS WHAT BEAUTY LOOKS LIKE.  And you sit there and buy into it.  And during that night, I see some of my friends, women I care about, post Facebook statuses and Tweet about how they wish they looked like that.  And it hurts me.  But this is our culture's definition of your value.  If you're beautiful, how it's defined by culture, you're valued.  If men look at you and stare as you walk by, you're valued.

Men, our turn.  It hurts me that we struggle with feeling valued because of our status.  I've watched myself feel heavily insecure when a football player walks into the room and all the women gawk.  Or when an entire stadium has signs up for a particular guy or women are retweeting everything Lützenkirchen says or women are saying how much they want a rapper or an NBA player or a celebrity, and the thought comes to my head, "Man, I want that kind of attention."  Because we know, that it's not JUST their looks.  Like if Cam Newton wasn't Cam Newton, he wouldn't have had the attention.  So men know that's it's all status.  Status in our culture makes a man more attractive.  A guy pulls up in a Mercedes Benz and women wants him because he's in a Benz.  But that same guy, same guy, pulls up in a Honda Accord, the girl wouldn't look twice.  So we know it's status, and to satisfy our desire for our value and worth, we want it.

Same seed, different fruit.  The same seed is that we're all looking for our value in this society, but the different fruit produced is how we choose to pursue it. Women want to be beautiful, so however culture defines it for them, that's desired.  And men want to be respected and honored and glorified, so culture tells us if you're not rich or play a sport very well, you're a nobody.

And it's sad to watch the Christian body still struggling with the same thing.  Christian women are juggling with which is more important: To attract men, should I focus on getting more beautiful or getting more godly.   Which ironically, are almost polar opposites. "Guys seem to like tighter bodies, so let me get a tight body and show it off with how I dress, even though God says dress modestly." 

And Christian men are juggling between getting more status or getting more godly.  Which ironically again, they can be polar opposites too.  Girls seem to like the bad guys, so let me be bad, even though God is saying be good and serve them.  Girls seem to like guys that can get any girl they want, so let me get any girl I want.  Let me grow my status in the church, not because I desire influence and understand the responsbility of that, but to be liked.

Now my plight is that, I'm still figuring out why our identities and our worth is so hard to realize, to learn, and to live in.  It's like we flucate up and down from feeling a million bucks to hating life and feeling condemnation.  So even as I write I'm looking at you like,

What are we supposed to do!? 

I mean we're flooded with this, day in and day out.  We're way more consumed by entertainment than our Bibles and than our devotion.  We're actually content with a 15 minute devotional when every TV show is at least 22 minutes long.  What will it take for us to gain a knowledge of who we are in Christ and live in it daily and not allow this world to define us but instead Jesus be the center of our lives foreal? 

Crescendo ending and a cliff hanger ending in a venting jam.  ;)  And still, my high school English and college public speaking training proves itself worthy. Haha.  The End.