Two Percent (standard:Inspirational stories, 2330 words)
Author: Eutychus	Added: Jun 03 2010	Views/Reads: 2873/1883	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A Saturday morning Men's Accountability Group examines the subject of personal purity from an unexpected perspective.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

if they were ready. When there was no immediate reply, Kyle and Andy 
decided it was time for some water. 

After taking turns at the hydrant just inside the door, Andy climbed the
short ladder that led from the ground to the upper level of the barn. 
To his surprise, the rest of the group wasn't desperately trying to 
catch up with the pile that had accumulated where the conveyor had 
formerly been dropping bales, but were instead hunkered down over the 
edge of the stacked bales, currently three bales high and a dozen rows 
deep. 

“What are you guys doing? We've got a lot of work to do. Are you ready
to get started again?” 

“In a few. Come check out what we found stuffed between some bales,”
Mike said. 

A moment later Kyle ascended the ladder and joined the group. When he
asked what was going on, Mike placed a magazine in his hand and 
suggested he take a look. Stunned by the images in the magazine, he 
heard Andy ask of a similar image in a different magazine “What do you 
suppose her name is?” Someone else replied, “Is her name really that 
important?” 

Kyle had never bothered to imagine that images such as these would
explain the changes that had taken place in a number of girls in his 
class between the end of school in the spring and when school had begun 
again three weeks earlier. His feelings about the pictures in these 
magazines fluctuated from amazement to confusion and to avoid the 
uncertainties he was feeling, he insisted they put the magazines back 
where they found them and get back to the job at hand... 

“...An interesting aside to this story came two weeks later when Jeff's
older brother Dale approached members of the hay baling crew inquiring 
after the disposition of some magazines he had left out in the barn. It 
was a true MasterCard moment. The look on the face of a friend's older 
brother who just realized his Playboy magazines were now buried under a 
ton of hay... Priceless! 

“The reason I shared this memory was to remind us of two things. First,
we need to remember that as men we are most easily engaged by visual 
stimuli, and secondly, it doesn't take much exposure to that stimulus 
for a change to take place in a person. Does anyone remember Ivory 
soap?” 

There was a general acknowledgement among the men that they all were
aware of the soap though some had never had occasion to use it. 

“It was always billed as being ninety-nine and forty-four one hundredths
percent pure. That remaining fifty-six one hundredths of a percent 
always bothered me. What effect could point five six percent impurity 
really have on a product? And I blame this on my grandfather. He was 
the one who pointed out to me that the ingredients list on the side of 
a box of puffed wheat added up to only ninety-eight percent. What was 
in the other two percent? He claimed that the puffed wheat was stored 
in silos that were open to the atmosphere and that birds would fly in 
and out, doing what birds do. Though I swore I didn't believe his claim 
that the mystery two percent was ‘bird manure', I have never again 
eaten puffed wheat. Small amounts of something can be important, and 
not just in the mind of an eight-year-old reading the side of a cereal 
box. So was there anything in that story that might lend a little 
credence to this assertion?” 

“When you said Andy wondered about the name of one of the women in the
magazine. You also said someone else stated that her name wasn't 
important.” 

“Exactly. I can say with reasonable certainty that this was everyone's
first exposure to that sort of material, and with only a few minutes 
experience, already her name had become unimportant. When you are 
introduced to someone and you want to let them know that you value them 
as a person, you take pains to remember their name. By contrast, we 
were introduced to this young lady with a degree of intimacy that none 
of us were mature enough to appreciate; yet we didn't even bother to 
learn her name. Common courtesy flies out the window when you treat a 
person as an object. 

“This tendency carried over into daily life when a few weeks later I
noticed that members of the crew were playing a rating game at lunch 
time. Comparisons were being drawn between certain girls in the 
lunchroom and images remembered from the barn. And these were people we 
knew, not just an image in a magazine. So don't fall into the trap of 
thinking that pornography is a harmless form of entertainment. It 
always causes a change, and it doesn't require prolonged exposure to do 
so. 

“I tried not to take part in these games with reasonable success, but I
found myself occupied with inappropriate thoughts regarding the girl in 
my class who has been my wife for close to twelve years now. My own 
experience with those images caused me to dwell for a time on things I 
was many years away from being able to properly process.” 

“Kyle, has Maddie heard about any of this?” 

“Oh yes. In fact we rehashed it all again in preparation for this
morning. And a thanks for bringing my wife into the discussion because 
the next story I wanted to share involves her. Seven years ago we 
decided that we had better make use of this Internet thing. No telling 
how long the fad would last, so we thought we should give it a try. 
After finding an ISP, we configured things, set up accounts, entered a 
password and listened to our modem sing its little song. We connected 
at some ridiculously slow speed, but we were connected. 

“It wasn't too long until it seemed that we were the most popular people
on the Internet. Soon everyone was sending us email. People we didn't 
even know were sending us messages. Oftentimes they would include links 
to other interesting places on the Net, and since we hadn't yet 
developed much of a favorites list, we would click links anticipating a 
trip to places both new and different. 

“I recall one email in particular. There was no message, just a link.
And there was nothing in the link to help identify where it would lead. 
It was just a nondescript underlined blue web address daring us to 
click it. As I said, it was a slow connection and by the time the 
picture was half way loaded, Maddie had closed the window, indignant as 
could be that anyone would send us a link to such a website. As a 
result I learned how to set up an email filter and it has worked quite 
well for a lot of years. But the number of e-dresses from whom we 
refuse to accept mail currently numbers somewhere in the five hundreds 
and is growing all the time. 

“The point of this story is to remind you that challenges to living a
life of purity are everywhere. If you manage to keep them off your 
computer, they will show up in the form of a Victoria's Secret catalog. 
Or the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Or a television program in 
which unmarried couples leave very little to the imagination. Or even 
song lyrics from virtually any radio.” 

“You're not painting a very hopeful picture, are you?” one of the
younger men in the group observed. 

“I would be remiss in my leadership responsibilities if I pointed out
the dilemma without offering any possible solutions to that dilemma. 
About a month ago Maddie's brakes began making noise. Because I had 
never worked on antilock brakes before, I shied away from the job and 
paid someone to change the pads. They were kind enough to let me watch 
and now the thought of working on her brakes doesn't concern me at all. 
They even let me get my hands a little dirty and as they were replacing 
the tires, I slipped off to the mechanic's restroom to clean up. 

“Since that restroom wasn't accessible to the public, the literature
available proved to be less mainstream than what was available in the 
restroom out by the waiting area. I picked up a magazine with no cover, 
flipped it open, and suddenly had the urge to wash my hands again. I 
don't think it ever would have occurred to me for a man and woman to 
engage in that particular activity. 

“As I experienced a moment of surprise, a thought entered my mind. It
was one of those ‘boy-yoing' thoughts that presents itself so strongly 
there is little doubt as to where it came from. I am confident that 
this was the voice of the Holy Spirit. And this is the defense. He 
pointed out to me that the two people in that photo likely didn't even 
know each other. With that realization, the image became not just 
unpleasant but downright offensive. That notion probably wouldn't have 
hit home quite so hard had I not been married. When you have spent a 
dozen years fostering intimacy in the kitchen, garage, living and 
dining room as well as the bedroom, you also learn without trying to 
that the intimacy shared in the bedroom cannot exist without intimacy 
nurtured in the rest of the house. I guess my point is that intimacy 
cannot exist outside of relationship. 

“This means anything that promotes physical intimacy without first
developing emotional, intellectual, and spiritual intimacy is at best a 
fraud and at its worst a lie straight out of hell. It cannot be viewed 
as merely entertainment. It's a dangerous mistake to think that because 
Satan was foolish enough to rebel against God he is also stupid. He 
knew just what buttons to press in Eden and he continues to do so 
today. 

“As we go into our small group accountability time, I'd like you all to
ask each other one additional question. Have you in the past week at 
any time settled for less than God's best?” 


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