And now to write and ramble some more. 

I was talking with my manager at work and he was asking me what motivated me to do well at work.  I thought about it for a minute, basically it came down to i have no other safety net and if i want to be comfortable I have to work hard.  A little afterwards I realized there a lot of people who we just expect not to do well, since, well, they are bob or Joe. Just they are who they are and this is the type of job they do and now lets move on. 

I realize this isn't just a mindset that is at my job.  Where you'll hear it more is in phrases like, " boys will be boys" or " that's just how it is".  Basically, I'm realizing that there is a cultural norm to excuse wrong doing, laziness, violence, sin, because we just assume that's who they are at their core.  Where you'll see this a lot is either in parents or authorities brushing off sexual abuse or a girl excusing an abusive boyfriend.  The more I thought about this the more I realized brushing off sin in anyway is denying the gospel and denying the ability to hope. 

As far as with boys being boys, especially in the area of sexual abuse or other forms of sexual sin, excusing sin removes the hope of change.  Boys will be boys makes the situation such that the boys are unable to change, they're unable to be anything different, they are forever these abusive beings, so, get used to it.  boys are boys, expect to be hurt. 

The other sad thing i'm realizing is excusing and having no accountability for sin emasculates your boys.  They are not actually autonomous beings anymore, they're slaves to their own desires and sin.  They are never taught to actually fight, rather passively give in to their own desires by our passive acceptance of their sin. 

Now we have made them passive to themselves and now through our acceptance and our writing off that it is their nature to since we have denied them the hope and redemption of the gospel.  The gospel has the power to change, but if we never admit sin there is no need for change. If we never bring darkness into the light no one can ever see their need to be changed. 

Given, a guy being lazy at work and being excusing it since he is always lazy is not at all the same as abuse, but I was just noting that with anyone, if we write off their sin or even just their struggle as being part of them and never dive into bringing into the open we never give them hope of being anything more.  If we say, oh, it's just bob being bob, when something damaging happens we have already defined them by their struggle and trapped them in their struggle.