Interesting Thoughts

The other day, one of the engineers I work with shared another side of him and he told me something I hadn't thought of  before. He has a passion for history as well as engineering. He told me something about about ancient Greece. He asked me if I knew why Sparta eventually collapsed. Now when I think of Sparta, I think of the 300 warriors that took upon the entire Persian army to the point where it became absolutely crucial for Persia to put everything they had into defeating the 300. I think of the no mercy, relentless, unforgiving, never surrender, group of warriors who put themselves in a place where it seemed as if nothing could touch them. But what of Sparta today? Where is the mighty Sparta of ages past? Here's what his knowledge of history showed.

What made Sparta so great was the fact that it was family oriented with strong bonds of marriage and great respect for ancestry. For so long, Spartans took pride in their spouses and did what needed to be done for the family. So why could a city so great, united by such a strong bond eventually collapse? They began to lose hold of the family and marriage aspect. As soon as they started falling to their lusts and were having kids out of wedlock with whomever from wherever, the bonds of family and marriage were lost and the fight that they once contained to defend them was diminished, it became easy to infiltrate a prosperity and turn it into chaos.

There are two things to take away from this. First, stray away from what works and degrade a sacred prosperity  will only lead to imminent doom. Second, secure, strong, family ties are hard to break or destroy. The Bible even says "If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand."~Mark 3:25

I know I'm a few weeks behind, but adios summer and hello fall. I try to drag the summer out every year. I've been hearing co-workers lately say things like they regret consuming the free time they had during college with work. That's a virtue I've held true for a long time now. I have never worked a full summer and didn't get a real job until I was a freshman in college. And to be honest, the Lord provided for me each and every summer where I was able to enjoy it and not have to be overly concerned about money...sometimes, giving up a few weeks or a month of the summer to the Lord can be rewarding. 


So with that, goodbye all things summer and hello football, cool Autumn air, epic colors, Thanksgiving, everything pumpkin, and another year of life.