Tag Archives: sex

Unmet Desire Is Good

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When I was a kid, I really, really loved basketball.  I wanted to be good.  I would pretend to be the Missouri Tigers in the driveway.  You know the drill – down two with time running out, you shoot, and. . . if you missed – well you were fouled.  Haha.

In high school I wanted to win, and I wanted to be the star.  Now the truth is I was good but not a star, but that didn’t keep me from working at it.  I would practice a lot.  I bought the “strength shoes” to improve my vertical. I did endless drills.

I had a good not great career.  But I loved the whole thing.  But what drove me was the chance to win.  I had a desire to win.  It wasn’t always met – but it drove me to be better.

We have a huge problem in our culture and it has a crazy impact on us as singles.  We think that unmet desire is always bad.  If I have a desire, then it should be met – right now!  This is America damn it!  Meet My Desire!

Desire is good.  In fact in Psalm 37:4 God promises to give us desires (not give us what we want, but give us what to want).  Desire drives us to do incredible things.  Desire makes us want to grow, to change, to become better.  Without desire we would be dead.

Desire drives us to act.  Always. The question becomes where do we let us drive us.

We all have a desire for love. Now obviously we need to take our desire for love to Jesus first.  This is critical for everything else in life.  The best part is that God will meet us and He does love us.  In fact he is the only person who can meet that desire.

But what about other desires.  Can God meet our desire for sex?  Can God be our spouse? Can God physically hold our hand or give us physical intimacy?  No.  And yet God created sex.  He created us with the desire for physical and emotional intimacy and partnership with another person.  That’s awesome . . . and frustrating!

So what do we do with unmet sexual/intimacy desire?

We can go out and meet that base desire by having sex with someone.  I mean we have needs and they need to be met.  A lot of us don’t want the work involved with that sin though so we settle for what I call “Lazy Immorality”.  By this I mean, porn, masturbation, romance novels, whatever.  (I’ll define this more soon).

We can also just try to kill the desire so we don’t have to feel it.  Just focus on work, or school, or a hobby.  The more extreme the better.  Whatever works.  Ministry works well here.  Just focus on other stuff.  Shove that desire down deep.

We can get religious.  Just be content where you are.  We can drop in some misused Pauline quotes.  The favorite is in Philippians 4 where Paul says, “I have learned the secret to being content in any and every situation.”  So just don’t want.  “Just Be” is how we take that.  But that isn’t really what Paul is getting at.  The “secret” isn’t to kill desire.  It’s not to be ok with whatever.  Paul gives us the secret in the next verse – through Jesus “who gives me strength”.

Paul had learned that regardless of what he felt, Jesus would meet him and sustain it.  His identity, joy, or overall life was not wrapped up in unmet desire or circumstance. That is the contentment Paul was talking about.  He wasn’t saying, “Don’t feel.  Don’t try to make things different. Stay as you are it’s fine.”  No Paul was saying Jesus was bigger than all of that.  He is saying let whatever your situation is let it drive you to Jesus.  I don’t need to kill my desire or have it met the wrong way.  I need to walk straight into unmet desire – with Jesus.

We can’t just tell people to not worry about it.  We don’t do this in other areas.  The church doesn’t say to the poor – just stay poor and be content.  It doesn’t say to the sick, just stay sick and be content.  No, we step up and step in.  We act.  (Or at least we are supposed to).  All the while pointing out that no matter what the circumstances Jesus has to be desired first.

The truth is that these desires we have are natural and good, and from God.  We need to engage Him and we need to move forward.  It’s hard.  Unmet desire is a part of life to the full.  We need to feel the tension.  It drives us to the things that God has for us – if we let it.

What do you do with your unmet desire?

The Church Doesn’t Get Singleness

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Here’s a fun experiment.  Go to amazon and search for Christian marriage books and then search Christian Single books.  It’s not pretty.  (Then for real fun go through the Christian single list and try to find books written by a guy.)

Here’s the point.  The Church loves to talk about marriage.  They are like the marriage experts.  As I’ve said no matter what your theological beliefs, you can find a marriage book for you.  I mean you name it – you like Keller? Eldredge? Piper? Jakes? Bell?  You can find their take on marriage. Books about how to navigate singleness – not as much, (apparently ladies you are supposed to do a lot of waiting and being satisfied, and us guys are supposed to figure it out without any help whatsoever).

But it’s not just books.  Marriage retreats, forums, conferences, sermon series.  Its even part of churches’ missional approach, “we are going to be doing a series on marriage – invite all your friends.”

Sure somewhere in there they like to throw in the obligatory thought on singleness, which is usually short sided, un-researched, full of platitudes and impractical.  And then the best part is we kind of get a pat on the head as if to say, someday you too can be a grown up married person.

Now someone will say that I’m bitter or just seeing the grass as greener on the other side.  I’m not mad – I’m just right.  In 20 years of walking with Jesus and going to church (including the last eight at a church that has 50% single people) I’ve never had a married friend say, “The church just doesn’t get marriage.”  Single people feel it all the time.  It’s a no brainer and it’s real.

Have you ever thought about why it’s this way?  One main reason that I’ve talked about before if that most pastors don’t get it.  But there are other basic reasons.

First it’s just flat easier to talk about.  There’s more clear scriptures on marriage.  There’s not much on singleness and exactly zero on dating.  Also, it’s more obvious if a marriage is in trouble than if a single is.  So the fact is it’s just easier.

Second, married people fit the church structure better.  They are more comfortable showing up to church to begin with. Much easier to go with someone than alone.  The church knows that if you love kids then you will get parents.  A lot of Christian parents are married – (side note – we are not very good with single parents either.  Holy smokes.  Let’s hold another moms group during the day – that helps – yikes).

The truth is almost everything we do is set up for the family – training the family, protecting the family, growing the family. In fact I would submit that family is an idol in our church today, but that is another post.  Now it is helpful as a single person, especially if we didn’t grow up with it, to see and be engaged with solid families and I’m all about that.  But where does the non married person fit into all of that.  What real practical help are we giving to them for where they are right now?

Third, the church assumes that you should get married.  We talk about being called to singleness but we do absolutely nothing to help anyone determine that.  Our theology of singleness is messed up at best and completely lacking at worst.  

Finally, because they don’t know what to do and what to say, they offer up spiritual platitudes about waiting on God, not settling, perfect definitions of who we should marry, and how to not have sex – which is their biggest concern.

Now some of this is our fault as singles.  Here’s what I mean.  We are way more likely to church hop (in fairness some of that is due to the stuff above).  We can leave any time – we don’t have to convince a spouse or pull kids away from their youth group.  Secondly, married people typically give more money and assume more Sunday leadership roles.  I can’t back that up with statistics but I’d stake any amount you want on that being true. We often have less invested.

But here’s the thing, and you, me, married people, the church and everyone else might want to grab a hold of this.  The day of reckoning is here.  50% of America is unmarried and the trend is upwards.  80% of people age 18-29 have never been married and that trend is upwards.  So unless the church wants to get smaller it might want to think about how to help, reach out to, walk with, encourage, engage, and challenge singles.  They might want to figure out how to empower them in leadership.  Perhaps they could help them figure out and pursue their calling to marriage or to celibate ministry.

The church could be a place where singles are welcome, treated equally and held accountable through real relationships.  Or it can keep ignoring reality and miss out on the opportunity.

Can You Date A Non-Christian?

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One thing that almost every Christian organization agrees on when it comes to singles (other than Don’t Have Sex of course) is that a Christian should not marry a non-Christian. Now when you tell young singles this they all nod their head, make big commitments to the Lord and dream of the perfect Christian Courtship.  This is all so simple, right up until that doesn’t happen or you meet someone who you really like, who isn’t a Christian.

Then it’s rationalization time.  “I haven’t met any Christians I’m attracted to.” “Well we aren’t really dating – they are just a friend” which is usually followed with, “well if they were a Christian I would date them but they aren’t so. . .I’ll just hang out with them like we’re dating but not call it that until we are dating and then whoops.”  Or, “Well I won’t marry them unless they come to follow Jesus but I’m hoping that will happen.”  “I’m just sharing Jesus with them.  I mean if they got it then yeah maybe but. . . ”  Here’s the problem – we will always want to date who we are attracted to and guess what, we marry who we date.

This is such a hard deal on a lot of levels.  First we really can’t help who we are attracted to.  Attraction isn’t really a choice.  Now what you do with attraction is and we need to get a hold of that.  But still it’s hard.  Also there are a lot of really cool non-christians. Ha!  It’s true right? And there are a lot of Christians that aren’t cool (funny, exciting, adventurous, hot etc).  Not only that, but guess what, everyone is created in God’s image and everyone can love.  That’s right even non-Christians can show love.  Crazy I know.

What makes this even trickier is that the Bible is not as clear here as we might like it to be. The problem is the Bible doesn’t talk about dating at all and when it comes to who to marry, really we’ve got one passage that says it straight up and another that kind of leads to the idea.

Paul in 2nd Corinthians 6 talks about not being unequally yoked.  While this is not about marriage I think it’s obvious that if we aren’t to be partners with unbelievers then it’s not a very big leap to assume that would include the biggest partnership of your life.  And in 1st Corinthians 7 Paul says that widows are free to remarry but they must marry a believer. That’s about as straight up as you can get.  But that’s it.  And before you try to go old Testament Israel marry within the tribe on me, remember Hosea.

But we have to live in reality and reality is this: If you are following Jesus then your life is heading in a direction.  And that direction, regardless of how much you like them or how much you have in common etc, is not the same as that of someone who is not.

There are all sorts of other problems.  It is easy for this other person to become your mission.  In other words you are somehow going to win this person to Jesus.  Here’s the thing, it could happen, but it could not happen and then you spend the rest of your life in different places.  Not to mention that they might end up pulling you in their direction – away from God.  This is a cheesy analogy but one person is standing on a chair and the other is on the ground.  Is it easier for the person on the floor to pulled up or the person on the chair to be pulled off?  As a bonus you are WAY more likely to fall into sexual sin.

Also, how can you have a covenant marriage with you, this other person and God, if this other person doesn’t believe in God.  Biblical marriage is a covenant, not a contract or an agreement.

But most of all, it is harder to follow Jesus and almost impossible to do ministry.  I have been in full time ministry for nearly 17 years.  I have worked with literally hundreds of people serving in our work.  Like anything missional, it’s hard and people leave for all sorts of reasons.  But the number one reason people get taken out – sexual sin.  The number two reason that usually leads to the first – dating someone who is not following Jesus.  This happens directly and indirectly.  The person who is not a Christian is going to have a hard time supporting you giving your life away for the Kingdom, which if you are following Jesus is exactly what you are called to do.

This raises other questions like, What is Christian enough? and How do I know who to marry?, and I plan to address some of that soon.  I also concede that this might not be “law” so to speak.  So tell me what you think?  Is what I’m saying right?  Are you rationalizing a relationship you’re in right now?  If you’re dating a nonbeliever how has that affected your walk with God?

Are You Ready To Get Married?

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My parents got married at 26.  This was actually at the time (1970) fairly old to get married. My mom told me once that she didn’t feel most people should get married much younger than that because you change so much in your early twenties. Apparently our society now totally agrees.

In the mid sixties nearly 60% of adults aged 18-29 were married.  That number is now 20% and dropping.  That is an insane change.  Now there are a lot of reasons for this.  And there are a lot of implications as well.  I’ve said some about that before and will say more later but for today I want to focus on a different question.  When are you ready to get married?

I’ve heard the “ready” comment a lot in my years of singleness.  Some people use it as an excuse to deal with their commitment issues. “I’m just not ready to get married.”  Now I think that it is indeed good to not get married if you don’t want to.  What isn’t so good is dating a bunch of people and then never being able to be committed to them.  Really if you aren’t ready – should you be in long term relationships as an adult?

This leads us to yet another very relevant question.  What is an adult?  Apparently in 1960 it was 18.  But these days there are people that say you’re an adolescent until 26.  Which seems to back up my mom’s thoughts.  But 26?  Really?!

The world has definitely changed in many, many ways.  Some for the better and others not, but I really believe in this context it leads to a lot of confusion.  For one thing we are asking Christian guys to basically forgo sex during their prime sex years (not that guys don’t pretty much always desire sex).  Hey 15 year old kid, “don’t worry, only 11-15 more years to go.  Good luck.”

Should you get married for sex?  Well maybe.  Not just for that obviously, but I think it’s an underrated reason.

There are all sorts of arguments here.  There are indeed statistics that say the older you get married the less likely you are to get divorced and I can see that.  You hopefully know more of who you are as a person etc.  But that assumes you are actually working on that and not just extending adolescence.

And let’s be honest the older you get the smaller pools you “fish” in.  That’s reality.  And if you aren’t dating just to date then how do you stay sharp with your dating skills which you actually sort of need to get married?

There are advantages to getting married earlier.  For one thing you get to be married longer.  You get to start out in life together. But the truth of the matter is that in our culture most 18-23 year olds are generally not as “ready” to be committed.  That is more society’s fault than theirs by the way.

So how do we know if we are “ready”?

Here’s truth one: In some ways you are never really “ready”.  There probably isn’t going to be that magical moment when you are perfectly ready.  And really you can’t know what marriage is like without actually being married.  We can, and should know what marriage is – a covenant with God and this other person for life, but that is not the same as being ready.

But that said, here are some things I think are helpful in terms of readiness.

First, do you see yourself as an adult?  Marriage does not make you adult, it makes you married.  This is important in many ways and probably deserves it’s own post.  But my point is it’s helpful to see yourself as an adult if you are going to be married.  (For free, it’s good to be an adult.  If you are in your mid twenties and you don’t see yourself as an adult – now would be the time).

Second, as a guy, I think you need to know what the heck you are about.  What direction do you see your life going?  It’s going to go a lot better if when you ask someone to go with you, you were actually going somewhere.  I have a friend who onetime told me, that guys should think Master, Mission, Mate, in that order.  In other words, know God, know what you are about, invite someone into that with you.

Finally, and this might actually be most important.  No matter what age you are, in my opinion, if you find the person you want to marry, make it happen.  This assumes they love the Lord etc. but part of being ready to be married has to do with having someone to marry.

I’d love some responses here.  When do you think people should start to think about marriage?  How do you know you are ready?  Are you ready?  What would it take to get ready?

How Satan Attacks Singles

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In my mid 20s the words I suck would run through my head when something went wrong.  I would literally say the words “I suck!”  Whether this was because of work, play, or relationships it was there.  I was agreeing with the enemy.

Last week I asked us to consider that the enemy cares about our singleness.  Now we are no more or less under attack than a married person, but just like a lot of things it plays out in certain ways within our particular context.  So today I want to talk a little about what that looks like and how to see it.

The first place we can see spiritual attack is against our identity.

It’s important to distinguish between voices here.  Remember we can hear from God, our flesh, and from the enemy.  For example when we do something wrong, God speaks in a convicting way – it’s direct and at the wrong action.  Our flesh usually focusses on guilt. The enemy focusses on condemnation – in other words – he comes at our identity.

This is where my “I suck” stuff came in.  Now what happens is that the enemy throws us the thought and then we begin to agree with it.  This is one way we can let the enemy have a foothold.  Once we agree with it then he can run with it.  Condemnation does not come from God.  God is not saying, “You Suck”, “You’re Worthless,” “You’re ugly,” “You’re stupid”, “You’ve messed it all up, there’s not hope”, “You’re disqualified.”

If these are not from God then we need to disagree with them.  If we don’t they severely affect how we view ourselves and they can become the identity we live out of.  This is not good because our identity should be in Jesus.  Hence “spiritual battle”.  Knowing the truth doesn’t mean much if we are going to live out of the lies.

This is critical as a single person because in our context we are often our own mirror.  It’s why it’s important to have people in your life who can also be a mirror.  The more free I am from this, the more I’m free to discern my calling, love others, and frankly the more free I am to pursue or be pursued by someone.

Here are some other places the enemy will attack.

He will try to get you to agree with things about God.  “God is holding out on you,” “If God loved you he’d send you someone,” “God doesn’t care that you don’t have a spouse,” “It’s all God’s fault,” and so on.  Anything that can drive a wedge between you and God, the enemy will try to exploit it.  And you’d better believe he will exploit our singleness.

He will plant thoughts about other people as well.  “She would never like me,” “He’s married now so he’s probably too busy,” “They just don’t understand,” “You’re All Alone”.

The enemy also attacks our sexuality.  The temptation level is high to begin with because of our own sin and fleshly desires.  But you can bet that the enemy wants to turn this up.  This can come in the form of straight up temptation to sex or other sexual outlets – i.e. porn, strip club etc.  But he can also steal our sexuality.  We can be led to kill our desire or try to cover it.

Another big battle is over who you date.  Think about this.  A person decides to follow Jesus.  The enemy is pissed and has already lost the major battle.  Now If I’m him, what is my strategy?  How about having them date, or better yet, marry someone that pulls them away from following Jesus.  Satan knows the next closest thing to a relationship with God is a relationship with another person.  The enemy is not stupid.  Who you date, or if you date, matters and he knows it.

How about fear?  Fear of commitment, fear of choosing wrong, fear of being alone, fear of failing at a relationship, fear of intimacy.  The fear list could go forever.  Fear is never from God.

These are just a few examples.  Look, I’m not saying there is a demon behind every rock, trying to mess with your single life.  But what I am saying is that we are in a war and just like any war there are tendencies that the enemy has and our flesh just plays right into it.  We need to fight back.

If there really is a spiritual battle then you’d better believe part of that battle is over how you view yourself, God and others, over your sexuality, and over who you date or marry or for that matter whether you date or marry.

Looking at your singleness – where do you see the battle?  What lies have you believed?

Do You Want To Have Sex With Her?

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Starting in middle school I always had what I’ll call a target girl.  This was the girl that I thought was “THE ONE“.  She was basically the girl that I thought was the most attractive and if I could somehow get her, then everything in my world would be right.  This became a pattern for a long time.  This idea that a particular girl who was “hot” was the answer to my love life.

What’s really interesting is that these girls I liked weren’t necessarily more attractive than many other girls.  Grab an old yearbook and find pictures of the girl that you were obsessed with.  Compare her to a bunch of other girls in the book.  My bet is she’ll be attractive but not way more attractive than others.  It’s crazy.  There were girls I could have pursued, who maybe would have gone out with me, who are just as attractive.

Our society has a standard of beauty.  This is not actually real of course.  We all know the photos of women we see in magazines are doctored etc.  Yet we are constantly comparing.  I remember one time sitting at Sonic (taking a break from cruising North Oak) with a friend of mine and a cute server came out.  My friend said, “She’s cute but I don’t like her calves.”  Really?!  But as a teenager, inundated with a constant stream of the cultural standard it’s not a surprising statement.

The problem is that we think if we could get the perfect looking woman then we would be validated as a man.

This isn’t just the idea that we would always be attracted to this person (which is a lie) but also it’s an ego thing.  We want everyone to look at our girl and think that we have arrived because we have her.  We are looking for the perfect beauty and comparing everything against it.  This imaginary beauty becomes our standard.

My pastor has shared from the pulpit many times (borrowing from Driscoll) that when you are married, your wife is to be your standard of beauty.  I think that is an incredibly right and profound truth.  When you are married she is THE ONE.

But here is what we don’t talk about.  As a single person, what the heck is my standard of beauty supposed to be?  Answer from the pulpit, “Cricket, cricket, cricket.”

I know of no guy who married someone that he wasn’t attracted to physically.  To pretend otherwise is a joke.  Now back in the day of arranged marriages you got married and that became your standard (biblically, although obviously not always in practice).  But here in the now, you choose who to pursue and physical attraction is a part of it.

So what should be our standard of beauty?

For starters, hot does not always equal beauty.  If you’ve dated at all you know this is true. Beauty is more than physical.  It has to do with who a person is.  We’ve all met the hot girl who got less attractive as we got to know her.  We’ve also had women who as we talked with them and saw them in action, we saw them as more beautiful.  This is one of the reasons that we HAVE to move from looking at women to talking to them.  Being physically attracted is just a starting point to a deeper attraction.

Our standard has to be more than is she the hottest person in the room because there will always be another hot person.  Always!  You have to get beyond this.

At the same time I would say that you need to be physically attracted or you are not going to pursue.  I think you have to have what I’m going to call physical chemistry.  For lack of a better way of saying it, you need to want to have sex with this person.  Now the good and bad news about this is that as guys we can see having sex with a lot of people, so it’s not a stand alone criteria for marriage.  But realizing this can free us up to pursue someone instead of waiting for an imaginary woman.

You also need to get over what anyone else thinks about how attractive she is.  This is so stupid.  I can’t think of one guy I respect more or less because of how “hot” his wife is. What matters is are you attracted to her.  And no woman no matter how “perfect” is going to validate you – only God can do that.

We have to stop comparing women to the world’s standard and allow ourselves to become and stay attracted to someone.

So here’s my question to you – What is your standard of beauty?

40 Year Old Virgin

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This weekend I turn 40.  I have never had sex.  That’s right.  I will be the 40 year old virgin.  Now that stirs something in you. Some might think I’m some sort of hero.  Some might think I’m a wuss or haven’t really lived, or that I can’t get a date.  Some will wonder how the heck I haven’t exploded.  Still others might feel guilty of their own sin.

The truth is, I’m neither proud or ashamed of it.

On the one hand I’m glad that I haven’t had sex outside of marriage.  I know that’s not what God would want.  On the other hand I’ve given into sexual immorality in other ways. At some point in the last 25 years I’ve struggled with having lustful thoughts,  viewing porn,  fantasizing about women, and masturbation.  I’ve gone “too far” with women here and there.

I’ve also messed up dating.  Part of the reason I’m a virgin is I’m not married. Ha!  What I mean is if I’d dated better or learned what the heck I was doing maybe I would have gotten married sooner.  I could have been less selfish or arrogant at times.  Other times I shouldn’t have been passive or afraid.  I’ve helped make myself single many times.

So I’m not here to say “yeah me”.  I’m not here to beat myself up either.  I’m here to say that just because you are single doesn’t mean you have to give in to sexual immorality.

The last couple of blogs I’ve talked a lot about principles we need to hold.  We need to have the right view of sex, we need to have the right view of desire, and we need to desire Jesus most of all. These are all essential.

But today I want to talk about some things that have helped me over the last 20 plus years practically speaking.  These are not THE answers necessarily, but as I look back and think about how I ended up not having sex or being completely dominated by the drive to, these are some keys.

I‘ve read the Bible.  Being in the scriptures makes us love God more – which fills us up. It also shaped my view of sex.  As a new believer at 17 we read in a small group about fleeing from immorality and why.  I had never heard it before and it shaped my view at an early age.  What we take into our minds and hearts helps to shape our desires.  We need to take in scripture and worship etc.

I’ve never seriously dated anyone who didn’t know Jesus.  Its not that I never wanted to.  I just knew I couldn’t.  This is so huge. It means both people might at least try to abstain.  I can’t count the people I know who have had their walk shaken by dating someone who isn’t following Jesus.  If you are the only one who is going to say no, you’re in trouble.

Along those lines, I’ve always predetermined that I would say no.  Sometimes this has meant literally avoiding certain situations.  But this is what Paul means when he says flee. Stay the heck out of the scenario to begin with.

To further that thought, for almost as long as I’ve had a computer, I’ve had Covenant Eyes.  This service sends everything I look at online to a friend.  I think this is by far the best approach.  I would say every guy should have this. Why not?

I’ve chosen to have people in my life who know everything I’m doing.  They have permission to ask me anything.  Here is a trustworthy saying.  If it’s secret it’s wrong. Even if it’s not technically wrong.

All of the above have helped me but as I’ve thought about this the number one helpful thing is that long ago I realized that it’s not just about me.

From early on I’ve been doing ministry.  I don’t mean that I’ve been in full time ministry although for much of it I have been.  What I mean is that when you are trying to show others Jesus and leading people, what you do matters more.  Others are looking at me.  I can’t count the times that this has stopped me.

Times when I would have gone to the strip club, or met someone at a bar and had a one night stand.  There were other’s hearts at stake.  I remember early in my career someone said that is not very good accountability.  I would submit that it’s actually damn good accountability.  If it’s just about me or “saving myself for marriage” then I might be willing to compromise. If it’s about God and His kingdom, that’s a whole other thing.

Jesus said the most important thing is to love God and love others. Sexual immorality gets in the way of that.  I truly believe if our focus is ourselves, or even our own little life with Jesus, we are screwed.  But if we are focused on loving Jesus and loving others, we have a chance.

Desiring Jesus More Than Sex

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Have you ever tried to fight weeds in your yard?  You go out and spray them or pull them. It’s a constant battle.  But here’s the truth about the process.  The best defense against weeds is more grass.  I can pull weeds every year but if I don’t get grass to grow in those spots, next year (or next week) weeds will grow there.

I share this because I think it is a key principle for dealing with sexual immorality and the desire we have that leads us to it.  As I shared last week, we first have to  have a right view of sex and a right view of desire.  But even then we have to figure out how to grow the right desires.  In other words we have to let our desire for God trump all other desires.  The good news is that we were created for that.  The bad news is, it’s a freaking battle.

We can’t get completely focussed on the sin.  This is especially true with sexual immorality (fulfilling sexual desire outside the context of marriage).  Often we focus on the all of the “don’ts”.  Don’t be naked, don’t look at porn, don’t have lustful thoughts, don’t. . . .  While we do need to fight this stuff we can’t let our focus be here.  Our focus needs to be on Jesus.

I’ve heard it said a lot that, “we as guys will always struggle with lust”.  I think that’s a lie straight from hell.

Now if you want to say that I’m always capable of struggling with it, I wholeheartedly agree. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have victory in this area of my life.  It’s probably going to be a fight and process (as with most of the sanctification process) but to just surrender to it seems like a terrible idea.

Sexual immorality is a strong, strong temptation. God created sex with the power to help bind two people together for life.  God was not playing around here.  It is the only sin that Paul literally says to flee from.  In other words, don’t play around with it or tough it out – just get the heck away from it.  He says all other sin a man commits outside his body, but sexual immorality is against his own body.  Paul is saying it affects us in huge ways.

In my opinion there are two principles we have to keep here in order to let the practical stuff work.

First we need to focus on the Lord and his mission.  To be honest, when I struggle the least in this area is when I’m focussed on God and mission.  When I’m outward focussed, I’m typically not desiring the wrong stuff.  When I’m focussed on me and what I feel that day, that’s when I’m in trouble.  This by the way is part of (emphasis on part of) what Paul is saying about the call to singleness.  It’s not a call to not get married, it’s a call to be so focussed on mission that you are not focussed on sex (which is NOT to say that you won’t ever desire sex).

The second thing we have to do is flee – which means do whatever it takes to not fall into sexual immorality.  I’m going to talk about some things that have helped me later this week.

Here’s another way to look at it.  In the Odyssey, Odysseus is warned about the dangers of the sirens.  These were beautiful creatures (think hot models with wings) that sang incredibly powerful and beautiful songs.  So much so that sailors followed them to their death on the rocks.

Odysseus comes up with a plan.  He gives all his oarsmen wax to put in their ears so that they can’t hear the sirens.  He wants to hear it, so he doesn’t use wax, but he has them tie him to the mast.  When the boat passes the sirens do their thing.  Odysseus goes crazy, demanding that the men cut him free.  Following his original orders they don’t and they pass through unharmed.

Now this is great but contrast that with the story of Orpheus and the Argonauts.  The Argonauts faced the same danger from the sirens.  But Orpheus was a powerful musician who played the most beautiful music possible.  When the Argonauts passed by the sirens Orpheus played his music.  It was so strong and powerful that it drowned out the songs of the sirens.  The Argonauts were able to pass through without the aid of the wax.

Ultimately our desire for God has to trump all other desires.  

It is better to tie ourselves to the mast than die on the rocks, but the goal should be to grow so close to Jesus that we are not swayed by the siren’s music.

Submitting Sexual Desire To The Lord

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Last week I wrote about our view of sex.  The main two points were that sex was created by God and therefore desire for sex isn’t bad in and of itself.  Secondly was that this desire was to be fulfilled so to speak, only in the context of marriage.  In the Bible sex is always talked about either in marriage or in sin.   A pretty fair definition of sexual immorality is the fulfillment of sexual desire outside the context of marriage.

But this leaves singles in a very tough spot.  We have a desire that is good but no “good” way to fulfill it.

Now some married friends have wisely pointed out that you can be married and still struggle with sexual immorality.  There is no doubt that this is true. There are all sorts of ways that married people can struggle with this.  Single people need to get a clue that marriage doesn’t instantly solve all of this.  But at the same time, married people need to think about what it would be like to have no fulfillment of that desire . . . ever.

So, what are we as single people supposed to do with this?

Well all of this raises a bunch of questions actually.  What is the point of desires that God gives us?  What are we supposed to do with unfulfilled desires?  What should we do with sexual desire?  When does desire become sin?  What do we do practically to deal with sexual desire in a culture that says, “Just Do It”.  We need more than “Just Say No”.

Let’s tackle a couple of these today and then we’ll tackle some more next week.

At the end of the day I believe the number one thing we desire is to know that we are loved.  Now this desire can get messed up quickly.  It can become the desire for approval from people. It is also one of the main emotional drives for sex.  Sex was created to bond us to the other person so it feels like a lot like love.  But at the truth is our desire to be loved can only be totally fulfilled by God.

What our desires show us is that something is going on in our heart.  They are the voice of our heart.  When I have a strong desire I need to ask what is going on inside.  Where is that coming from?

I don’t believe that desire itself is sin.  Paul is clear that even temptation (which plays on desire) is not sin.  Giving in to it is.  Now we can have desires that come from our sin.  In other words the more I live in (abide in) disobedience, the more I will desire the wrong stuff. This is then compounded when I fulfill that desire in a sinful way.

Psalms 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”  This scripture is misapplied all the time.  Often people assume it means that if I delight or abide in the Lord that I will get what I want, as if to say, first I want something, I go delight in God, and He gives it to me.  That would be wrong.

What it means is that first I delight in the Lord.  When I do that He gives me my core value and love and then my desires (remember they are the voice of my heart) start coming from Him.  He literally gives me my desires – my desires become His desires.  The point is that depending on where my heart is at, my desires will follow.

Just because I have a desire doesn’t mean I should fulfill it. I mean I have good and bad desires all the time.  But I can’t be mastered by my desires.  Instead I need to submit them to the Lord.  I need to let my desires (most of which at some level come back to the desire to be loved) drive me to the Lord.  Sexual desire is no different.

Now all this sounds really nice.  But let’s put it in context.  If I’m going to have any chance of handling my sexual desire as a single (or married for that matter) I’m going to have to be walking closely with the Lord.  This is true of every desire but I do think sexual desire is a little different.  Sex is one of the most powerful forces in our world and we shouldn’t discount that fact.  It was made that way on purpose.

Monday I will dive into what we can do practically to deal with it.  But none of that will matter if I’m not going to allow it to drive me towards Jesus.  Without Him it will be like putting bandaids on gaping wounds.

How Do You View Sex?

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A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to be in an Old Testament class with a ridiculously brilliant professor.  I mean this guy might be the most knowledgeable guy I’ve ever met.  At one point we were talking about The Law and I decided to ask a fun question, just to stir the pot.

I asked him, “Does the Bible literally say that I can’t have sex outside of marriage?” Without flinching (have you ever noticed professors never flinch) and he said, “No it doesn’t.  But it does say that if you have sex with someone you have to marry them right then.”  We all laughed.

One of the things that is hardest about being single is not having sex.  I love when married people tell me that sexual temptation doesn’t go away when you get married.  I know that’s true but, it’s not the same thing. We have to choose between not satisfying the desire or sin – you have another option.

This is the one thing that the Church is for sure going to tell single people – Don’t have sex. But that is not enough.  And the way we tell people can often set us up to fail.  It’s shouldn’t be about “waiting for marriage“, making the act of sex unholy, twisting bible verses to make them about sex, making the desire for sex bad, or even pretending that somehow I can crush that desire. It’s about understanding what sex is – biblically speaking.

Our culture has separated sex from marriage.  It says the purpose of sex is pleasure and personal enjoyment.  It’s something that we do to make ourselves feel better.  Now there is some truth to this of course, sex does feel good.  God created it to be pleasurable, which is awesome.  But that is not the end result.

This view ultimately makes sex less powerful.  We’ve had it drilled in our heads over and over that it is just a physical act.  And when the Church runs around telling us not to do it, without telling us what TO do, then it just adds to the problem by basically keeping it as a physical act – just one we shouldn’t do.

The message can end up being that It’s just about pleasure and feeling good in marriage (if I get married I get pleasure) but it still sells sex short and could mess up married sex. Worst of all we sometimes paint sex in such a negative light that when people do get married they struggle to enjoy it.

But the Bible talks about sex as much more than a physical act to do or not do.

From the very beginning, right after He creates Adam and Eve, God says that they will leave father and mother and become one flesh.  Jesus echoes this later of course when he is asked about divorce.  He essentially says, “You don’t get it at all.  Marriage is permanent and sex is part of what makes it that way.”

Sex is not just physical.  It is meant to be a spiritual act.  It bonds two people together in very real, one flesh way.  This is why where ever sex is talked about all through scripture it is always either within the context of marriage or the context of sin. There is no in between.  But we can also know for sure that the desire for sex is from God.  We can’t just throw that out or pretend it away, just because we as singles are not in a position to have the desire met.

We are going to desire sex.  A lot actually. Probably even if I’m called to singleness.  In my opinion trying to kill that desire is crazy.  But here’s the thing, I have all sorts of desires.  I don’t get to do them all, I have to submit them to God.

What I can do is not feed it the wrong way.  Paul (while talking about this subject) uses food as and example.  I can’t just eat what I want all the time.  I want a cookie every day, and if I eat that cookie every day, I’ll want it even more the next day.  We are not to be controlled by our desires.

Also, as I mentioned briefly before, if I separate sex from marriage there is way less reason to get married.  As crazy as it sounds, one of the surest ways to stay single is to have sex outside of marriage.  
Our culture is at set up in opposition to the scripture.  This isn’t new of course, its always been so, but now we are inundated with it.  We have to walk with God and we have to own our view of sex.  What is your real view of sex – the one you practice?