Sex God

At first I was writing this as a response to Kaci's post on purity. Then I realized I had a bit more to say:

This is a hard one I think. My first thought is: I think that sex and sexuality are meant for marriage and I'm guessing that when they are done in the right context, it will be a spiritual, physcial, emotional connection. (Stuff we all know.) Not just spiritual with your partner, but I believe God too. I think God designed sex to be beautiful and to demonstrate and give us a peek into the intimate relationship He has with Himself and that He wants with us. Think about the connection with the other person you feel when you experience sexual intimacy. Strong? Complete? Safe? Content? Secure? Elated? Maybe we were MEANT to feel this way when we experience sexual intimacy because God created it to show us what He is like; He is a relational God and I see glimpses of Him when I experience wonderful relationships, be it friendships or boyfriends. Like Christ's love for the church is an example for marriage, the intimacy of sex is an example of just how intimate He is with Himself and with us. (I'm refering to the kind of intimacy sex brings, not saying God is sexual with Himself or wants to be sexual with us.)


I believe God designed the marriage bed to be safe for us to explore our sexuality because outside of it He knew how painful it would be to give of ourselves to multiple people. Our heart gets attached to each person, making our heart and body a sort of thrift store item for our future spouse. Used, although it may be gently, it is still used. Not that I am doubting that God can't redeem us (He HAS and WILL!) but His desire is to see us safe, secure and pure. His guidelines are there to protect us-like a Father.

I also think that thinking of purity as a way of protecting your own body and what you know you have to offer someone helps with the purity process. Think of yourself as having something very valuable to offer, something that you know someone will appreciate, but you only want to give it to that ONE special person. When I think of my body in a sense of something precious, I only want to give it away to a certain extent. We protect our hearts like it is something valuable and retract it when we know there is harm coming, or the relationship is not safe - we should view our bodies the same. "Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body." 1 Corinthians 6:18.

Although I do not believe in Rob Bell's theology as a whole and take it with a grain of salt, this book is amazing on the topic of Sex and God and how they relate.

http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Product/ProductDetail.htm?ProdID=com.zondervan.9780310263463&QueryStringSite=Zondervan

Maybe we can stay connected to God during those hard moments of staying pure by remembering that it is a picture of how much He loves us, but when we experience it away from marriage, it is not experienced to the full potential.

Lia

Purity thoughts.

So RaRa leaves for AK today, and she has asked for multiple prayers in her journey with purity and a hot, long distance boyfriend. RaRa, I don't blame you (those abs of his...) :)

RaRa has said a few somethings to me in the past few days about purity that make me think... once, we were talking about clothes or church, or even both, and she said something about not wearing a specific low-cut shirt because she didn't want to tempt any man to think impure thoughts. In my head I thought, "yeah, I respect that- but, they should control their thoughts! That's not our job! It's not like you're dressing slutty!" A few days ago we were talking again, and she mentioned wanting to be very careful about not doing anything with her man to make him think lustful things when they are together.

These talks both kind of rocked my world because I have always thought of purity being something I controlled about myself- my thoughts, my actions, mine mine mine. I had never really thought about what I do as having an affect on another's purity... don't get me wrong: I try to make sure to dress conservatively for the most part, and make sure I'm not flashing this hot legs all over town, but I think if I'm honest, I do that for my own comfort rather than the protection of others' purity... (I don't like thinking that some strange guy could be thinking lustful thoughts about me just by looking at my outfit or whatever).

That said, these thoughts have been kind of swirling around my head, and in my latest 'tete-a-tete' with the Runner, I realized that I am in NO way doing my part in keeping our relationship lust-free. Yes, I have decent 'brakes' and can say no when I feel like it's going in a lustful direction for me- but I have no concept of stopping my attempts at being 'sexy' or whatever, when we're being physical To put it bluntly, it's easy to say, "Oh no, that's my 'line'- don't cross it by doing that, please." It's so much harder for me to say, "Oh no, what I am doing to you is making you think lustful things, I've crossed your line, I need to stop now". What a CONCEPT for me!

Now, I'm feeling a few different things: 1) a need to ask for forgiveness from the Lord for my misguided and wrong thoughts about what I can do to remain pure in a relationship- for both me and a man; and 2) a need to re-evaluate what's going on with the Runner- I'm feeling like I want to take more responsibility for our physical relationship, and I'm also wanting him to be more of a leader in this arena. I think I will need to also ask his forgiveness for tempting him with lustful thoughts and making it quite difficult for us to be pure, together.

Also, as another point: I need to involve God more in these day to day actions of a relationship. Correction: I want to involve him more. I know it feels better when He's involved, and it's not up to me or the Runner to find the line and toe it. I desperately want God to be the center of whatever relationships I have, especially one with a man. This is where the 60-60 idea comes in, too: my watch totally beeped in the middle of our makeout session, and it was like, "Wait. Jesus time, right NOW?" I feel like if I am prayerful and following the Lord in His hand in my relationship, it won't be weird when Jesus time is in the middle of a makeout session, or whatever... cause I'll be so connected I'll know I'm doing what I should be, not just what I want to be.

Does that even make sense? Have you even read this far? What are your thoughts, girls? In terms of purity struggles, where do you find your hardest battles and how (or) do you stay connected to God while you're in the heat of the moment?