When it comes to my generation and sex there’s a much better story at our fingertips, we just haven’t heard it or we’ve ignored it for a time. But before we look at the story we have to acknowledge a few things before we begin.
First, men, we need to acknowledge that we often don’t think clearly about women and sex because our midsection is out of control. My friend sent me an email forward that says this, “The first testicular guard, the ‘Cup,’ was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.” There is a more detailed history about cups and helmets, but the main idea is that we men chose to protect our genitalia before our brains. Second, women, I’d like to ask you to acknowledge the value of this statement said by the beloved woman of the romance story in Song of Songs to her friends, “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.” Simple and elegant, but raw with truth. From my observations, it seems women so eagerly give their emotional world over to unworthy men too quickly and too strong. Put simply, men will do anything to “get some” and women will do anything to be sought after. And when guys give their compassion with ulterior motive and girls give their bodies with ulterior motives the relationship falls flat. It’s by faith and patience that the good things we want out of this life actually come to pass.
When the first man and woman caught sight of each other, the man said, “Woohoo! She is bone of my bone, the flesh of my flesh.” Because man and woman were created out of the same flesh their connection was immediate and perfect. They stood naked looking at each other, delighting in what they were seeing without shame. Without questions like, “I wonder what he will think of how my body looks?” or “Will I be able to please her?” No shame and no fear. This is how it began, but because the first man and woman chose to turn their backs on God’s good way, the brokenness began and continues. Now our relationships are marked by this brokenness – our relationship to God, one another, creation, even ourselves.
But God can’t stand to let us live in shame. The first act of grace was God’s creation of clothing made of animal skins to cover our shame. So if anyone ever asks who the first fashion designer was, you can say it was God the Father. And you’ll notice God doesn’t give up. Men and women are not banished from one another to suffer eternal loneliness. Our greatest advocate, God, still encourages us to enter into deep relationship with one another. But as with all things there is a good, better, and best way to go about this kind of happy union. Just like when we pursue a particular vocation – we can begin working immediately and learn only by experience (good), we can go to college and then jump in to the work of our choice (better), or we can go to college, begin working, continue learning by reflecting on our experiences and expanding our expertise (best). It’s the same when we enter into a lifelong commitment of uniting ourselves with another person. When we only unite ourselves sexually and emotionally there is usually a strong sense that something is missing.
“The one flesh in marriage is not just a physical phenomenon, but a uniting of the totality of the two personalities. In marriage, we are one flesh spiritually by vow, economically by sharing, logistically by adjusting time and agreeing on the disbursement of all life’s resources, experientially by trudging through the dark valleys and standing victoriously on the peaks of success, and sexually by the bonding of our bodies.” This quote by Dr. Louis Evans, Jr. sobers us by helping us to see that committing to life (all of it) together is what marriage is all about. So when we give our bodies to another only with sex we are selling ourselves and the other short. If sexual compatibility is the only goal and we live by the lie in it, then we’ll be sad when we wake up one day to find the sex is great, but there’s nothing else binding our hearts and lives together.
God is not prohibiting our joy in sex, after all it was His good creation. God is showing us the way to experience it in the fullest, best way possible.
Dustin F. James 