Sex and the Single Life
"Sometimes I wish everyone were single like me—a simpler life in many ways! But celibacy is not for everyone any more than marriage is. God gives the gift of the single life to some, the gift of the married life to others. 8 I do, though, tell the unmarried and widows that singleness might well be the best thing for them, as it has been for me. 9 But if they can't manage their desires and emotions, they should by all means go ahead and get married. The difficulties of marriage are preferable by far to a sexually tortured life as a single."
1 Corinthians 7:7-9(MSG)
Reflect
I was married in my 20’s, divorced and single in my 30’s and have been married for 25years since. This means that I spent my 30’s as a single adult at the height of my sexual desires and I found it difficult. No, I found it extremely difficult.
A huge discovery I made during those years was that the message that bombarded society and still does, “you can have it all”, is a lie. It is such an obvious lie, but one which so many of us buy into anyway. Bottom line is that, although I struggled mightily and imperfectly with my decision to be celibate until marriage, I had to discover that it was possible to be happy without “having it all”, including being happy without sex. And this I did discover.
There is something worse than being single and celibate. That something is the thousand ways that sex outside of marriage messes with your mind, emotions, body, relationships, faith, perspectives, and leaves consequences which are life altering: some of those life altering consequences are obvious and deeply experienced. Other life consequences are not noticed until decades later, when the slowly accumulated emotional and spiritual scar tissue has taken its toll and you discover that you are not quite as alive, not quite as whole as you once were.
Prayer
“Lord, I accept that your boundaries are also your provision. Like a loving parent you want each of us to live out all of your gifts in their context, in the place where they are dynamic rather than harmful (even when the harm feels great at the moment) . Amen"
I suspect that sex within a marriage has the potential to "mess with your mind, emotions, body, relationships, faith, and leave consequences that are life altering." It all depends on how we enter into relationship with our partner and whether we put Jesus ahead of self.
ReplyDeleteLord--I pray that you lead me in focusing on you in my relationships. Help me to avoid the distractions of sex and views of marriage as the path to salvation.