The Thing About Sexual Intimacy

Did you ever stop and think about how God made Eve? He didn’t speak her into existence. He didn’t create her from the earth. He didn’t create her alone, but God used Man to create Woman. He took something away from Adam in order to create for him the perfect partner.

Let your mind roll that thought around for a while.

“But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out for the man, and he brought her to the man.”

In His mercy, God used divine anesthesia so that Adam was unable to protest or decide for himself if this was a good idea. If God had held a meeting and told Adam the plan, I am fairly certain that Adam, being completely oblivious to what life would be like with a helper that would complete him and a partner that would share a form of intimacy with him that he had yet to witness, would have said, “Wait… you want to open up my flesh, remove a bone, turn that bone into something else for me to manage??? No, really… I’m good. I think I have this dominion thing down. I will just keep all my parts!”

But God knew that there was something better, and He was about to show Adam. He was about to create for man someone who would love and respect and honor him in a manner that no other creature could. This woman would know how to be the fulfilment of a need that Adam didn’t even know he had. She was created by God with the DNA of her man. His needs and his passions; his hopes and his dreams; his joys and his sorrows; his strengths and his weaknesses; all these things were alive inside of her. She knew him and that is exactly as God planned it to be. Together they would form an inseparable union that would be the model of all couples throughout history.

That all occurred on the other side of sin. When the decision was made to challenge the authority of God, the perfect intimacy they once shared became a rivalry. Where once they knew each other completely without any shame, sin caused them to use what they knew as a weapon to blame and strike out in anger. Where sexual intimacy had been a beautiful gift from God, it became a tool for manipulation and gateway to lust and immorality. Where there was perfect unity of man and wife, sin drove a wedge and thousands of years later, we still struggle to sort out how to live in purity and wholeness, whether we are single or married.

We live in a culture where Biblical morality is either ignored or interpreted in a manner that meets our particular belief system. So did Paul, a first century follower of Jesus who wrote many of the books of the New Testament. It was so bad in the city of Corinth that he told them that it would be best for people who were single, to remain that way. It doesn’t tell us why, but comparing it to our promiscuous culture, I would venture a guess that sexually transmitted disease was rampant and the only solution was abstinence.

Jesus reminded the crowds of God’s original plan for marriage. “A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one.” (Matthew 19:5-6) This means a life-long commitment to love and honor one another, as if their desires and needs were our own. Living with that deep intimacy is God’s plan for marriage. It requires an openness and honesty and vulnerability that was never intended to be experienced outside of an eternal commitment, blessed by God. It requires us to be opened up and have something of ourselves removed. It requires us to allow God to create us to with the needs of our spouse living in us so that we alone can restore their emptiness and meet a deep need.

Sexual purity is God’s desire for us because He knows us. He made us and He made our desire for sexual intimacy, but He made it to accompany a commitment to our spouse; to honor them, their needs, their body, their desires. All of that requires a deep knowledge of that person and that does not come without losing something of ourselves and gaining a desire to meet a need. It takes time… for some, maybe a life time. But it is the design of God for us to let down our guard, tear down the walls, look far beyond ourselves and learn to live in the beauty of the passion He created for husband and wife.

In our current society, as in first century Corinth, sexual promiscuity is the norm and self-gratification, via any means available, is simply accepted. In our society, as in Corinth, there is hopelessness, disillusionment, and broken hearts. It has become evident that seeking to have our need for intimacy or sexual gratification met in some manner other than the way God designed, opens up the door to a vast emptiness that we will forever try to fill. It doesn’t bring joy and fulfillment, because the One who created sexual intimacy, created it for us to find in our marriage commitment. Perhaps the greatest thing God ever created was marital intimacy, where two people become one, united in hopes and dreams and desires and passion. For it is in our ability to lose ourselves in an intimate encounter with the one that will be by our side, ‘til death do us part, that we discover how very much God cares for us.

If you are not married, God wants you to keep yourself pure for the one person to whom you will pledge your lifelong devotion.

If you are married, take a look at how you treat your husband or wife. Are you sharing the intimacy that God designed for marriage? Are you learning to know him or her? Can you allow God to open your heart and remove what He wants in order to create something better than you can imagine? We tend to live with the expectation that our needs must be met by the one who loves us, but forget that we were created to give; to make a sacrifice; to love and honor each other above ourselves.

Living the life He designed for you may require some major… or minor alterations. But when you allow God to transform you into that person He made you to be, and commit to saving sexual intimacy for marriage, and truly living out love and submission to one another in the intimacy of marriage, you will find something so beautiful and fulfilling that it defies description. 

Grief

December 2014: My father was diagnosed with cancer and given 3 to 6 months to live. I remember taking him home from that appointment, after the Doctor told him that he had lived 80 years and should live out his days without having to endure the sickness that treatment would bring. I remember the lump in my throat as I tried to change places with him and become the strength for him that he had always been for me. I vowed to be strong and carry him, and the rest of the family, doing whatever needed to be done until we said our final good-bye. Peeling back that bravado, you would find a little Daddy’s girl, curled up on his lap, sobbing for the day that was sure to come.

I discovered that grief alters your identity.

June 2017:  My 83 year old mother became quite ill on a Sunday night and was taken to the hospital. Her vital organs were shutting down. No heroic measures. No hope of recovery. Hospice stepped in at the end of the week and then she was gone. One week to be by her side. One week to hold her hand. One week to try to comfort her and assure her of my love. I didn’t want her to see me cry. I had to stay strong for her and the family. She was ready for death and actually had prayed to die many times over the years. How could I grieve when she was finally at peace, no longer tormented by mental illness? My loss was her gain… right? Then, quite unexpectedly, three weeks after her death Dana came home from work and found me in a puddle of tears, crying out as if it was fresh news, “My mom is gone!” And those tears just seem to keep coming without warning, way more often than I find acceptable.

I discovered that grief hides deep inside, only to come out… frequently… and inconveniently.

Dad is still living. Truly living; blessing people every day; writing words of wisdom in his journal as his ebbing strength keeps him close to his easy chair.  I feel so blessed every minute we have together and thank God for allowing me this extended time with him. Yet, there is a grief that seeps into my spirit, knowing that I cannot be prepared to lose him… ever. It will not feel the same or be the same as losing Mom. Or any other loss in my life.

I discovered that grief is not tidy and uniform.

I try to bring reason to my emotions, to chase away the tears. I have had nearly 60 years with my parents. Good parents. I have been blessed beyond words by their lives. Many people don’t get that many years. I am thankful, yet I am sad.

I discovered that grief is not rational.

I have been trained in Pastoral Counseling and have read about grief. I have walked with others as they grieve the loss of a loved one. I know about grief. Even so, I was not prepared for the impact that loss brings. I cannot write this blog without looking at the screen through tears. Because grief hurts and I know that you have your own loss and grief to endure and that brings more tears because I care about your pain, too. But, amidst the sorrow, there is hope. Hope assures me that life in this broken world is not all there is. There is a life to come that I cannot explain or even begin to understand. I know that God walks with us in the valleys, because I believe His Word is true and I have heard the testimonies of countless people who have felt Him in the darkest moments of life...and now... so have I.

I discovered that God is present in our grief.

If you see me with tears in my eyes, it’s okay to make eye contact. You don’t have to pretend you didn’t notice. It is fine to smile or to cry with me. It's even okay to make me laugh. There is really nothing you can say to make those tears go away. Just don’t be afraid of my apparent weakness.

I have discovered that grief makes me real. And that is okay.

Marriage Merry-Go-Round

“I hate you! I won’t ever play with you again!” shouted the angry child. So they went their separate ways for a few minutes, then they came together to share their toys once again. Why? Because for kids, happiness is more important than pride.

Isn’t it a shame that we outgrow that desire to make peace as we grow into adults that desire to be right, to win, to prove our point… at any cost? Perhaps that is one of our greatest sources of conflict in marriage. As we rush through life we seldom find the time to take a step back and see the destination to which this path will lead us.

There are many ways we focus on the end game. When it involves our career, we sacrifice our time with our family now so that we can climb that corporate ladder to provide for them in the future. When it comes to sports, we sign our children, who are not yet readers, over to the coach to build them into competitive athletes in the future. We are willing to go to great pains to make sure they are in the right pre-school to prepare them academically for the future. We attend the best Universities so that our career path can be secured in the future.

So why is it that we take off the spectacles that allow us to see into the future when it comes to our marriage relationships? All too often we have so much of the past stored up in our thoughts that we have no room to see what living there is going to do to our home in the future.  Perhaps we have forgotten that, “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way and is not irritable AND KEEPS NO RECORD OF BEING WRONGED…” (from I Corinthians 13).

If couples who claim to be followers of Jesus are to be successful in building a future together, we must stop looking to the hurt of the past. That only builds walls that scream, “I don’t trust you to love me because you failed me in the past” and insulates us from the vulnerability required to love truly. When you begin to take down the wall you have built around yourself… possibly for your protection… and begin to trust your partner, that trust lays down the path to a healthy future together.

Another benefit of taking down walls and giving grace and forgiveness is that you learn to see things from your spouse’s perspective. All too often we think we know their thoughts and motives, yet … truth be known, they were completely clueless that their words or actions packed such a powerful punch to your heart.

So, how do you dig your marriage out of the hole of blaming, self-protection and pride? It has to being with a heart to build a solid future and a willingness to communicate with each other in “I” statements. “I feel….” Rather than… “You make me feel…”  “I understood that you were saying….”  Rather than… “You said…”  You must stop suppressing the hurt and start looking for the source of that hurt. Perhaps it has more to do with your own perception of yourself or something in your past involving another person who hurt you. Rather than assuming what they think or feel, allow them to share with you without judgement or criticism.

Lastly, let go of control. You cannot live humbly if you cannot let go of control. You will never, no matter how hard you try, be able to control another human being, so let it go and focus on taking control of your thoughts and attitude. This is truth… If you must control, you do not trust. When you do not trust, you cannot fully love, because loving truly requires vulnerability. When you cannot love fully, you cannot receive love fully. When you cannot receive love fully, you do not trust. And when you do not trust, you try to control everything.

It’s time to get off that Merry-Go-Round and start truly loving!

Is The "YOKE" On You?

There was this guy…  he was a hot mess. Arrogant, self-centered, cruel, oblivious to the needs of everyone else, focused only on what he had to gain and often at the expense of others. He was heartless… the polar opposite of my definition of love. There was literally no hope that he could be the kind of man I would seek… for anything… other than shark bait.

But God… * there is always something really good coming after a “but God,” so keep reading…

God saw his potential. God saw his pain. God saw what he could become, if he would be willing to yoke himself to Jesus and walk through life with Him. So Jesus reached out and said, “Come with me.” And his plea was so compelling, His eyes were so tender, His gesture so inviting that Matthew went with Him.

Jesus never said to Matthew, “Let’s get you on the right path; let’s get you cleaned up; let’s get your debts all paid, let’s do some transforming… so that you are worthy to come with me.” At least if he did, it didn’t get recorded in scripture. Nor did those lines ever appear in red in the Bible. Regarding anyone at all. And if you read enough about Jesus, you know that wasn’t His way.

Jesus knew that if Matthew simply walked beside Him, he would be transformed. Why? Well, there is the fact that Jesus was performing miracles and when you have seen a few of those, it tends to reshape you. And there is the fact that Jesus was always teaching and it is good to teach your way through adversity and challenge. But I believe that Jesus knew that Matthew’s hard heart could be transformed by the power of love. God is LOVE. Jesus is God, in the flesh, therefore, Jesus, too, is love. And love is the most transformative force on Earth.

This is about to get personal. Is there someone in your life… or in your home… or in your bed… that is so much less than you want them to be? Are they failing to see and meet your needs? Are you fed up, tired, lonely? Perhaps you are even tossing around what life would look like without that person and considering divorce a viable option to end your pain. Maybe that is something you would never do, so instead you live in despair. Wishing things were different. Perhaps you have begged God to change them. Maybe you have tried to manipulate things in order to be loved by them. And in your pain, you have built walls to protect yourself. Now the walls are so thick, you can’t even imagine truly loving them like you once did.

Jesus taught us how to correct these struggles. Matthew was His subject; a hardened man, beyond the reach of any human remedy. But Jesus knew that if Matthew would allow Jesus to love him as they walked through life together, change would come. You may have noticed… we aren’t Jesus. Our default setting is typically to cut off the supply of love when someone hurts us. I mean, why would you snuggle up to a hangry grizzly bear? Rather, we tend to give them… lavishly, what we feel they have coming! And, so far that method has never saved a marriage or any relationship. So, it really is time to do this thing God’s way.

Matthew learned. Matthew changed. He explains this transformation by telling us what Jesus told him and others who would follow him. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy to bear and the burden I give you is light.”

Maybe it is time that you allow Jesus to place His yoke on your shoulders. When we say YES to following Jesus but continue to do life our own way, it NEVER ends well. That yoke is what we need. It keeps us close to Him so that we are continually learning from His teaching. His love will transform us and make our burdens so very much lighter.

Perhaps it is time for you to take another look at the one you have promised to be yoked to, for life. Are you staying close or building walls? Is your gentleness and humility inviting and beautiful to them? It is easy to use that matrimonial yoke to manipulate, push, pull, tug, and beat them into a mold you have for them, but it will never bring about the loving relationship you seek. Nobody wants to be yoked to a nag or a grizzly bear. If you are properly yoked to Jesus, learning from Him, He will show you how to be properly yoked to your spouse. It won’t happen overnight. Learning from Him is a process. Transformation is a process. But don’t give up! Your journey will be so much richer if you will simply “come to Jesus” and take His yoke, as Matthew did. It changed him for life. It will change you, too.