I left off in my previous post making the claim that a good percentage of teens and adults who expressed a desire to remain sexually abstinent until marriage, ended up compromising because of an emotional hunger that was raw and un dealt with. Many single people begin dating and searching for that significant other without being completely confident in who they are as a person. They feel that if only they could find that perfect guy or girl, they would be complete. They would find a sense of fulfillment and wholeness in that other person. The idea that is so widely accepted today, "He completes me..." "She is my other half.." has contributed to the increase in incomplete and broken relationships. Psychologist refer to this phenomenon as the "compulsion for completion." Mayo says, "If you need to date or be married to feel fulfilled or loved, you are not ready to date or to marry. The very things in your life that make these needs so big will become the very problem in any significant relationship." She also states that, "If you try to find intimacy with another person before doing the hard work of achieving a sense of identity on your own, all your relationships will become a painful attempt to complete yourself." No one, at least the majority of no one, wants to feel alone in this world. That's why we value friendships and relationships above all else. But it is this very need to feel apart of something or someone that causes us to believe the lie, "When i find the right person, my life will be complete" (Mayo 21). This emptiness that we feel inside of us is not the result of a missing person, but it is an incompleteness that exists at the level of the soul. In the next post I will go through the ways that Jeanne Mayo suggest to help in this discovery of yourself. But before I finish this post i am going to change gears just slightly and talk from a biblical perspective on why God says that we should stay sexually abstinent until marriage.
Why save sex for marriage?
Sex was created by God, so it can be seen as a good thing. But as with so many other innately good things, man has tarnished it by ignoring Gods perfect standards. Now sex outside of a marriage can be harmful and even destructive. Proverbs 16:25 says, There is a way that seems right to man, but its end is the way of death.
Why did God create sex? Well the first obvious reason is for procreation. We need sex to re-create ourselves. But God also desired for Adam and Eve to develop an intimacy with each other that would create a strong lasting bond. God created sex for the specific reason of intimacy. But because of the fact that God created sex to so strongly contribute to a intimate bond between a man a woman, he had to put some constraints on it as well. The kind of intimacy that God desired for a married couple was not designed for the use between multiple partners.
Damages of sex outside of marriage....at least two areas.
1) Physical damage. We are all aware of the physical consequences that have risen out of multiple partner sex outside of marriage. Sexually transmitted diseases have become one of the highest reasons for hospital visits among young adults. "Safe sex" is never really safe sex, it is just "reduced risk sex." Premarital sex has contributed to the increasing fact that more children are being born and growing up without two parents. And perhaps worst of all abortion, the "willful destruction of human life" has become a result of pre-marital sex.
2) Relationship consequences. Firstly and most importantly sin always damages an individuals personal relationship with God. Psalm 66:18 reads, "If i had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord wold not have listened." Intentional disobedience to God will quench the Holy Spirits work in your life and if left unrepented, will lead to an eternity apart from God. Sexual impurity can also affect a future marriage by bringing baggage from the past. The intended intimacy of marriage is affected if one or both partners have already had sex with someone else. The relationship will have to deal with comparison with "former lovers" and the intimacy will have lost its original novelty. But if both partners had waited to have sex with one partner, and that partner their spouse, then the intimate affects of sex can be fully realized. The relationship will have a solid sexual foundation.
For further reading on this subject check out http://www.christiananswers.net/love/home.html
I think that also when people enter into relationships they give a little (or a lot) of themselves physically and emotionally. Those are the parts that they will never get back and it is that much less that they have to offer and give their husband or wife. People get so caught up in the scene of dating and having a relationship that they dont realize when entering a relationship that probably does not have a future effects your life dramatically esp your walk with God- because of all the temptations and the fact that someone else is taking away precious time that you could be using to fall in love with the Saviour.
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