Sex Is The “Rip-Stitch”

Have you ever tried to open a stitched-top sack, such as a large dog-food sack, by starting at the wrong end of the stitching? It can be done, given enough time and patience, but that is not how that sack-stitch was meant to be undone. When you start at the right end of the stitch, that rip-stitch will come out in short-order, but when it is in place, the stitch is as strong as the sack.

God is the creator and designer of sex. Sex was His idea, not man’s, and no, Satan didn’t invent it. God created us as sexual-beings. We don’t “become” sexual-beings when we start learning about sex. We are conceived and born that way. It is, literally, part of our DNA. We don’t “become” a boy or a girl by someone saying “It’s a boy” or “It’s a girl” when a baby is born. Those are simply declarations of fact. Baby girls are BORN with enough eggs in their ovaries to last five lifetimes. Baby boys are BORN with the ability to achieve an erection, because baby boys have been observed with erections in the womb. Ask any mom who allows her toddler-son to run around naked how she can tell when he needs to use the potty? He has an erection, a “piss-hard-on“, just like men do occasionally.

The Bible teaches us about sex, and no, it is NOT all negative. The Song of Solomon is part of the Bible, and the pastor who claims to preach and teach “the whole counsel of God” but refuses to preach or teach through SOS, including the “juicy-parts“, is lying to you. He is preaching and teaching the “socially-acceptable” parts of the Bible. SOS isn’t the only part of the Bible that teaches us about sex. The Bible is our “handbook” for life, including our sex-life.

God put a “fence” around the “playground” of our sexuality, but religious teachers have insisted on erecting more “fences” around certain parts of that “playground” to “protect” us from the parts they don’t think are “appropriate“. Shouldn’t we accept that God is the one who knows best what is good for us, and what we should or shouldn’t do? Is it any wonder that kids who have grown up in the church are ill-prepared for marriage and sex, when all they have been told is “don’t do that“?

Marriage…
Marriage is stitched-together with many stitches, similar to that sack-stitch, but there is one master-stitch which holds it all together, and that is sex. Sadly, in many marriages, sex has gotten squeezed-out by many other things, things that may still be good, but they aren’t really as critical. They are secondary-activities.

When I wrote “Priorities – Time” five years ago, I put sex as the #3 priority, right behind worship and couple-time, and I still believe that sex belongs at that priority-level. Why did I put SEX as your number 3 priority? Tim and Beverly LeHaye, who are noted Christian writers and counselors, called SEX “The Act of Marriage” in a book by that same name. It is THAT important! The couple that prays together, plays together (has sex), stays together.

I have seen far too many marriages falter, and even dissolve, and the common-denominator was a non-existent sex-life. When one or both spouses decide that they are “too-busy” for sex, or just “not interested” in sex, the beginning of the end has arrived. It will just be a matter of time before the rest of the stitches give-way too. Think about how a rip in a garment starts – with one stitch that gave way. Unfortunately, I also speak from personal-experience.

Connie and I weathered a lot of storms together, but as long as we had a vibrant sex-life, we stuck together. Once our sex-life started unraveling, the end was in sight. Three times a week turned into twice a week, and became even more sporadic because of the situation in our family. In October 1997, she took her own life.

Sandy and I never really had a robust sex-life, but when sex became rare, and rarer, the end was in sight. It still took another seven essentially-sexless years before our marriage fell completely apart, but the seeds were sown many years before – when she started refusing sex. Once every two or three years is NOT enough, and that is what ours had deteriorated to.

I know a couple whose marriage is on the rocks, and it is a sexless-marriage, which means that it is no “marriage” at all. It is simply two people who share a common last-name and have a piece of paper, know as a “Marriage License“. One has no interest in sex, so that critical-tie is missing. The other has made noise about filing for divorce. Yes, they are both Christians.

How did sex become so critical to marriage? God created us that way. Period! God could have created humans to “mate” or “breed“, but He didn’t. He created humans for a lifetime of sexual-fidelity to their spouse. Sex unites us on far deeper levels than just the physical, if that wasn’t deep enough. Sex creates emotional, psychological, neurological, chemical and spiritual ties. Chemical? Yes, scientists have discovered that when two people have sex, certain chemical endorphins are shared between them – chemical-bonds, which is why “one-night-stands” take such a toll on both partners. They leave a part of themselves behind.

Sex is foundational to a successful marriage. The first couple – Adam and Eve, were commanded by God to “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28), and when God instituted marriage, He said “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall BECOME ONE FLESH“. (Genesis 2:24) The picture of “one flesh” IS sexual union. It doesn’t get any closer than that.

The Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote: “Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over he own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (1st Corinthians 7:3-5) Sex is NOT an optional activity for when you both “feel like it” or are “in the mood“. Sex must become a high priority in your marriage. It doesn’t get any clearer than that…

Sex is NOT an “extracurricular-activity” for married couples. It is one of the “core-subjects“. Imagine an English-major in college that didn’t require any English or writing classes, but included such things as “underwater-basket-weaving” or “butterfly-watching“. Whatever degree was conferred at the end of that curriculum would be totally-worthless. A marriage without sex is NOT a marriage. It is simply a legal-contract-relationship.

What about “couples” that don’t consummate their marriage until weeks, or even months, after they got “married“? They are NOT married, even if they appear to be. They aren’t even “friends with benefits“, because at least “friends with benefits” have sex. Sex is the “benefit“. They are just “roommates“, even if they sleep in the same bed. Many states allow for annulling “marriages” that have not been consummated within a certain period of time. Why did they get “married” in the first-place? Did they just want to be friends and roommates, and the only “legitimate” way to do that was to get “married“?

Would the maker of a garment deliberately skip stitches once in a while? Of course not, because skipped-stitches are weak-points in the garment. If fact, they reinforce stress-points with extra stitching, even a bar-tack. So why, in something as vulnerable as marriage, do couples skip those vital-stitches which help hold their marriage together?

Final thoughts…
You may be wondering why I wrote ANOTHER article about sex, as if I have already covered the topic “thoroughly-enough“, but it has become sadly-obvious to me that people STILL aren’t “getting–it“. The evidence is that the divorce-rate among Christian couples still hovers around fifty-percent, which I believe would start falling if the church would return to teaching biblical-sexuality, instead of tip-toeing around it and being stuck with the fallout. Maybe divorces are easier to deal with than the hard, frank, biblical discussions about sex and sexuality. After all, nobody feels compelled to cover their children’s ears when divorce in mentioned, but the same can’t be said when the topic turns to sex. That’s an “adults-only” topic…

Another reason I wrote ANOTHER article about sex is because we need to get the conversation about sex going within the Christian community. Sex has been a “taboo” topic among Christians for many years, but why should non-Christians have a corner on good sex information? With the Bible as our “handbook” for life, Christians should be at the forefront in disseminating biblical sex information, not “also-rans“. One Christian commentator I follow on Twitter is being pretty frank in her discussions about sex, and it is making a lot of people queasy, but why? Aren’t Christians supposed to talk about sex?

Does talking about sex make YOU queasy?

Sola Deo Gloria!

Confronting Our Own Delusions

If you are anything like me, you wear a “mask“, 24/7/365, not only to hide you from others, but to hide the REAL “you” from yourself. Nobody is truly WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). We are master-illusionists, which is built around the delusion that we are “better” than we actually are. We don’t WANT others to see and know us as we are. We only want them to see the “mask“.

Building a delusion…
Building a delusion is ridiculously-easy, but dismantling that delusion is painfully-difficult. To build a delusion, all you have to do is find someone who you think is “worse” than you, and suddenly, you have “bragging-rights“. If you are “better” at something, you must be a “better” person, or not…

So you think that you are a “model–employee“? You are ALWAYS on-time, or better, early, to work. You NEVER take more than your allotted-time for breaks and lunch, and you NEVER go home early. The “proof of the pudding” is your time-sheet. Check it out! But, what about that “slacker“, who is ALWAYS late to work, frequently takes more time for breaks and lunch than allowed, and frequently goes home early? You wonder why the boss puts up with a “slacker“? That is, until you find out that the “slacker” produces more “widgets” than you do, and theirs always passes inspection, and yours…you struggle to produce the ones you do make, and you often have to rework many of them for them to pass inspection. The boss is more concerned about how many shippable “widgets” there are, than how long it took to make them. Sorry, but you lose! Who REALLY is the “model-employee“? That person consistently gets top-dollar on their raises, but you haven’t had a raise in over a year. Who will get the pink-slip first? Ruh-roh…

So you think that you are a “good” driver, because you haven’t had an accident in five years? What about the truck-driver who has 2.5 million accident-free-miles under his belt? You haven’t driven 2.5 million miles, let alone 2.5 million accident-free-miles. Tell me, who is the REAL “pro“?

It is easy to build delusions around virtually any pursuit in life, because we can ALWAYS find someone “worse” to compare ourselves to. But, are we REALLY any better than them?

Confronting and dismantling our delusions…
The first step in confronting and dismantling our delusions is realizing that we have them, and that what we believe about ourselves is a lie, a carefully-fabricated cover-up. Oh, we can still hold on to our delusions, but to confront and dismantle them requires that we OWN them, that we acknowledge them, that we come to a deep realization that they ARE a lie.

The great “delusion-buster” is the fact that there is ALWAYS a “higher-standard“, but most of us don’t want that “standard” to confront and dismantle our delusions. Sometimes we are FORCED to confront and dismantle them, which is a good thing, even if it is hard and painful. God is the great “confronter“, and He uses various means to open our eyes to our delusions. One of God’s most severe, and painful mercies is forcing us to see ourselves as He sees us, not as we would like to see ourselves. Yes, He meets us where and as we are, but He doesn’t leave us where and as we were. He always has a higher-plan for our lives.

“Like Father – Like Son“, was my first confrontation with the lies I had believed about myself, that I was a “better” man than my dad. I wasn’t! I don’t remember what triggered that confrontation, but it had come, and it hit me like a freight-train. My second confrontation came when I discovered that I had lost my middle daughter to cancer – eight months later, and that nobody had bothered to let me know about it. It was a huge slap in my face to see that her family had even scrubbed my name from her obituary, as if I had never existed. That wasn’t the first time they had tried to paint me out of the picture. Her mother’s original death certificate had stated that she was divorced…NOT. I had to ask myself “What is wrong with this picture?”

I started reading “Tender Warrior“, by Stu Weber, shortly after I discovered that I had lost my daughter. While I will never hold up Stu as the perfect-example of a husband and father, and neither would he, with God’s help, he has opened my eyes to who I truly was as a husband and father. Again, I had been comparing myself to my dad, and I always came out on top. Yes, in many ways, I had done a better job of being a husband and father than my dad had, but I fell far-short of who I should have been. Was I as bad as my kids thought I was? No, I may even been worse than they realized.

David and Bathsheba…
After David had sex with Bathsheba and got her pregnant, he had her husband, Uriah, murdered. God sent Nathan the Prophet to David to confront him with what he had done. Nathan told him a story about two men, one rich, and the other, quite poor. Not wanting to kill one of his own lambs to feed a guest, the rich man stole the poor man’s lamb, killed it and fed it to his guest. After David pronounced a scathing-judgment on the rich man, Nathan said “You are that man”. (2 Samuel 11-12:23)

Imagine those four words, “You are that man”, echoing throughout the palace, and in David’s mind for weeks, maybe even months. He couldn’t just “forget it and move on”. Ongoing events were constant-reminders of one of the darkest periods in his life. Five minutes of pleasure brought a lifetime of pain.

When I ask “What is wrong with this picture?”, I have to admit that I am part of what is wrong with that picture. My own actions contributed to the reasons my kids don’t want anything to do with me. That doesn’t negate the actions of others that contributed to our estrangement, but I have to “own” my part.

David didn’t get off Scott-free after his confession. His baby died shortly thereafter, and that was only the beginning of his troubles. His son, Absalom, tried to usurp the throne, and while David was on the run, he raped his father’s concubines – in public. (2 Samuel 15-18)

I haven’t gotten off Scott-free either. I haven’t seen my kids in over twenty-one years, and I still carry the pictures they gave me just before Christmas 1997 in my wallet. I don’t have any newer pictures, other than the ones I have found online. It is too late to make amends to Carrie, my middle daughter, because she passed away in April 2018.

Some people have suggested that I put my past in the past and move-on, but God hasn’t seen fit to allow me to do that. Instead, He still sends periodic-reminders of my past, as if to say “You haven’t dealt with this yet.”

While God doesn’t send Prophets to confront us any more, He has a myriad of other ways to get our attention. I wouldn’t even put it past Him to erect a billboard, but He usually uses less-dramatic means, like hitting us up-side the head with a 2X4, or with a freight-train.

Solomon hit the nail on the head three-thousand years ago, when he said:
“All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts.” (Proverbs 16:2)

Reasons to lose our delusions…
This is NOT to say that confronting, owning and dismantling our delusions is ever easy, because it isn’t. We have built-in defense-mechanisms that jealously guard our delusions, and if we have had them for quite a while, they have become a subconscious part of who we are.

The work necessary to lose our delusions may even be painfully-difficult. Mine has been, and is. Oh, how I would LOVE to go back to being the “good-guy” I thought I was, but I can’t, because those “masks” have already been ripped-off. So, I have to face the cold, hard, truth that I failed as a man, as a Christian, as a husband, and as a father. I was NOT the husband and father my wife and kids needed and deserved.

Living with a “mask” on is hard work, because we have to make sure our “mask” is “just-right” all the time. We can’t live authentic-lives while we are wearing a “mask”. We are always “putting on a show”, so when we finally lose our “mask”, we don’t have to pretend that we are “better” than we are. We can relax and be ourselves.

God always sees through our “mask”. He knows who we truly are, and for our own good, He wants us to know who we truly are. One of our most pervasive delusions is that we can “save” ourselves, that we can actually make ourselves right before God by our own efforts. Earlier, I mentioned that there is ALWAYS a higher-standard, and that is the Law of God, as revealed in Scripture. That higher-standard applies to all parts of our lives. If we think we can keep God’s Law perfectly, we need only answer one question: “Do I love God with my whole being, 24/7/365?” I dare say that we can’t love God with our whole being for one nanosecond, let alone 24/7/365.

Only one person has ever kept the Law of God perfectly, Jesus Christ, and He kept it perfectly for His entire life.

The Good News…
Amidst all the gloom and doom, there IS GOOD NEWS. While we can’t make ourselves right before God, we can BE made-right before God. We can’t do it ourselves, but Jesus Christ can do it for us. See, not only did Jesus Christ perfectly live the life we cannot live, He died the death that we deserve, and His perfect life and death were validated by His miraculous resurrection from the dead.

When we abandon our delusion of “self-salvation”, confess to God that we CAN’T save ourselves, and humbly ask Jesus Christ to BE our Savior, we are given what we could never earn, a right-standing before God. Then, we can quit pretending.

Will YOU believe and embrace the GOOD NEWS?

Sola Deo Gloria!