it is so interesting me the conversations that happen all around. among people who say they are Christians. among people who don’t want to have anything to do with Christians. among people who like Jesus but don’t like all these people who say they are His.
i find that we have often have some the most ridiculous mindsets. we are all so incredibly broken. all of us. christians and non-christians alike. we all need Jesus.
one conversation that always seems wonky is the one about sex. The way people talk about it. whether you are having it or not. whether you are attracted to males or females and therefore who you are having sex with. so many define their identity around this one thing. this one tiny thing. males and females alike. heterosexuals and homosexuals.
it is astonishing to me. not because people are talking about it…we are in fact sexual. it is astonishing to me because it seems like such a small piece of the pie that we have somehow made into the whole pie.
in case you didn’t see this…there is a whole world around us and the majority of it doesn’t involve sex at all.
i am 32. i have never had sex. and God help me, i won’t until i get married. but let me be quite clear, it is not because i don’t want to have sex. i do. i do believe, however, there is a much greater narrative in play than my story alone.
yeah we were created to like sex. for it to be pleasurable. God gave it to us as a gift and it’s how He designed us to have kids. but when did it become the most important thing? when did it become a topic that defined who i am.
God gave us a ton of gifts, not just sex. He gave them to us and wanted us to actually want them, enjoy them. people who say “you shouldn’t want [insert gift: food, sex, money]” or that “you aren’t as “good” of a person if you want [insert gift]” or other garbage like that are just plain silly. why give a gift if you don’t want the recipient to enjoy it.
but friends, there is so much more. there is an entire world of gifts just waiting to be had. i love how C.S. Lewis said
If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
we have settled on this sex topic like it is the most pleasurable thing in the world when it is in fact a mud pie in comparison to other gifts. a mud pie is fun…but surely at some point we will want something more.
what if “something more” can only be found through giving up our mud pies?