Randy Alcorn has some excellent suggestions for pursuing sexual purity in marriage. Here are a few of the highlights:
1. Regularly evaluate your relationship with your spouse. Beware of poor communication, inadequate conflict resolution, poor sexual relationship, discontent, and other red flags. Keep your fingers on the pulse of your marriage!
2. Spend regular uninterrupted time together to communicate on all levels: spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, and physically. (Date your spouse. If it’s not happening, put it in your schedule!)
3. Share openly with each other—don’t harbor secrets or withhold personal struggles. (Every adultery begins with a secret.)
7. Be fiercely loyal to your spouse; speak highly of her/him and never downgrade her to anyone.
12. Anticipate, and then act to prevent, avoid and resist sexual temptation.
17. Take care of your physical health; be as attractive to your mate as you can.
18. Be modest with others in public, and sexy with your spouse in private—not the opposite!
20. Rehearse in advance the devastating consequences of immorality and a broken marriage. Count the cost of neglect and unfaithfulness!
National Review Online has a great article on the serious affects of Pornography. Here’s an excerpt:
Perhaps the greatest hardship for women who fear they have lost (or are losing) a husband to Internet porn is the absence of a public consensus about the harmful effects of pornography on marriage. Consider what we know. In a study published inSexual Addiction and Compulsivity, Schneider found that among the 68 percent of couples in which one person was addicted to Internet porn, one or both had lost interest in sex. Results of the same study, published in 2000, indicated that porn use was a major contributing factor to increased risk of separation and divorce. This finding is substantiated by results of a 2002 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, during which surveyed lawyers claimed that “an obsessive interest in Internet pornography” was a significant factor in 56 percent of their divorce cases the prior year.
Porn use creates the impression that aberrant sexual practices are more common than they really are, and that promiscuous behavior is normal. For example, in a 2000 meta-analysis of 46 published studies put out by the National Foundation for Family Research and Education at the University of Calgary, regular exposure to pornography increased risk of sexual deviancy (including lower age of first intercourse and excessive masturbation), increased belief in the “rape myth” (that women cause rape and rapists are normal), and was associated with negative attitudes regarding intimate relationships (e.g., rejecting the need for courtship and viewing persons as sexual objects). Indeed, neurological imaging confirms the latter finding. Susan Fiske, professor of psychology at Princeton University, used MRI scans to analyze the brain activity of men viewing pornography. She found that after viewing porn, men looked at women more as objects than as human beings.
If you’ve anything like me, you’ve probably experienced argument amnesia before. This is what happens when you get into an argument (often times with your spouse) and after a few minutes, you can’t even remember what you’re fighting about. It almost doesn’t matter what the subject matter is, you somehow continually find yourself back in the same place. In short, you’re stuck in a rut.
One of my favorites lines in Psalm 23 is in verse 3 where David writes, “He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” The Hebrew can also be translated, “He leads me in the ruts of righteousness.” As the Shepherd of Psalm 23 leads the flock from one pasture to the next, he would follow a path that many sheep had trodden before. The result of all this travel was that the path would become well worn and eventually turn into a rut in the ground that the sheep would follow as they were lead by the Good Shepherd. What makes the imagery of Psalm 23 so powerful is that these are the “ruts of righteousness.” As you follow the Good Shepherd, these are the natural paths that you take.
Just as there are “ruts of righteousness”, there are also “ruts of unrighteousness.” A “rut of unrighteousness” is a pattern of sin that is so intuitive that we periodically fall into it without even realizing where we are or how we got there. If you’ve ever said to yourself, “I can’t believe that I did that again!” when you fought with your spouse, or yelled at your children, or said something hurtful to a co-worker, then it may very well be that you’re stuck in a rut of unrighteousness.
The thing about a rut is that you have to be intentional about stepping out of it, otherwise it will lead you to the same place every time. A large part of the process of redemption is stepping out of these “ruts of unrighteousness” and following the Good Shepherd in new paths that may at first seem unnatural, but which eventually lead you to green pastures and quiet waters (Psalm 23:2) where you can find rest.
There have been a lot of great resources on the web lately for young people struggling with issues of sexuality. Here are a couple that I’m sure I’ll be passing on to some of the teenagers and young marrieds that I work with.
1) Sexual Detox – This is a series of posts from Tim Challies for young men living in our pornified culture. Tim does an excellent job of addressing a very common and yet mostly ignored issue that young men struggle with.
2) Breaking the Pornography Addiction – This two part series from David Powlinson is an example of biblical counseling at its best. Powlinson does a masterful job of dealing with an extremely difficult topic.
3) False Messages – Men aren’t the only ones who struggle with sexual issues. These 3 posts from Aileen Challies speak to one of the most common and most difficult issues for any young married couple from a woman’s point of view.
The other night our small group met at Collin and Shannon’s apartment and had a great time eating dinner and fellowshipping. We’re reading the book, “When Sinners Say I Do” by Dave Harvey right now and really enjoying it. The following quote in his chapter on Stubborn Grace was very powerful for me as a husband and a father, especially when I think about what it means for God to wait patiently for me.
Waiting works things into our souls and our marriages that nothing else can. It’s a lesson I have to relearn on a regular basis. When there’s an unresolved issue in my marriage that I think demands clarity and resolution now, I don’t want to hear “trust and wait”.” I want to hear “do this and watch the problem vanish.” I often want change in my marriage to be immediate; I want change in my spouse to be immediate. I want it to be like hitting the delete key on my computer.
But God is not a Mr. Fixit spiritual handyman armed with duct tape and superglue. He is a patient craftsman who lavishes attention on the smallest detail. The creation of character that exhibits godliness and self-control is crafted slowly over time.
