When Steve and I were new Christians and in our first decade of marriage, Redbook Magazine surveyed 100,000 women and came out with an article with what they termed: “Surprising Results!” Who was the most satisfied sexually in marriage?
Though the Redbook editors didn’t understand how to define true Christians, they described them as strongly religious, dedicated to reading their Bibles, and to following Judeo-Christian teachings.
Yet they were astonished. You could see their conundrum: Weren’t “born-again” Christians supposed to be prudes? (To be fair, many are – but fortunately enough had been set free as to give this survey its “surprising results.”) As a young wife and new believer, I wrote them, and they published my letter, (the beginning of my writing career!) in which I tried to explain a few of the reasons that true believers in Jesus might actually enjoy the sexual relationship. I mentioned:
• Being freed of shame
• Being freed of emptiness
• Being freed of the misconception that God is against sex. Instead, the marriage bed to be a place of delight and its Creator commands us to enjoy it! I quoted this passage from Proverbs:
May your fountain be blessed,
And may you rejoice in the wife of your youth,
A loving doe, a graceful deer—
May her breasts satisfy you always,
May you ever be captivated by her love.
Proverbs 5:18-19
Many unbelievers and believers alike think God is the great kill-joy of sexual pleasure. Yet that is not the Christian view at all. The Greeks, like Plato, believed the body was evil but the soul was good, therefore sex was only for the propagation of children.
But that is not the Christian view. Everything God made is good, even the material world, even sex. In fact, no other philosophy or religion holds the lofty view of the sexual relationship that Christianity holds. Christianity has boundaries for sex, but that is to protect it, not to stifle it. It is intended for one man and one woman within a covenant marriage.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. How has the Lord impacted your thinking on this subject?
21 comments
I think our issues with sex is the fact that no one wants to talk about it. It is private and personal, both of which I agree with to some extent. But like my pastor says, “how’s that working for us?” When we look at the state of our world why wouldn’t we want to be talking about sex; Everyone else is! We, as Christian women and men need to start opening our mouths and talking to our children, other married couples around us and to the Lord. He made it to be beautiful expression of love between one man and one woman and yet we try and cover it up with shame and embarrasment. I think the most difficult challenge for me as a young married woman was getting over the fact I had finally had sex and it was ok! I still felt awkward and weird, maybe because it was something that I was told over and over again was bad! Now that I am a little older I can see that most of the people who said it was bad really meant it was bad outside of marriage but I still think there were couples who simply thought it was bad altogether. The thing is our culture is so ingrained with sex that when we stay silent everyone loses. God gave us voices and He is giving us the chance to speak!! Let’s talk!
Amy – such good thoughts from you and your pastor! I think your feeling about sex after marriage is common among believers. Tim Keller says if we feel that sex within a covenant marriage is slightly dirty that we have more of the Platonic than the Christian view of sex. How can we communicate to our children better that it is wonderful, good, and meant to be enjoyed within marriage — yet also to wait? Have any of you read any great books or seen any wonderful movies that communicate this? One I liked, possibly for teens, is Sweet Land. other ideas? (And thank you, Amy!)
I have caught my husband in so many lies in the past 5 yrs I no longer trust him about anything. Even the smallest thing can be a lie. Because of this I stopped listening to what he was talking about, and this was a huge mistake. He began telling me about the oriental therapists that had moved into the office next door to his business, and all of the work they were doing to the office how nice they were. Every night a new story. They brought over food to him, invited them to tour their newly furnished office, how late they worked,some clients as late as midnight. One afternoon by daughter came by and a said, Mom have you see the massage parlor that moved in next door to Dad’s business. Then I found out they were raided. They were supposed to be massage therapists. I can’t stand the thought of having sex with him even thought I know that God had told me to. I could write a book on all that has happened, but I want to know how to forgive and move forward. Even when I know that my husband will never tell me the truth.
Alice — I’m so sorry for this pain. I am hoping some of the sisters on this blog will pray for you. I am praying your husband might agree to counseling, and if he will not, that you will go for healing. I will pray for you right away.
Dee
Alice, I will pray for you that God will help you to go forward to a place of peace and joy and healing that you cannot imagine right now. I pray that you surround yourself with people who will speak truth to you and help you to understand your situation in light of it. Even if you don’t have a great support group, God can fill your life with His presence today and give you hope as you know Him better through the Bible and by following after Him with all your heart.
Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord. Psalm 27:14
God created the union between man and woman to be a beautiful bonding, (“the two become one”),one of intimacy and trust, bringing about a freedom with each other so amazing. I agree with Amy in that we should be talking about sex to our young girls. Like she said the rest of the world is talking about it. But the world talks of sex in such a distorted way it’s no wonder we have so many young girls experimenting at such early ages. We need to be expressing just how beautiful and amazing, and yes, fun this connection is when we wait upon the Lord.
I believe God gave us this gift not only for pro-creating but also for pleasure and healing from a weary and tiring world. Husbands and wives need each other. Love making is a time for re-connecting with each other. Just as we connect with the Lord in spiritual intimacy, and we need this, we need the physical intimacy with our husbands.
I kind of think theres a connection there, if we lack intimacy with our husbands, who are to be the image of Christ, and we look at our relationship with the Lord, we may see we are not as intimate with Christ as we think we are, but when we are obedient to Gods word, in not denying our husbands, our intimacy with Christ grows deeper as well.
Cheryl — I love your comment. I see lovemaking in a covenant marriage as a renewal of the covenant. There are so many parallels, I believe, and I want to address some of those in future posts. There is a link between the way we love God and love our husbands — and the other way around. Such a mystery. Like Ephesians 5 says — “the two become one, but it is a mystery, I speak of Christ and the church.”
Thanks for sharing!
Aunt Dee,
Looking forward to discussing this with you when I see you at the end of the month!
Pete
Oh Pete, you rascal. (Peter is my precocious nephew who is a Professor of creative writing at Reed College Donald Miller writes about this college in Blue Like Jazz). Peter just wrote an intriguing book based on a true story of a homeless father and his teenage daughter called My Abandonment.
Pete, someday I’d love to have another serious conversation with you!We had one once and I loved it. You impacted my writing.
Having experienced the “shame” and “guilt” of pre-marriage sex it took me quite awhile to understand that God says it is good. Once I became a Believer in Christ as my Redeemer and Lord I set down the heavy load that pre-marriage sex had forced me to carry. I firmly believe in our talking about it we must be respectful and reverent because sex is so very powerful. It can destroy as well as create not only babies but lives.
We raised our three children with the constant message that “Sex was wonderful but only in marriage”. One of them ignored that message but in their mid 20’s became convicted and re-committed not only life but sexuality to God. A marriage 5 years later saw that young adult as a person who saved sex for the wedding night. What a blessing they can describe!
Another one of my adult kids finds it very frustrating that none of the Pastors or Christian leaders take on the topic of sex before marriage. They want it hashed out and talked about so it can be understood. Not just “don’t do it” but they want to explore the “why’s’ of waiting for marriage. In this I agree. It must be talked about but not the way the world does. Even side comments and “joking” must not be done for the sake of a laugh to break the tension-our sexuality is far too important to let it be denegrated in that manner.
Mary — I am so glad God released you of shame.
I have thought that if Christians, young and old, could see the analogy God makes between the purity, power, and passion of the sexual relationship in a covenant marriage with the relationship that He wants to have with us, it might be illuminating, and certainly help see the seriousness of becomong one. For example, when one young Christian who was engaged asked me, “Isn’t it legalistic now for us to wait for marriage,” I pointed her to the analogy — that Paul says he wants to present us as a pure virgin to Christ — and it turned the light on for her.
Sex was always an area of enjoyment in my marriage. But unfortunately it did not save my marriage.
As a soon to be single woman I am having to learn purity and that means, I like my children will have to wait for marriage for sex again.
I am enjoying the journey so far because for once in my life I actually like myself. As I press into God and see His husbandry in my life I feel delicate, protected, and love being a woman set apart.
Last summer when the crumble of my marriage began I felt betrayed by God for not saving my marriage being that Jesus says that God hates divorce. Abba has corrected me, in that my husband made a choice to leave but in no way is God less divine. God did not save my marriage, but He has saved my life. I am forgiven for the mistakes I have made in my marriage that lent to the crumble and God is all the more Almighty. What I thought I could not live through He has given a more full and complete life set apart for Him. When God is satisfied with my ability to keep Him on the throne and not a husband, I trust and have been assured by His Spirit, that a man after His heart will be the husband for me.
Belinda — thank you so much for writing and sharing how God helped you process your divorce. I want to do a post on divorce and how misunderstood those words “I hate divorce” are soon — and when I do, please participate. YOu are thoughtful.
I agree that sex was meant to connect husbands and wives and to be enjoyable; the cement that helps keep a marriage together. I tell my daughter that sex is supposed to feel really good and is meant to be enjoyed…After marriage. I speak mostly to her about how to avoid temptation before marriage.
I also think that in today’s society, many if not most men have been exposed to such an ugly and unGodly view of women and of sex that it can make a normal marriage relationship nearly impossible. Many of them can not be satisfied without perversion, and expect more perverted behavior of their wives each time. They think they are normal and tell their wives that in marriage, anything goes. Women have a hard time enjoying this type of relationship. It is degrading and frequently physically painful for them.
I think we need to be talking, especially to our young boys about what is normal and what is not. Talking about how viewing pornography will alter their marriage relationship in the future. Young women need to be empowered to feel able to refuse to participate in wrong behavior with their husbands, and to know what is alright and what isn’t. That no man, including their husbands has the right to do hurtful and degrading things to them.
Pamela — so glad you addressed the contrast between beauty and ugliness in sex — that’s going to be my next post. Your thoughts are so well put. Thank you!
I had pre-martial sex with shame and it wasn’t until after I had found my savior had I released the shame. Not to mention that before my walk began I had almost lost my marriage. Now 6 years later I have a stronger marriage and sexual relationship with my husband. One at first that I had participated in only to be obiedant to my Lord. Now I find tremendous enjoyment in our sex life and is more frequent in our 40’s then when we first married. It amazing to me how God had not only restored our marriage but also restored our intimacy. Now mind you my husband isn’t a believer and I keep praying for him so that alone was a obstacle to overcome. But even so God loves all his children and I believe that he has soften my husband’s heart to restore the love with once shared in the beginning. I had done alot of demage in our marriage and it wasn’t until I was in the valley of shadow of death could I see my savior lifting me up from the ashes. And slowly through my action of love and forgiveness has it demonstrated to my husband that I am a changed person. In the years before when I wasn’t recieve the love from my earthly husband I spoke to the Lord and asked for comfort from him and I could always feel my Godly husband’s arms surround me and hold me tightly.
It had also occurred to me that our only child a girl who is 9 years old and has a deeper relationship with the Lord than I could of ever imagine at her age that I needed to talk to her about itimacy. This was about 3 years ago and I am not talking about sexual itimacy. It had occurred to me that as a young girl myself with a broken father/daughter relationship I had always searched for someone to love and love me crazy-like. Now as a born again Christian I was her to know that she did not need a man to complete her (or a female friendship) that as long as she had Christ in her heart that was the only thing that she need to survive and be happy. My intentions were to make her understand early on that all she needs in life is Christ he would be the only one who would not forsake her. Our daughter put some much into a boyfriend that they loose the battle when sex enters into the relationship but I wanted her to know that she doesn’t need to be fulfilled in this way. And not only in a boy but also having a girlfriend complete her else well.
I am so grateful for my earthly husband and even more grateful that I had found my Godly husband.
Patty — how wise you are to be mentoring your daughter in the One True Love, and holding it close for yourself. This is a great mentoring post. Thank you.
Patty is most definately a woman of wisdom. I am in the middle of asking the Lord to show me what true intimacy looks like from Him. I truly do not know what that looks like or feels like. I have insecurities that Jesus is working out of me right now and I’m trying to be a Godly, submissive wife in the midst of it. It feels like I’m being crushed, though I won’t be. I know the Lord is wanting me to heal from past wounds (previous marriage). I’m tired of not being more for my current husband because of the past. I pray to know love making the way God designed it for me and my husband. Thanks, Dee, for starting this blog and adding this topic.
Oh Camille — posts like yours make it all worth it. Praying for you!!!!
I came to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior when I was 47 years old. Though a churchgoer all my life, it took a lot of pain to get to a recognized need for a personal and intimate relationship with Him. On retreat I was given a meditation assignment from Jeanie Miley’s book, “Becoming Fire”: John 1:35-39. The assignment involved becoming one of John the Baptist’s disciples and having Jesus look at you and ask, “What do you want?” I wrote page after page until I realized that I was breathing hard and tingling all over. I was wanting Jesus! It was an amazing experience and even now when I re-read it I chuckle at Lusting For Jesus!
I returned home from that retreat truly in love with Jesus and was amazed at how that translated into my physical and emotional love with my husband. I believe this was one of the first times that I really understood that we are the hands and feet of Christ (and I guess other body parts too!) Though we are considerably older now and choose to avoid drug-induced sex, the intimacy that grew from knowing Christ, up close and personal, is alive and well.
Sexual relationship is about so much more than intercourse. We are meant to touch each other and hold each other. There is something special that happens when two bodies become one in love. It is that same thing that happens in deep contemplative prayer – a union, a dance, an intertwining of Christ’s spirit in me melding with Christ’s spirit in you.
That melding doesn’t happen in casual sex. It only happens in committed relationship where each partner is more concerned for the good of the other than for their own. The key, I believe, is commitment. That’s what marriage is about. No matter how “in love” you are, it remains “in lust” without commitment and commitment means marriage. Something happens in making that commitment that turns making love into becoming one. It’s just a God thing.
Janet — this is such a beautiful post. I love your contemplative spirit — and it leads perfectly into the next post the Lord has put on my heart. Thank you for being such an important part of these discussions.