God is Not a Cosmic Chastity Belt

Tiny ice balls pelt the windshield and bounce off the car. Sidewalks and roads glisten slick. Three-to-four inches of heavy snow loom in grey clouds overhead, and evening traffic snakes red along the highways and frontage roads. Sirens and ricocheting blue lights careen down dark streets.

Photo Credit: Flickr user Paola Kizette Cimenti, Creative Commons cc license

In this last post in our series, Let's Talk about Sex, I turn words inward towards my former twenty-year old self and to all my single friends, no matter their ages. All this talk of snow reminds me of the confused messages I've heard -- and sometimes accidentally implied in youth lessons. God is not a cosmic chastity belt. He is not a frowning father shaking his head, trying to keep his kids'  bodies snow-pure, as if sex or sexuality shocked him. God is not scandalized and disgusted by sex. Rather he is the inventor of nerves and neurons, of sensations and senses. He holds the patent on pleasure and neural pathways, on endorphins and oxytocin baths.

God's guidelines on sex are not archaic restrictions to stop our fun. Rather his desire is for our good, and his boundaries are for our safety. Throughout history, God has been the hero stepping in to say, "Enough!" at each new horrific warping of sexuality that the evil one and a cruel world wrought: Child-sex trafficking -- not okay. Incest or abuse, not okay. Destitute men or women forced into a lifestyle of prostitution -- not their fault and God advocates for their rescues. Single moms or dads raising kids on their own -- God cares for them and knows how hard they work. His perfect plan is a shared load, raising children in community. Spouses divorced cruelly, unfairly, for no reason, left as paupers with no financial or social support in society -- God calls foul and sets up parameters for their protection and care.

In my twenties, I wrestled with forgiving myself for physical forays and failures, and I see that in many of my teens' or former teens' eyes now. Girls across restaurant tables who have said, "I'm afraid they'll look at me differently now they know I've had sex." 

"No!," I urge. "God's love is unconditional, and he is so forgiving. Everyone wrestles with sin at times. No one is perfect. If you've had a chance to ask God to forgive you, it's gone. God says, 'he is faithful to forgive and to cleanse us from any unrighteousness.' You can start fresh right now, a new day, a new start, saying, 'God, from now on, I wanna try to do things your way.' God's love is so big."

With the teens and twenty-somethings in my life, we talk about how hard the physical can be. We talk about how God's ways of saying, 'Not yet. Just wait until marriage' are for our good. We pull out the statistics on co-habiting and how it drastically increases one's odds of divorce. Looking around at the prevalence of divorce and eroded marriages around us, I reason, if we really love this guy/girl, let's give this relationship the best odds and chances we can, right? We talk as well about how much this choosing to delay sexual play until marriage is about growing habits of self-control for later in life too, not just now. There will be weekend business trips for you or your spouse someday. As you practice being able to walk away from temptation now, you are building that habit for later in life. With the large number of affairs happening around us, don't we owe this to ourselves, to practice this habit and build it in each other?

My worry with the snow analogies, with junior high abstinence pledge cards, and with the hyper-focus on technical virginity, is the danger that we'll miss the bigger picture. Yes, I want to honor God with my sexual choices before and after marriage. Yes, God talks about saving sex for marriage. Indeed he talks bluntly and cheerfully about a wide range of sex topics impacting single and married people. He does this not because he is uptight and shocked, but because he created, invented, and made sex. As the inventor of it and us, he knows how it best works, and what brings the most joy and benefit.

God is not your cosmic chastity belt. Instead, he holds the instruction manual and keys to a fabulous invention he patented. In our desire to protect young people from the pains and fall-out associated with sex outside of marriage, and after generations of muddled, awkward, inadequate "birds and bees" conversations, we have left them thinking sex was dirty or something to be ashamed of. And dozens of newly-weds have since wrestled with the fallout of changing their attitudes of "Sex-No!" to "Sex Now."

It's complicated, yeah? I agree, but the good news is that we can start over. Look deep and see all that God has to say about sex and marriage. The Bible drips with it. In marriage, sex is a delightful gift. So to my single friends trying to live out their Jesus-life convictions, it's not "Sex -- No!" It's "Sex, Not Yet..." and I'm cheering you on from the side and available to talk anytime.

(If you missed the first, second, and third article in this series, Let's Talk about Sex, feel free to click on the links and join us.)

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Um, There's Someone Behind You...

Photo Credit to Thierry Gregorius 

Rigor mortis drapes fingertips long on our Christmas tree still sparkling beside me. Fragrant pine needles wafted long after December 25th so I didn't have the heart to throw it away then. Now the scent has passed, though, and it's time. 

Alongside strong French coffee this week, I've been following a tale of death and starting over. In familiar biblical accounts in Luke, we see Jesus dying on the cross, a dark cave tomb blasted with light and an empty slab where a body should be.

"Why do you look for the living among the dead?" angels ask with a smile to wondering women.

And along a winding country road, seven miles outside the city, Jesus appears to two men and starts a conversation.

It always begins with a conversation. The Godhead shows up humbly, unobtrusively. To the men, he appeared beside them as they walked, and asked them what they were talking about.

Beside you, too, today, as you shuffle papers in the office, or fold laundry and orchestrate a home, and while you tap keys on your computer...

He walks quietly up beside us, wonders what we are thinking, listens, and then begins to talk.

And the old, the dead, the browning stiffness is gone, replaced with a burning sense of wonder.

"Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him..."

"Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?" they raved. And suddenly, any road weariness is lifted and they leave their supper behind, drop all thoughts of sleep, and retrace their seven mile hike back into town.

This God, he's always making things new, bringing life to the dead, and desiring to reveal himself to us in a way that makes our hearts burn within us. God, help me see you walking here beside me, eager to open my mind to understand your word.

An Espresso Machine Between the Eyes

Recently, my sister and I met in a Scandinavian bakery on a snowy night. Huge snowflakes covered our cars within minutes, and I laughed as I tried to catch snowflakes on my tongue while walking in. Partway through the night, fearful shrieks and a hissing noise cut through the calm cafe. The espresso machine was malfunctioning dangerously and two female baristas scrambled to turn off the machine and get out of the way. Mixed coffee drinks were off the menu until a repairman could arrive.

That image returned to my mind this week as I was studying Isaiah. (You, my reader friends, know that we have been talking about Isaiah often, including here, here, and here as it leaks onto the blog from my time in God's word these last few months.) Anyway, Isaiah 43:7 delineates, "Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made," and verses 21-24 continue that thought with "...the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise."

"YET, you have not called upon me, O Jacob,
           you have not wearied yourself for me, O Israel.
           You have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings,
                           nor honored me with your sacrifices.

I have not burdened you with grain offerings,
          nor wearied you with demands for incense.

You have not bought any fragrant calamus for me,
                or lavished on me the fat of your sacrifices.

BUT you have burdened me with your sins,
          and wearied me with your offenses."

Wow... I circled and reviewed the verses, scrawling quickly across my journal. The mirror poetry and words were powerful to me.

Along with the Jewish nation, God formed us so we could proclaim his praise. 
But, very often, I/ we?
        we don't fulfil our purpose.
        We don't call on him.
        We don't weary ourselves for him.
        We don't bring him sacrifices of our time, energy, or money as praise for him.
        We haven't honored him with our tithes, when we do give.

He says HE hasn't placed burdensome or wearisome demands on us -- his creations.

He says we/I haven't made an effort to spend time connecting with him in prayer (calamus is linked with incense and prayer), or lavished on him the best part of my time, energy, resources, as extravagant praise to him.

Rather, we -- I --burdened him with my sins, and
                          wearied him with my offenses.

Wow! Where do you go when a gentle God lays it on the line like this? What's next when he so boldly, plainly lays it bare?

We malfunctioned. We did not deliver. We are a broken product.

Silence. Sadness. A still quiet. He's right. My pen stopped writing and I sat in silence. He's right.

What words are next? His mouth opens and the very next verse spills out like water in the desert.

"I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more" (vs. 25).

Forgiveness, grace, and a restoration that humbles me.

The repairman has come and gone, and I am working properly now. I will proclaim his praises. Thank you, God.

This journal and Bible time may have just been for me this week. But it hit me, and I pray that God uses it mightily in your life too. Humbly, sitting quietly and happily proclaiming his praise, I'm your Jennifer. I'd love to hear what is on your brain this week, or how I can pray with you.