Devo #3: Why Talk About Our Sexuality? Because It’s A Good And God-Given Part Of Life
What I call “purity training” – having honest, open, and holy conversations about sex – needs to move near the front of the line in our homes and churches stat! The old way of hushing it up isn’t going to cut it any longer. Here’s a second reason why:
Our sexuality is one of the greatest gifts that God has given to the human race.
Proverbs 30:18-19 says, “There are four things that are too wonderful for me, that I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a maiden.”
Those of you who are older, have you become so wooden and rigid that you’ve forgotten what it was like to fall in love? In a junior high biology class I once learned that a ‘kiss’ is nothing but “the anatomical juxtaposition of two orbicularis muscles in a state of contraction.” But then one day in the seventh grade I kissed Beverly Christiansen and experienced the power that launched a thousand ships. Orbicularis muscles, my eye.
Years ago, Amy Grant began to insert simple love songs into her albums and Christians went berserk, accusing her of compromise and worse. Shame on those Christians. Why should the William Shakespeares and Paul McCartneys of this world compose the best love sonnets and songs, when the many-splendored-thing of love was completely God’s idea to begin with?
One of the things I get asked is what is unique about the purity training I am advocating compared to the way sexuality is talked about in the typical church? The first thing that is unique about my approach is that we’re talking about sexuality, openly and honestly.
The second thing that is unique about the purity training I’m advocating is the way in which we talk about. We talk about it as a good and God-given part of life. It’s not a thing to be ashamed about. Not a thing to hide away.
Yes, we’ve done shameful things with this good gift we’ve been given. It will make your heart shatter to hear some people share their stories. But the point is: we have to give people room to share those stories first. It’s like a friend once told me who loved to fish: You gotta catch a fish before you can clean it.
It should be a safe thing for a person to raise his or her hand and say, “Me too,” without everyone getting their undies in a bunch. (And then the person gets shuffled off to a secretive support group that that meets at 6:00am in the church basement on Saturday mornings.)
Our culture is in such sexual chaos right now, that if we in the Church can get over ourselves, and our squeamishness about this part of life, then we’ll be given an unprecedented opportunity to offer the healing and freedom of Christ to others.
Bear Clifton is a pastor, writer and screenwriter. In addition to this website, his blogs and devotionals can be enjoyed at his writing website: blclifton.com. Bear is the author of “Train Yourself To Be Godly: A 40 Day Journey Toward Sexual Wholeness”, “Ben-Hur: The Odyssey”, and “A Sparrow Could Fall”.