the question of purity.

In my second ever post on my relationship...

Here I am! To talk about everyone's favorite relationship topic (joking) - purity!
I was hesitant to write on this. It's frankly, very difficult to be open about sin struggles and particularly one as sensitive as purity in the Church. But I've been open about everything else up until now - why should I hide this? I shouldn't let my fear of shame and what others think, keep me from sharing honestly.

Desiring God has some great posts on purity by John Piper. I recommend this one and this one for believers, both single and dating. They're very long reads, but have a lot of good content and biblical advisement on the topic. And there's a bunch more on the site if you're interested - just search "sexual purity". (Yeah, there's a lot)

But since I'm not John Piper - I'm dating and not yet married, I'm female, and I'm Asian American - I had some additional thoughts I wanted to share.

1) Sex is supposed to be good.
My brain has difficulty comprehending complex information. I say "supposed to", because this is something I still struggle with. I leaned towards legalism and emphasized being "good" growing up, and the idea of sex (along with drugs, alcohol, profanity, etc.) was condemned to my thought bubble of BAD. I struggled when I reached the drinking age, because alcohol was "very bad and a strong no no before legal drinking age, but after that, no issues at all!!!!!!!!!" It's just how we were taught. Shame was a real thing. And to me, the teaching around fleeing lust and sexual desires seemingly reemphasized the argument that "sex is bad".

Somewhere in senior high or college, they started telling us that it was "good, in the context of marriage". Well that's nice in theory. But very confusing, let's be honest.

God tells us in 1 Timothy 4:5 that "everything created by God is good..." He's designed sex to be a part of marriage, a part of this holy covenant and binding relationship between two people. For those of you who might also struggle with understanding this balance, I try to think of it as "good when it's used correctly". Kinda like social media or fire or household cleaners. All have a certain purpose they were designed for. And all can become harmful when used improperly. Maybe those analogies are too far a stretch...but they help me.

2) Avoid the grey.
I've heard from a few people that there's no black and white when it comes to "purity" in dating relationships, but that there's this large expanse of grey. And as someone who likes clearly defined lines, I think that's annoying and confusing. But I'll say this much - you will know when you're in the grey. As a believer, I promise your conscience will pop up and remind you in that moment that *ahem* you have now entered the grey area. And I would advise to avoid the grey.

From my experience, it's particularly present for us as women. But that's not a bad thing - God has created this little voice for a reason. But it's often hard to say no, to stop whatever it is you're doing, and to acknowledge this with your significant other. But I would urge you to listen to that clarifying voice of reason and be concerned when it starts to go away.

3) Christ as your center.
Point number three seems to contradict point number one. But ultimately, above all, we must seek to glorify Christ in our actions. We're called to be imitators of God, living lives worthy of the gospel of Christ, dying to ourselves and denying ourselves to follow him. We have been given new life - and there is peace, assurance, forgiveness, and hope in that. It is good to know Christ and to have freedom in his truth. Galatians 5.

05.04.18