Sex Isn’t Making Anyone Happy

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crowdPart 1: Be Careful What You Ask For

Part 3: All the Wrong Reasons?

Part 4: He Runs to Us

Part 5: Goodies and Godliness

Well, I wasn’t planning on two posts this month with the word “sex” in the title. But it is February. And hey…you clicked. Ha.

Anyway…

We Christian singles get easily fascinated with this mysterious thing called sex. Call it an occupational hazard of chastity.

It’s understandable. When an entire civilization stampedes past you in pursuit of something, you’re bound to crane your neck that way. Throw in an entertainment industry that’s found its golden calf cash cow and you’ve got a powerful allure. “Wow,” we find ourselves going if we’re not careful. “Sex really does look like the answer. Wish I could get that.”

Now, I’ve never had sex.

But I’ve seen what it does for people.

Three years on an Air Force launch truck hearing the details of others’ tech school stories and favorite porn.

Three years as a teacher, watching students bring their babies to class, where they’d promptly tear up any of their mothers’ homework they could reach. Cute buggers.

Five years at a pizza place which, like any minimum wage job, attracts some tough cases.

Years later, here’s the scorecard. Those airmen were beset with divorce and cheating. My former students are still neck-deep in a hard, impoverished existence. The minimum wage scene? A few of those guys can’t hold down a job, existing perpetually in the scummiest trailer parks with few tools for reaching escape velocity.

But the one thing they all had more of than me?

Sex. Lots of it. Whenever they wanted.

Street truth: with low enough standards, anyone can get sex. It isn’t a 5-by-5 Rubik’s Cube. Find someone you vaguely like, block out any caution, and you can get months of it.

Of course…

“After a few days, the younger son got everything together and journeyed to a distant country, where he squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent all he had, a severe famine swept through that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. He longed to fill his belly with the pods the pigs were eating, but no one would give him a thing.” (Luke 15:13-16)

It’s the song of fallen man. Sex is more widespread than any time in human history and still isn’t putting so much as a dent in Earth’s despair. Even we bespectacled virgins can see that. Sex looks for all the world like humanity’s favorite numbing agent, offering a few hours’ refuge from problems, sometimes even problems with their relationship. That puts it on a level with…alcohol.

Good grief, big whoop.

I don’t want just sex. I want sex intended by Christ, where we won’t be chasing a better specimen in the morning because we’ve vowed not to, where we’re both seeking each other’s enjoyment over our own. Sex built upon years of committed, hard-fought love. Am I really the only one who thinks that sounds way better?

After what I’ve seen, sex separated from God just doesn’t get me out of bed in the morning.

And something has to, because life is moving on. Focus too much on happenings after 9pm and you forget there’s a 7am. That was the Prodigal Son’s lesson. He counted on a hedonistic lifestyle and it left him feeding pigs. The ultimate low for a Jew.

From what everyone in my spiritual life has told me, marriage isn’t about sex. It’s a perk that works best when you surrender it, when you let go and let God. Take comfort in that, singles. We’re seeking marriage to love someone and live the Gospel, not to…you know.

The curse of Eden is still speaking today, and sex is just not the grand escape the world claims. It isn’t making anyone happy. Not by itself.

On the other hand, this 35-year-old virgin is looking around, seeing God everywhere, and finding himself…pretty happy. It was a fight to get there, one that God had to win. But it happened. It is well with my soul.

Don’t be fooled.

52 thoughts on “Sex Isn’t Making Anyone Happy”

  4. Great perspective! It really is a blessing to see God working in your life, and a blessing I am sure to other singles to see your example. 🙂 Good work!

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  5. Good words as always! As one who sorely wishes she had stayed the course, I encourage you to keep your eyes on the prize. God redeemed my sorry state and gave me the gift of the second chance, for which I am eternally grateful, but, if I have the chance to encourage anyone to avoid the disasters I encountered, I try to. 🙂

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  6. Your perspective as a single is very refreshing to hear and read. As a single myself, I think we simply don’t know how much the gift of being single really is to us since seeing couples be all lovey dovey in our faces make it seem like we’re really missing out on something…however, that is just an illusion. We really aren’t missing out on anything, it just appears to be that way when in actual fact, we are in a different season and place in life that is just as much as a blessing as it would be if we were to be in a relationship with another person. We just need to know how to maximize the time we have now in our single-status quo rather than be too pre-occupied with trying to change the status just for the sake of not longer being “lonely” so to speak. Well, that’s how I see it anyway. Great Post Brandon 😀

    Sherline.

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  7. This is so true and so sad. We live in a culture that only deals with surface level pain. Trying to, as you said, numb pain, instead of getting to the heart of the discontent. It’s so refreshing hearing another young person with Godly sense and wisdom. What’s sad is that sex is a gift from God for a marriage between a man and woman. Or culture has exploited and perverted that gift in so many ways. But people but into it again and again. And for whatever reason, the less it helps, the more they run to it.

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  8. Brandon, this is amazing. Just like your other piece, “Satan is a liar”, so this one as well; he feeds us the same lies in every generation about sex–either it’s so good you shouldn’t wait for it, or it’s so bad you should always think of it as dirty, or something stupid like that. Thanks, again, for exposing yet another destructive deception…you’ll be so glad. So glad.

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    • There’s definitely that “sex is dirty” lie, and it’s a shame. And Satan builds lies upon lies – he has a whole bunch of Christians convinced that the way to fight the “sex is dirty” lie is to engage in extramarital sex so that your experience can counteract the lie before you get married. I’m not exaggerating. I’ll be getting to that one soon.

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  10. 😊Good job for this blog! haven’t read for long time but this one caught my eyes! I really appreaciate men after God’s own heart.. seeking not his own but God’s! As you delight in Him He will give you the desires of your heart. Godbless you Brandon!

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  11. “I don’t want that kind of sex. I want the kind of sex intended and blessed by Christ, with a woman who won’t be dumping me for a better specimen (not hard to find) because she has vowed not to, the kind where we’re both seeking each other’s enjoyment over our own. Sex built upon years of committed, hard-fought love.”

    Great points! Thanks for this great post. Somehow many people today have forgotten the meaning, place, and even consequences of sex!

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  12. This was refreshing to read. I have had two room mates get engaged in the last year, one now married and moved away and the other is getting married in June. It does sometimes make it hard as a single person in their 30s to feel like I am missing out even though for the most part I have come to enjoy my singleness in the last few years. I look forward more to the companionship in marriage than anything. Even as my room mate is getting married we have had a lot of talks about how tough it is to remain pure especially the closer they get to the wedding date, and listening to my former room mate as she battled with the idea that her husband had given himself to another woman before her. It is definitely a battle of the flesh and spirit and one that requires total surrender allowing God to fight the battle for you. While I hope my future husband is a virgin, unfortunately it feels like the field is narrowing in that aspect the older I get and I will definitely be required to give grace in that area if he is not. And I think that is where love is key and understanding the love and grace God has already bestowed upon someone as undeserving as me will and does empower me to extend that grace to others.

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  14. I like this, “I don’t want that kind of sex. I want the kind of sex intended and blessed by Christ…”
    Only marriage can provide that. Sex outside marriage is obviously not blessed by God.
    Good to know you are waiting. It is worth the wait… Speaking from experience. God’s grace is sufficient for you.

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  19. I gotta say, I really liked this article. I came to the Lord as I was about to kill myself, only to hear that gay people like me were hellbound. I acted out defiantly in response, and wish I could take it all back. There was only ten minutes of pleasure and two days guilt with each sex act. If I had known this at the time (aside from the sinfulness of homosexuality) it is likely I would have remained celibate period. Keep reaching out, telling people that sex is not all its cracked up to be!

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  20. Thanks for being willing to broach a sensitive subject with grace, wisdom, and caution. It’s hard to know when and how to broach a hard subject, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less necessary.

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  21. Wow, Brandon! What a fantastic writing! What a brace post! I’d actually like to guest post this. Will you please contact me at The Silver Lining page, Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/angelaslittleattic? Your post needs to be read by singles! I’m so proud of you for honoring God, and I pray God brings to you the most beautiful woman, both inside and out, because The Lord knows you will treat you like a queen! I pray you love, joy, and happiness in Jesus’ name! 💙

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