Saturday, October 19, 2013

Formula for the Strongest Marriage

Flee also youthful lusts but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart (2 Timothy 2:22).

What a simple yet profound and indeed far-reaching piece of wisdom to young Timothy: “Flee youth-fill lust”. Youth: the point when one has not connected the dots, the important things seem unimportant, and a proneness to discard the future in the present.  It is here where the seed of divorce and broken families are planted. It is said that the number one reason for divorce is money.  This is only because we’ve ignored and dismissed the impact of youthful fornication on the glue of marital consummation. Multiple sexual partners erode a man’s ability to be faithful to his wife; because, he becomes addicted to the pleasure of pursuit, finding it difficult to settle down. On the other hand, multiple sexual partners destroy a woman’s capacity to trust her husband; because, every breakup is another deep wound of distrust. For men the images of every sexual encounter create a thirst for new encounters. For women the wounds of every relationship haunt you with marital insecurity. The high cost of pre-marital sex is marital integrity and a natural binding intrinsic only to knowing one person sexually. In Genesis chapter three, one principle consequence of sin is that it makes life harder. If our spouse was the only man or woman we had known, there would be no images, no addiction to the chase, no relational wombs and no marital insecurities. It would be the marital bliss and fulfillment we sought by getting married in the first place; an experience that can only be known by virgins.