This past weekend, I caught one of my favorite “throwback films”, “High Fidelity”. (Yes, I know I’m telling my age, but it really is a good film…John Cusack, Jack Black…classic.)
If you haven’t checked it out, I won’t give it all away. But, I did want to share one part of the film since so many people who write us are often not sharing the “happy side of sex” (obviously, being that this is a porn ministry), but the “downside” of reaping what the lust seeds that have been sown. (James 1:14-16)
Towards the end of the film, John Cusack’s character goes to his ex-girlfriend’s father’s funeral. After giving his condelences at the house, he leaves, she goes after him and asks him to have sex with her…again. Sure, she’s the one who left him. Sure, she’s the one who’s seeing someone else. But when she gave the explanation of why she wanted to have sex with the guy she left and is no longer with, she said, “I just want to feel something.”
Yeah, that statement was pretty deep within itself, but it’s what came next that really hit home with me. She likened “feeling something” to either having sex with her ex or putting her hand in a fire…or having her ex-boyfriend put out cigarette butts on her arm.
At almost two years into abstinence, with some days good and somedays so not so good, while I have a pretty vivid imagination, I’ve gotta admit that I have never dreamed that my next time would be the equivalent of abusing myself by fire. GOD MADE SEX (I Cornthians 7, Hebrews 13:4)) and I’m sure he never intended for it to be perceived as torturous. But, that’s kind of the point of this blog message.
I’m not sure if the screenplay writer realized just how profound that particular scene was, or if he even picked up on the fact that the woman was essentially saying, “Abuse me with sex or with a burning cigarette”, but it definitely provides a “parable perspective” on the following scripture:
“Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.”—I Corinthians 6:18 (NKJV)
Just this week, I got an email from a young woman who I think is so precious. She’s a virgin who battles with porn. It absolutely breaks my heart how much she condemns herself every time she falls, but it helps me understand how much 1) the Enemy hates her for not having sex (with others) and 2) how he really will use any means necessary (John 10:10) to break our spirit…if we let him. (Hebrews 4:16)
But, it also shows me just how many of us are like the woman in “High Fidelity”…how we are so desperate to feel something, anything, that if it means self-abuse of our mind, body or spirit, so be it. As I was praying for a scripture to support this point, the Holy Spirit (Luke 12:12) led me to some verses that seems to hit this message dead on:
“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of
God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness
of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.”—Ephesians 4:17-19 (NKJV)
WOOOOOOW. I don’t even know if I’ve noticed these until now, but I guess now was the time. I have shared before that one of my favorite quotes on sex is by M.Scott Peck. I’m short on time today, so I’m gonna paraphrase (instead of looking for the book it’s featured in). Basically he said that because sex is the closest thing to a spiritual experience most people will have, they chase it with reckless abandon, not realizing that what they are chasing after is not sex, but actually God. Semi-recently, I read a quote by Deepak Chopra on the issue of sex. Do you know what he said?
“Sex is always about emotions. Good sex is about free emotions; bad sex is about blocked emotions.”
I’ve heard porn described as being/doing a lot of things, but providing “good sex”? Not really. And, while I have enjoyed some counterfeit sex in my day, let me say that the consequences that followed always—and I do mean ALWAYS—made me wonder on the back end why I always put my human trinity (mind, body, spirit) at risk for something so fleeting. If sex results in heart break, devastation, confusion, fear, low self-esteem, unplanned (in the sense of being “unwanted”)/terminated pregnancies, lying, sneaking, manipulation…at the end of the day (or night), that is not “good sex” either. God is good. None of these things should even be used in the same sentence as God.
John 8:32 says that the truth makes us free. John 8:36 sets that it’s Christ who frees us. What does this mean? THAT THERE IS FREEDOM IN CHRIST and only in marriage, the God-ordained purpose for sex, can one really experience sexual freedom…can one have “free emotions”…can one feel something that is happy, healthy…good and right.
Don’t believe me? Look again at that Ephesians scripture. It says that when someone is past feeling, they give themselves over to lewdness. Lewdness doesn’t “give” you anything. There was a part of you that was “numbed out” before it (which is why I have always been a firm believer that sexual sin is SYMPTOMATIC of something deeper…it is used to replace something else).
And so, I think we may have hit a milestone in the journey towards sexual wholeness today. Maybe our focus should be on asking God to give us our “feelings” back; to heal those areas that have become numbed by pain, insecurity, doubt, anger, rejection. (Isaiah 61:1) Maybe, rather than surrendering ourselves over to habits that do nothing more than take, take, take, we should go to the one who only wants to give…who says that he will withhold NO GOOD THING from us (Psalm 84:11) when we walk uprightly.
We were made with feelings, so of course we want to feel something. But, as I pray for me, I pray that you will not be so used to abuse that you think feeling means feeling bad…when God only wants what’s good for you.
Wow. Now, ain’t that something?