Pure Heart: A Women’s Guide to Sexual Integrity

Chapter 6 – Confusion

“The Misuse of Sex”

About three years before I penned Inside of Me, God gave me  a term to describe the kind of lifestyle I was engaging in when it came to my sexuality. It’s “sexual misuse.” My original definition was “sex outside of God’s intention.” However, I remember doing an interview on a local television show and the host said, “So, when you separate the di!erence between sexual abuse and sexual misuse, would it be that one is what’s done to you while the other is what you do to yourself?” Ding, ding, ding. That is perfect.

This chapter is going to address sexual misuse in a way that Inside of Me couldn’t, because, to be honest, I was still caught up in it at the time. Up until 2007, the longest I had been abstinent since becoming sexually active in 1993 was ten months. All that Word . . . all that wisdom . . . and I still couldn’t get the sex monkey o! my back. What was that about?

Well, the thing is, when it comes to obeying God, we have to do it 100 percent. You can be living 99.9 percent truth, and that fraction of a lie can destroy your life. The lie that tripped me up more than anything was my cyclic state of self-manipulation and rationalization, the crazed voice inside me that said, “Well, since we all make mistakes, tripping over my discernment and into a man’s arms and ultimately his sheets, every once in a while, isn’t all that bad.” Especially if I loved him . . . especially if he was my boyfriend. Whatever. The devil is a liar.

I recall not too long ago hearing a sermon in which the pastor said that even partial or incomplete obedience is total disobedience, and he’s right. When it came to my getting freed from my sexual misuse cycle, every few years or so, when I would find myself with another broken heart or unplanned pregnancy, the Holy Spirit would gently lead me to the following Scripture:

He also spoke this parable: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, ‘Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?’ But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. And if it bears fruit, well.
But if not, after that you can cut it down.” Luke 13:6–9 NKJV

I knew what God wanted of me: one year. I needed to be abstinent for one solid year. Like Esther, who spent a year getting ready for her king (Esther 2:12–13), for me to reach my destiny, I needed to purge fornication from my system for twelve solid months.

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