Hiya everyone!!
Sorry for being MIA last week... What can I say, life happened! Lol *Sowiee*
Guess what though, we're back! Lol.... And back with bells on! Lightchild is talking about a topic close to my heart. Now for me, the icing on the cake (Cake! I love cake! Sorry, I digress) is that this time he is talking about sex and sexual temptation relating to men!
On 1+ The One, we've discussed
Sex a number of times -
Waiting and Loving It,
Team V for the Win and so on. Usually, it's written from a woman's perspective so I am delighted to read from a man's point of view.. Here you go, hope you are able to enjoy and of course be inspired....
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Everyone gets tempted, you get tempted, I get tempted.. It's normal! It's what you do with the temptation that matters.
So how can one deal with sexual temptation? How can you ensure that you do all that you need to do (that lies in your remit and power to do) to ensure that you can deal with it, if and when it comes?
Here are a few things that have helped me and are still helping me..
1. It is always a choice:
Your choice. Life is a sum of choices that we make, every minute, every hour, every day. The only thing we don’t get to choose in life is the family we are born into and possibly when we die. But every other thing we do, every other thing that happens to us, we have a huge part to play in. And that is why one can’t but stress that because the power to choose either life of death has been set before us, we must constantly depend on, listen to and give room to the Holy Spirit to lead us into making the right choices so that we don’t keep finding ourselves in situations that we need God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Mary, Joseph and Elijah to come save us from!
Right there in your closet, when you have your alone time with God is the best time to let Him work on your character, personality, weaknesses and emotions, so that when you go out and interact with the world, the Word that you have on the inside of you, working with the Holy Spirit leading you, will help you make right choices. For instance, when setting up a date or a meet up with someone of the opposite sex, it’s normal practise to carefully plan the whole date - what you’ll wear, where you’ll go, what you’ll do etc. However, most of the time, we don’t think to check in with the Holy Spirit just to see if He’s okay with our plans.
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| As you prepare for a date physically, do you take time out to prepare with the Holy Spirit? (Pic Source) |
Sometimes I get a nudge when I’m going over my plans, that makes me rethink certain aspects of the plans (whether it’s a date-date or even just a friendly meet up) and what this helps me to do is to reassess the situation and not put myself in a position where I am more open to unnecessary temptations or scenarios that I’d need a bail out or 'the cavalry' to come rescue me.
If I know that I find the person I’m meeting with quite attractive, I would make sure I don’t plan activities that could help build up unnecessary emotions and desires that I am not ready to deal with or shouldn’t be dealing with at that point in time.
I have to say though that even with all of these precautions in place, it’s still your choice at the end of the day. It’s your choice to go in for that extra cuppa at her place or yours. Nothing just happens! One of my mentees said to me once, "I don’t know how it happened, it just happened!" And I said to him, "Dude, maybe you started it, maybe she did, but your clothes just didn’t come off like that!"
2. Don’t form the habit of going window-shopping:
Your eyes are the windows to your soul. The same soul where a whole bunch of emotions and feelings can develop from. Whatever you feed your eyes with, will get stored into your subconscious, your mind and your inner person and it’s only a matter of time that these things will want to come out to play. If you find out that you’re more inclined to feeding your mind with stuff that is full of sexual content and activity, it is just a matter of time before you would probably want to ‘act out’ or experience certain thoughts that come to your mind. Remember this: what you see and feed your eyes on will someday become your thoughts. If care is not taken, your thoughts will become your actions. Your actions can lead to forming habits. And when these habits are not good, they could potentially become and lead to sin.
3. Don’t fall victim to the 'I know myself mindset':
So if you’re not planning to take things further the right way, don’t say I know myself and I’ll just stick to cuddling and maybe kissing - no tongues! You may have perfected these, but believe me, as insatiable as we human beings are, a barrage of emotions, feelings and desires may engulf you, without asking for your permission and take over the proceedings at that point and before you know it, you’re paying for stuff you didn’t want to buy initially. That’s what window-shopping can do to you…
You go to buy milk at the shop but you come back with ice cream, cookies, cream, cat food and a new TV. (You don’t even have a cat by the way!) In the same vein, you said you’d only just stick to hugging and cuddling but then you got more than you bargained for. That’s what temptation does, it leads you to situations you did not contemplate finding yourself in and ultimately, most times, getting more than you bargained for. When you put yourself in scenarios that are fertile breeding grounds for temptation, you’re opening up yourself to sin that will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you are willing to pay. Can you really afford to pay that price?
4. Think about the consequences, think about tomorrow:
If there is one thing that helps me personally, it’s the practise of thinking about tomorrow whilst living today. When faced with a decision or a choice to make, I always say to myself as a rule of thumb: would I be happy tomorrow about the decisions and actions I am about to make? Who would I have to say “I’m sorry” to? God or the lady or both? What’s the fall out going to be like? Happiness? Guilt? Satisfaction? Shame? After honestly going through these in my mind, once it’s apparent that it’s going to be more negative for me than positive, it’s a no brainer what the choice will be. You may feel like a 'no actions' person, or that person that’s got no game at that moment, but that moment will always pass, because it is what it is, a moment, one that could make or break you. Perhaps you’re the kind of person that has a good grip on your actions and you “know” that you probably won’t be giving in into any physical encounters. That’s all well and good. There is still the matter of the purity of the heart and mind. The fact that you may not be engaging in the physical act doesn’t mean that one is not succumbing to temptation in his heart. So you may want to guard where your mind goes, what it thinks about, how long you spend thinking about certain thoughts before you cast them down. Guard your heart, above all else, for it determines the course of your life. What you store inside will help you win or loose the fight over sexual temptation.
.............Lightchild
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Like I said to Lightchild, this is probably my favourite post so far for obvious reasons. Often times, when we talk about waiting until marriage for sex, many people say that while some women can do it, it is almost impossible for men.
Well thank God that it is clear that it is possible. It's not easy (not at all), however, it is possible by God's grace.
I like the last point above - think about tomorrow whilst living today. The choices we make today affect what happens tomorrow. We are not like lesser animals who have no control over our decisions, we are made to have a will and to have self-control. May God help us in Jesus name!
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