In today’s devotion, most of
what we need to know about how to be holy and continue on perfecting holiness, Oswald
Chambers combined them all neatly on one small page of his devotion book “My
Utmost For His Highest.” I could easily take each suggestion the writer made
and write a lengthy post on each of them.
But, today I want to talk about how God has led me to understand where
He stands vis a vis dealing with sex while being single and the popular,
controversial, and “don’t go there” subject self-gratification.
Being someone who has gone through a bad marriage, I know too well what it means to have a truly lousy sex life. But, even someone living out a lousy sex life can never understand how hard it is to be single while God is sitting there watching you twitching, hurting and dying slowly inside with the pain of living out this life with all your faculties and heighten sexual desires, intact.
Earlier in my walk
with God, He finally gave me the gift of celibacy. I had no idea that such gift
even existed until the Holy Spirit told me about it. The gift of celibacy is
such an awesome gift and it would solve these nasty sex scandals we have in the
Church. It would stop a brother or a sister from running around to find relief
while waiting for a godly partner. So, after God gave me the gift of celibacy, He
was also working in my heart to bring me to the place where I would devote my
life to Him.
Then, all of the
sudden in 2007 I was knee deep into the wilderness with God. To my surprise, I
was lying in bed by myself (as usual) meditating on my walk with God and how
bad life was, in the wilderness, when suddenly, I felt that I had sexual urges.
I was shocked because I took for granted that God will give me the gift of
celibacy, indefinitely.
Before I even had time to ask myself what this
was about, the Holy Spirit told me that I no longer had the gift of intimacy. The
only thing I could answer was “great, just what I needed.” I still
remember vividly when the Holy Spirit told me self-gratification was not an
option, then to make things worse He said, you are now sharing this body with
me. While He was saying that to me, it was as if He stepped out of my body in
the same shape that I was laying on the bed, and He looked like a vapour and
the colour of the vapour was so white that there is nothing like this whiteness
down here on earth.
I knew my body was the temple of God
I find that when I am on that
mode where I am living a passionate relationship with God, it is easier to fight
the sexual urges. Like Oswald Chambers said in March 18 devotion, “I also
have the responsibility to keep my spirit in agreement with His Spirit. And when I do, Jesus gradually lifts me up to
the level where He lived” So
when the relationship is at its best, there is no striving to be in agreement
with Him and everything is perfect.
I know Oswald Chambers is right
and only Christ can get us to a place where we are no longer slaves and bound
by our sexual urges. The problem is that, in our relationship to God, like in
any relationship, the passion does not burn 24/7, which means you go through
times where the emotion of this intense closeness is not there. This does not
mean that you are not living a passionate life with Him. But, the emotions
subside as life takes over. This is the nature of the Christian life and if we
were to live out the Christian life always running on those emotional times
when we are in love with Him, we would be like someone on drugs all the time. Then,
this life would be way too easy and we would choose God at every turn.
But, when life gets in the way,
things are tedious, and hard. When you have to deal with challenges and
hardships, how do you deal with those painful sexual urges? For most of us I suspect we find solace in
responding to those sexual urges right away, so they can at least be taken care
of and out of the way. I know, because I have been there and it was one of my
biggest challenges to refrain from dealing with my urges in this way. I had to
learn to view them like any challenge and temptation that I encounter in the
Christian walk.
I went through a few years
where God needed me to learn these things. I learned that I have no control
over these urges. I definitely did not go out of my way to be exposed to
anything that would have got me there. Yet, those sexual urges came without
announcement and without an invitation. I learned to cry myself to sleep
because the pain could be so intense. However, I also know what it is like when
you fight with everything you have, but your flesh can only take so much before
you succumb and sin.
When I failed, I could not go
to Him because I did not know how to repent, since I knew if I had to go
through these intense periods of pain again, I would do the same thing. By the
same token, I learned that I rather go to Him without knowing how to repent and
continue my walk with Him. Because when your sin causes you to stay away from
God, you will find that it does not take long before your heart starts growing
cold toward Him. Therefore, I knew staying away from Him was not the best
option, even if I did not know how to repent. Make no mistake, I knew how to ask
Him to forgive me, I also had remorse in my heart, but there was no repentance for
my sin since I could not understand things for myself. There were times where I
was angry at Him for not taking this pain away when it is in His power. There
were times I felt if He was not going to take the pain and urges away, then, I
did not have to feel guilty. There were times where I felt like a hypocrite
because I knew God had already declared me holy in 2008, so why couldn’t I live
a holy life? You name the emotion, I am sure I have gone through it.
In my defense, God asked me to
remain celibate; I expected it to come with some sort of special self-control
gift, at least, curb my appetite. I also
made sure that I never seek to gratify myself, just because I knew it would
feel good. I did not spend time just thinking about sex and entertain the idea
in mind. If anything I got deeper into the word of God while in pain. I was
serious about my commitment to Him and He came first always, even when the pain
was intolerable.
I remember asking God, how Paul
did it since he was writing about it. As I read Paul’s advise I felt that he had
some sort of self-control, so, I was more upset at myself because I did not
have his self control. I kept thinking that Paul advise meant that he did not
have sexual urges. “But if they can't control themselves, they should go
ahead and marry. It's better to marry than to burn with lust.” (1
Corinthians 7:9) One day the Holy Spirit said to me, “where did you get the
idea that Paul did not have urges?” He then made me understand the key is found
in learning to be tempted and not succumb because I have learned to co-habite with my sexual urges. I think I felt worse, because I had some idea that these
urges would go away at one point simply because God would take care of them. Another
reason I felt worse is because the Holy Spirit did not tell me more when clearly
I needed to know more.
Over the years, I found out the
key to learning to co-habite with our sexual urges is found exactly in perfecting
holiness. The past few years I am finding out, the more you are disappearing in
Him through this oneness with Him, the more your life is being absorbed by Him, then you learn to co-habite with those urges along with the pain. It is as if you get a handle on leaving with
being tempted like Christ. You have been so subdued by His life in you, that
even when you are tempted for weeks and the pain is constantly there, it
becomes part of you and part of your life. But, I cannot say I have anything to
do with it because I am watching it happening in me. In the same way I have
explained in some of my newest posts that I feel I have reached a much higher level
of sanctification with God where I am disappearing slowly while He is
increasing big time. If you ask me to explain how I am able to live with my
sexual urges, I would say exactly what Oswald said “THE HOLY SPIR IT IS KEEPING ME IN AGREEMENT
WITH HIS SPIRIT.”
Through His grace, I have not
had sex since 1999. Yes, I went through rough times, but self-gratification was
always my last resort. I am now in my fifties, with all my faculties intact,
and I can count on my two hands how many times I have given in to temptation. Through
His grace in the past couple of years, He is maintaining me. It’s funny to see
how I am constantly aware of the urges because after so long from abstaining
from sex, these urges come automatically with pain. And God has never answered as
to why the flesh has to hurt so much.
Since I am very candid about my
life, I talked to almost everyone that I could talk to who are living the
single life. It seems whether you are male or female, after a while the flesh hurts
big time. The morale of the story is that learning to co-habitate with those
painful urges is not easy and it is a lengthy process. Through it all, I
learned to remain close to God, even in those moments when I failed Him. I knew
He loved me just the same.
MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST
Oswald Chambers March 18th Devotion
