Article By Dianna Hobbs:: The New A-list Author
I cried as she cried. I hurt because she hurt. I both sympathized and empathized with her plight. I felt her angst as she wailed and said, “But it’s not fair!”
She’s right. It’s not. But that’s the way it is sometimes.
This smart, sweet, driven, and open-hearted twenty-something (who we’ll just call Angela for now) fell in love with a young man. They both went to church and seemed to share the same values.
One night, in a moment of weakness, Angela made sexual advances toward her boyfriend.
“Something just overtook me,” she said, which was her best description of the overwhelming feelings of lust she was struggling with that day.
“I just wanted to have sex and I didn’t care about the consequences in the heat of the moment.”
As an abstinence coach and speaker who travels across the nation sharing the message of my book, The New A-list: Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder, I hear that a lot. Singles get frisky when hormones, urges and lustful desires intensify.
So anyway, the steamy session between Angela and her boyfriend began at his father’s house. A little while later, her partner suggested that the two go to his mother’s house, because “Mom was the most liberal” he claimed.
There, they could explore and fulfill their urges without interruption or condemnation.
It sounded like a good plan to Angela.
So they interrupted their “make-out session” to change location—something that gave Angela time to really think about what she was doing.
“I cooled down and snapped out of it all of a sudden,” she explained to me.
“I told him, ‘I had a little time to think about it. You love God. I love God and we shouldn’t be doing this. It’s compromising. I want to wait.’”
She felt relieved, but he felt angry.
What happened next was both heart-breaking and unexpected.
After Angela also revealed that she was still a virgin and wanted to practice abstinence until marriage, he callously told her “I think you should leave. I’m not interested in waiting.”
Though she tried to reason it out and get him to see that the sexual advance was a mistake that grieved God, he wasn’t trying to hear any part of that.
Two months later, it is still hard for Angela to believe it’s over.
He never answered or returned a single one of her calls after the incident.
Angela’s ex wanted sex. She did not. In that way, they were unequally yoked and things fell apart.
She fell apart too.
On that day she sat crumbling, pouring her heart out to me, I wished there were something I could do to alleviate the bitter sting of rejection, the ache of abandonment and the excruciating pain of a broken heart.
But there was not.
My dear friend, listen to me closely. When you make a decision to live a life of purity by honoring God with your body until marriage, it is no joke. This is a serious “take up your cross and follow Jesus” commitment that everyone will not celebrate or understand.
People will walk away from you.
You have to be ready for that.
Unfortunately, sad as it is, even some who say they love God and want to serve Him wholeheartedly do not seriously desire to do what it takes to walk in discipline. They feel that their need to gratify the flesh is too great to deny themselves and follow Christ.
So be aware. Be sober about it. Know what kind of commitment you are entering into.
That way, when you sign up for a lifestyle of purity, you won’t come unglued if you run across a person similar to Angela’s ex.
Know going in that compromising is not an option and that you will lose some dating prospects. Such is life.
Does expecting rejection sound morbid?
Maybe it does right now. But in our secular society, this is the way it is.
But hey, there is good news.
What is it?
By saying no to compromise, you close yourself off to being used for sex. As a result, you then open yourself up to connect with the no-compromise, God-ordained person with whom you are meant to be.
As one who waited until marriage before having sex, I know what it feels like to be rejected, just as the young woman did who cried on my shoulder.
But if sex is the only thing keeping him before marriage, sexual temptation may be the very thing that lures him away after marriage. You see, a man or woman who is unwilling to submit their lustful desires to the Lord will lack integrity—whether married or single.
A ring means nothing to someone whose heart isn’t right.
In closing, if you do that hard thing and say no to compromise now, your chances of unifying with the one who loves God, has integrity and is loyal to their faith, increases greatly.
Loyaltly to Jesus means loyalty to you.
Isn't that what you want?
If so, then do the tough thing now and wait for sex. You will be thankful that you did later.
Your Abstinence Coach,
Dianna Hobbs
To learn how to better value yourself, uphold your standards and resist sexual compromise, get your copy of Dianna Hobbs' best-selling book The New A-list: Abstinence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder, now available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Booksamllion.com.
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