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We just got this from Jenny.
My immediate reaction to the series 30 Day Sex Challenge was, how does this topic have anything to do with me? That has been on my list for a while now…
First I feel you should know I am a single woman who has not had sex. As I thought about my question I realized this challenge is more emotional than physical for me. I know, sex is in the title but as you look at the guide there are other emotional needs that I think are important as well.
I have been fortunate enough to surround myself with people that fill many of my emotional needs everyday. Affection, conversation, honesty and openness all with my family and friends. I feel that sexual fulfillment is something that can wait. I’m not saying it is an easy task, however, how much more reward can you receive from finding your emotional needs from friends and family who have been there for you.
This is what God is showing me through the 30 Day Sex Challenge. I am in a place that I am receiving emotional fulfillment without the sex to make life complicated. Over the next 20 some odd days take the challenge and see how you can meet other emotional needs that have been starved in the past. You may discover that it is more important that you find a person who can be your recreational companion than just a casual sex partner.
“I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–His good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:1-2
So day 7 is in the can for me, and I’m looking forward to day 8. Things have been really good so far. The guide has been helpful, but what has impacted me the most is community with others. One of the things I find me and my friends thinking about is really examining ourselves. It’s funny, life is so busy, you can go a really long time without ever having to take stock of yourself. You know, who you are, who you’re becoming… what you’ve done. This is forcing me to look at “the man in the mirror”. I wrote this blog a long time ago on my own site, and it was called “Lucky Vampire”. It was basically about how vampire’s are so lucky because they can avoid having to see themselves in the mirror. I’m still envious of that sometimes. I challenge singles, all of us, to really look at our past relationships. What have we done that we regret? What have we done to sabotage something good? What patterns do we see ourselves fall into? And maybe, if we’re lucky, what have we done right?
So I just got back from morning service (which was amazing by the way) and I was thinking about how the challenge may be tough for a single person who is not in a relationship and not dating anyone. I was thinking that they may be discouraged sitting through a service that is all about, A. Married people improving their relationship with their spouse, and B. singles abstaining to gain a deeper understanding of who the person they are dating truly is. I thought they might disconnect a little bit from the series . Then I realized that everything I am learning to do from abstaining can totally be applied to my relationship with God. The challenge is teaching me that by putting sex aside, I can learn more about the person I am dating and in turn, have a healthier, more meaningful relationship. Single people who are not dating can also practice all these things that the challenge is teaching us to do. By cutting out lustful thoughts, and working to improve other daily struggles, non-dating singles can have more time to focus on God and be able to come to a deeper understanding of who he truly is. Here it is: If you think you are single and not dating anyone, feeling a little lonely and left out of the challenge, guess again. You’re totally dating God. Pack your bags and hop on the “30 day sex challenge” train because you are just weeks away from having a deeper more meaningful relationship with a very important person —->JESUS.
New Sunday, originally uploaded by Relevant Church, Tampa.
So we are a week into the 30-Day Sex Challenge and we have just begun a new Sunday. As I write, we are in the midst of our second service of the day and the room is packed with people who are working through the challenge - some married, some single, both learning their individual needs and how to meet the needs of the person they are in relationship with. There are also many people here that are searching for who God is and what He may want to say in their lives.
It occurred to me as Paul was speaking on “Your Way. Right Away.”, that so much of our understanding and recognition of who we truly are and what our deepest emotional needs are is innately linked to who God is, how He designed us and what He has done for us. I believe that is the ultimate starting point for us to be able to find value in our selves, our singleness and any relationship that we have.
We just got this from Jake.
Paul and Relevant church.
I wanted to share what I have been learning over the last week.
Since the challenge started, I have been really asking God to reveal not only what I can do to please Jennifer, but what I can do to please God. I have had up and down periods of my life when I have become more or less dependent on my own personal sin, then that of keeping my sexual desires solely for my wife. What I mean is, not physically cheating on my wife, but mentally. My eyes have always been my downfall. Going to web sites I shouldnt, feeding off of images that dont gratify and make you feel guilty for doing so.
But over the last week I have avoided images or diverted my eyes from things I shouldnt see, that detract from the purity of my marriage. I have seen that I can win this battle over my lust with God’s help. This isnt to say I havent been tempted or that images that I shouldnt see have graced my screen or my vision, but when those images came up, I quickly diverted my eyes and quickly asked God for pure thoughts. I have also been showing my love for Jennifer with things I have been neglecting and on the house for the incoming baby.
I know the battle isnt over, but as a married man, satan attacks his hardest when we think we are invulnerable to attack. I just wanted to share that God is slowly freeing me of my lust and I want to say that to any married or single men out there, guard your eyes, because even lustfully looking is the same as doing the act itself.
I am incredibly thankful I am forgiven and that God is merciful in His love.
Jacob
WOW!! I just read Ryan’s entry and it was amazing. Ryan I think as a single guy you are really getting the point of this challenge and I am encouraged that your faith is growing.
I must admit that with all of the scheduling of time to meet with people and do interviews that Susie and I have had to really plan on meeting each others needs. I am realizing all over again that this whole idea of meeting each others needs is hard work. Sometimes my selfishness just rises up and I do not want to meet Susie’s needs, but for some reason I still want my needs meet. Is there anyone else who feels like me sometimes? I was wondering do you think Jesus ever got tired of meeting all of the crowds needs? I know on at least one occasion Jesus sent the crowd away because he needed to rest. Sometimes when we are tired it is the hardest time to meet someone needs, but when we meet someone’s needs even when we are tired we act most like Jesus because we are truly sacrificing.
Think about it what have you sacrificed this week for your spouse? How did it make them feel? How did it make you feel to unconditionally sacrifice to meet the needs of your spouse?
Enjoy the journey. If you are just beginning I would like to welcome you and encourage you to check out all of the past blogs so you know where we are going.
Over the past six days I have been blown away by the amount of attention the “30 day sex challenge” has been getting. I’ve been keeping up with my media, reading the newspaper article, watching the news reports on T.V., and reading others’ blogs on the internet. As I’ve been doing all this I have noticed that most people just want to talk about the married couples challenge of having sex for 30 days straight, but what about the singles challenge of abstaining from sex for 30 days? Nobody seems to want to talk about this, and when they do it is to say, “but shouldn’t a church teach to abstain until marriage?” I believe they are, and being a single younger guy, I’d really like to talk about it.
Loving. Jesus tells us to love, all throughout the bible. “Love thy neighbor”, “God is Love”, “this is a sign of my Love.” Love, love, love, its everywhere! When I was asked to take the “30 day sex challenge” and abstain from any kind of sexual activity, I may or may not have been doing, I didn’t hear, “Hey Ryan, we don’t want you to have any sexual activity for 30 days because we as a church are telling you not to,” but rather, “hey Ryan, do you Love God enough to hear and listen to what he has to say? We want you to take this challenge because we know God loves you and he wants to help you with issues in your life that may be challenging.” Love is a big part of the challenge. In the six days that it has been going on I’ve totally seen God’s love shining through in my life in so many different ways.
Saving. Obviously we all know that when we accept God into our hearts he saves us from an eternity of suffering, but we can use the word “save” in so many more ways on top of being “saved”. First, the challenge is teaching me that I should “save” myself for marriage. Why would I want to do that? Maybe you’re wondering if I have had sex before, or if I’ve managed to stay abstinent my entire life….but does it really make any difference? I’ve learned so far through taking the challenge that leaving sex out of a relationship gives me the opportunity to focus more deeply on the kind of person that the girl I am dating is. It gives me chances to get to know her likes and dislikes, what makes her smile when she is mad, how to cheer her up if she is sad, and how to encourage her and be a leader for her when things are not going according to plan in her life. These are things that I feel I would miss if I was focused on having sex with her rather than learning to rain love down on her. Second, the challenge has taught me that everyone needs to be “saved” and deserves an infinite amount of chances in life to make that happen. I say this because I was contacted by someone who was against our challenge. He said that we can’t preach abstinence for just 30 days and that it will just lead to failure and pretty much babies out of wedlock. He told me that he was in the process of excommunicating an 18 year old girl from his church for having two kids and not being married. This hurt my heart to the core. Would Jesus have left her in the desert all alone with her babies because she said she wouldn’t marry? Absolutely not. I believe he would be persistent. He would lift all three of them up, put them on his shoulders, carry them home and say, “I love you,” to which one day, and maybe not right away she would say, “I love you too.” Relevant, through the 30 day sex challenge, has also taught me to be relentless and never give up on anybody. Without the challenge I never would have heard that story and never would have come to that realization. I really hope that 18 year old girl reads this blog and knows that she is loved and that we would never “leave her alone in the desert.” Wow, all of this from a sex challenge? God is good.
Finally, abstaining. I choose to abstain because I feel like it is what is going to be best for me in the long run that is my life. For me it’s all about my future. The challenge is teaching me that abstaining will give me a more meaningful relationship with my future spouse. On, top of that I’m learning that that is what God wants for me in my life. I’m starting to think that this challenge is a win win opportunity. Developing an amazing relationship, while honoring God…honestly, who wouldn’t want to take this challenge?
God is Love.
We just received this from Mike
I have had some interesting conversations with work colleagues and friends alike on this challenge of ours. Every person I have talked to seems to have the same question for the singles challenge, “How can you truly progress in a relationship without knowing about such a large part of the relationship with physical and sexual chemistry?” Having been a sexually active single adult male, I have to admit that the thought had crossed my mind. Recently, prior to the 30-day sex challenge, I decided to leave sex out of the scenario and really focus on the woman I was interested in. I have discovered, at least in my own life, that I rushed to see how compatible I was sexually with my past relationships rather than truly getting to know the person I was with and deciding if we were really compatible as a couple.
If you haven’t considered giving this challenge a try I would highly recommend it. All there is to lose is 30 days of some hibidty-dibity, but if you have the results that I have had then you might be surprised to see how truthful you can be with yourself about your relationships. What I mean by that is simple. Before, I took this step of leaving sex out, I had been in several long term relationships where sex had been more of a focus than honestly looking at our personal differences to see if our relationship could stand on it’s own two feet without one of us having to be on our back. Good Luck.
We have had multiple news outlets cover our challenge. The best one so far was from Mike and Juliet in the morning on FOX. It was about an 11 minute piece, and we feel they did an excellent job of telling the whole story. The hosts even appeared to know the material we were presenting, which was awesome. Go here to check it out!
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