Intended for Intimacy

As the father of seven young children, my friend is accustomed to the looks and comments of strangers out in public.  Some are even brazen enough to quip things like, “Do you know what’s causing this?”  My friend is quick with the retort, “Yes, and we enjoy it too much to stop.” That typically puts them in their place. My favorite line is when he tells people he has seven kids not because he loves kids so much but because he loves his wife so much. People always laugh.

There would be absolutely nothing to smile about if his seven kids were from seven different mothers, three of whom were his sisters. My apologies for the quick turn into creepsville and dysfunction. It was necessary to make the point that sex is a good and wonderful thing within the confines of certain boundaries, in particular the boundary of marriage. Marriage is the life-long commitment between one man and one woman. Outside that context of fidelity, sex isn’t safe.

Those who read this column each month know I regularly connect health and wellness with living as our Creator intended. The reason God put sex within the confines of marriage is not because he wants to spoil the fun, but because he wants to spare us the pain.

There is much confusion today with regard to sex and sexuality. There is even more hurt, brokenness, shame and addiction. This is not the place to review our nation’s Puritan and Victorian past as it relates to the suppression of human sexuality as an evil. Nor is it necessary to detail what we all see every day: an over-sexed society where lust an exploitation are a multi-billion dollar industry and where perversion is reaching frightening levels under what can only be described as