Tonight has been a strange night for me. Generally I come up with an idea that I fancy as fairly relevant and useful for people to hear, but quickly forget about it as I am too busy to seriously consider letting anyone know what I'm thinking. Tonight, however, I have actually been taking the time to write down my thoughts, and I thought this one was blog appropriate.
I was pondering an encounter I had with some gentlemen on a train from San Fran. I had handed them some tracts on my way to sit down, but was sitting close enough and couldn't help but overhear their conversation. Let's just say the gist of it had to do with lots of money, and lots of women. My heart was breaking, and I mentioned that I sort of wanted to talk to them, so Julie Logan, activator that she is, would let me do none other than talk to these 4 guys. And that I did.
They were actually quite receptive and eager to talk with even me, a stranger. I began to preach the gospel to them, starting of course with the law in order to bring about the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20b). As we got to lust, however, these seemingly upstanding and successful gentlemen had some serious objections, one of which I fumbled over in a deceptively composed sort of way. My pride, I believe, wanted to show him that I could take him on head to head with every objection I could come up with. Surely I couldn't admit that I was actually not ready to give a defense (1 Pet 3:15)! Looking back, perhaps that's what I should have done, but nevertheless I believe God used that interaction for His kingdom.
So what was the objection? I forget exactly how it was worded, but it was something along the lines of "God gave me sexual desires, so it's unreasonable for anyone to ask me to postpone fulfilling them when I feel like fulfilling them." A sort of "Why would God torture me like this" kind of objection. I recently thought of an analogy in response to this argument, something that might shed light on the human condition.
First of all, let's just lay the groundwork that we know God is not some sick distant being constantly tempting us and laughing at our plight as we fall in our struggles to please Him. He does not ever tempt anyone to sin (James 1:13). Suppose we have someone who is given to anger, ought he resist unleashing said anger? I would say yes and no. You see, it is not so much the anger that is the issue as is the motivation, the target, and the fruit of his anger. That is, we need to ask three simple questions:
1) Why is he angry?
2) Who/what is the recipient of his anger?
3) What is his anger driving him to do?
We would be hard pressed to make the Biblical case that ALL anger is completely wrong, because Paul implied that you could be angry without sinning (Eph 4:26; Ps 4:4) and because God Himself is angry every day (Ps 7:11). However, just because God created man with the capacity to feel anger, this does not automatically make every misuse of that capacity God's fault! God is not held accountable for the sinful actions any human being decides to commit with one of the gifts given to them. So if someone goes into fits of anger (which is sin, Gal 5:20), it is their sin that condemns them for twisting and abusing God's gift for the sake petty, personal issues rather than eternal, kingdom issues.
In the same way, God has made humans male and female, and made them so that a man would be joined to his wife. The sexual desires the man has are meant for only her (and vice versa). If those desires are directed at anyone else, they become sinful, not because God is a killjoy, but because they are being used in such a way that sends messages such as "God doesn't have the best in mind for me" or "God is out of touch with my needs" or some other utterly irreverent thought. Ultimately this names God a liar, because He has told us clearly what the guidelines are for having that kind of a physical relationship. It also reveals that you are not finding supreme joy in God. God has created us to find our ultimate joy in Him.
So in conclusion, it isn't that God has given us desires that he doesn't want us to fulfill, but that we have twisted those desires in our sinfulness to serve our own purposes and not those for which God has given them to us. We attempt to derive our joy from the gifts, not realizing that the gifts were always meant to direct us to the Giver. If we truly derive our ultimate satisfaction from Christ, then the other issues start to fade into insignificance in light of His worth and His glory.
