Not too long ago I wrote a post directed largely toward women regarding premarital sex. Well this one is for the guys.
A few years ago, I was leading a middle school boys life group and there was a week where we (the leaders) were going to tackle the very difficult subject of how abstinence is in line with God's will. This was already tricky because of their age; half of them had parents that would rather we not use the s word, yet there was a handful that had already experimented.
One boy straight up asked me, "Why does it matter to wait?" Luckily at sixth grade, he was still a virgin, but you could tell he had never even considered the idea of waiting for marriage. My answer was weak. I talked about how you didn't want your wedding night to be just like every other night, and I tried to throw in some stuff about God's will.
I did the best I could at the time, and three years later I am more researched to offer a stronger reply. But the fact remains, it's harder to convince a guy to wait for marriage. It seems like women better understand the benefits of waiting. Women understand their self worth and you realize that punk is just a pig and shouldn't be pressuring you in the first place. But guys are proven to be more hormonally driven, which makes it hard to point out the positives of abstinence.
I could go on about how if you compromise once, you'll do it again. I could talk about how Christian couples who waited are proven to have sex more frequently into old age than those who didn't. But at the end of the day, these aren't the kinds of thoughts you'll have at the end of a date.
No matter your gender, it comes down to rules. God doesn't want us sleeping around before marriage. But we can't be legalistic or we lose sight of God because we're so concerned about how our abstinence makes us better than others.
So how do we fix this? Frankly, with a relationship with Jesus.
I wish there was a reason for men to wait that could appeal to reason or logic. But there's not. It has to be supernatural. Self control is a fruit of His Spirit and has to come from God. If you can do this, it won't feel like a rule or self-control. It will be joyous and you'll have this unexplainable joy in waiting. Sex needs to be preached, but when the pressure is on, you aren't gonna be thinking of a sermon. You need someone bigger than you guiding your moves.
Men, be a leader and follow God.
