Disguised under a tinted and vulnerable, cellophane-like covering, we boast adventure, experimentation, freedom, passion, and hurt as reasons for some of our poorest decisions. When we think of what causes the most pain in a life, many of us go straight to drugs and alcohol. These readily available and well-marketed delusions have destroyed many lives, along with the lives of the user’s immediate circle. Dangerous and adrenaline creating stunts are also culprits of chronic pain and destruction. While I’ve had ample experience with these cases, my immediate and confident answer is not in any of these arenas.
What is the thing that has caused me the most pain in my life? Hands down and without doubt, it is pre-marital sex.
In the previous article we showed how God tells us in His Word we are meant to have one sexual partner, marry young, have kids within marriage, and to enjoy sex with our spouse, which it is a gift and blessing from God. I took all these directions and promises and gifts of God and destroyed them in my life. I trampled on them. I cursed them. Looking back, I know there is nothing that has caused greater destruction, pain, death, and regret, than my sexual path as a young person. I can tell you by not only what it says in the Bible, but by life experience, this is God’s truth.
The world, the devil, our selfish freewill, however you want to express it, has taken God’s beautiful gift of sex and has perverted it to our own destruction. When we disregarded God’s initial intention for sex within marriage it became a pathway for millions to be infected with disease. It has created and sustains the abortion industry. It has broken countless marriages, which are permanent bonds in the eyes of God (see Mark 10:9). Sex outside of God’s law has created prostitution, the pornography industry, and the sex trade, which victimizes the most vulnerable; children, the poor, and the defenseless. It is a driver of embarrassment, stress, pain, anxiety, murder, and suicide.
My History
When I was a young boy, I can’t say the age, but I can say they are in my earliest memories, I was continually given pornography to look at by other men. It’s interesting to look back on that and know that these men were not intentionally trying to destroy my life. They were doing me a favor as far as they were concerned. Giving a boy what he wanted most. Giving him experience and knowledge in the ways of the world so he wouldn’t be found wanting. Often, the giving was also a distraction to what they were doing in the other room. Let’s not be naïve, this is non-contact, sexual abuse to a child.
As an adolescent I was encouraged to pursue sexual experiences with women. Always being asked what kind of sexual experiences I was having with my current girlfriend. I was hooked up with women who were known to be sexually active and liberal. I lost my virginity at 13 to a 14-year-old girl. I had my own liquor cabinet behind a bulletin board in my bedroom for a year or two prior to that.
It was common to sneak out of the house to pursue alcohol and sexual experiences at this young age. I realize now that depression and isolation had appeared in my life at the age of 13, a condition that would weigh heavily on me into my 30’s. My first suicide attempt accompanied the first time I got a girl pregnant, which was followed by an abortion. I was 14 or 15.
Later in life I would experience the one-night-stand. Immortalized in song and movies as the ultimate sexual experience, the two I had experiences only delivered deepened depression, worry, fear, anxiety, guilt, and regret for me.
As a result of being taught this lifestyle and behavior from boyhood, I failed to have a faithful relationship with any woman throughout my teenage and young adult years. I was trained to be unfaithful, to want sexual volume and experiences over relationships and intimacy. Fortunately, I wasn’t a good “womanizer.” I was horrible at it actually. My heart wasn’t in it, I was a terrible liar, and I cared too much for the women I met. There was a seed of responsibility and a gentlemanly character planted in me as a result of the influence of a few godly men in my life. Their seeds were in the minority, but the light they provided successfully staved off a complete takeover by the darkness that held me.
A Short Life of Sin and Destruction
By the time I was 17, I had experience with disease, unwanted pregnancies, abortions, suicide attempts, severe depression, addiction, DUI and multiple car wrecks, arrest for theft, and isolation. You will find the breakage of all ten of the Commandments in these few years, including murder. I can honestly say, it is the guidance I was given by the dominant males in my life, guidance that encouraged sexual conquest over sexual purity, and worldly pleasure over a relationship with God, that caused nearly all of this pain, destruction, and death.
I was a child who thought he was a man. A child who was living his life as if he were capable of making the important, life-changing decisions of a man. I was a child who was led terribly astray.
In the third and final post of this series I will walk you through where I failed in these three areas and how they affected my marriage:
- Having one partner
- Marrying young
- Having Children
- God’s intention for sex to be enjoyed
Check out a recent blog post on sobriety and addiction.
Thank you for reading. It may seem strange to say, but I hope you are encouraged by my failures, poor choices, and eventual life-changing salvation.
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