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Exchanged Glory III: Wise as Serpents
Once our emotions have become attached to these sorts of enchantments, they can be extremely difficult to detach. We feel as if we either have to fall into them or risk living unfulfilled lives.
The statistics concerning sexual sin among Christians reveal a sad picture. Here are a few figures:
- A 1996 Promise Keepers survey at one of their stadium events revealed that over 50% of the men in attendance were involved with pornography within one week of attending the event.
- In his book The Sexual Man, Dr. Archibald Hart revealed the results of a survey of some 600 Christian men, on the topic of privately acting out:
61% of married Christian men privately act out
82% of these have self sex on an average of once a week; 10% have sex with self 5-10 times per month, 6% more than 15 times per month, and 1% more than 20 times a month.
13% of Christian married men said they felt it was normal.
- 34 percent of female readers of Today's Christian Woman's online newsletter admitted to intentionally accessing Internet porn in a recent poll.
- In March of 2002, Rick Warren’s (author of The Purpose Driven life) Pastors.com website conducted a survey on porn use of 1351 pastors: 54% of the pastors had viewed Internet pornography within the last year, and 30% of these had visited within the last 30 days.[42]
Many Christians feel that their churches aren’t doing enough to address these sorts of problems. Part of this reticence is understandable. We are told to not speak about these sorts of sins.
For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.
When we can, we should avoid unnecessary discussions of scandal. The next verse in Ephesians, however, gives the other side of the story.
But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light.
We sometimes need to speak about some of what is done in secret so that we can make manifest what is happening. When so many Christians find themselves trapped by sexual sin, it is helpful for those who can lovingly describe the problem and show the way to freedom to do so. Though the darkness is messy, the light is more than enough to dispel it.
I believe we don’t do this because of the confusion brought by two “fairytales” that affect our thinking. Together, I call them the Fairytale Stronghold.
The first fairytale is the belief that if a married couple is truly in love, their romantic and sexual feelings toward each other will keep them faithful. It goes like this: “Boy (the charming prince) meets girl (the beautiful princess). Boy and girl fall in love. They live happily ever after and are never seriously tempted by anyone else.” It’s not that we don’t expect boy and girl to have some problems. We know that there will be difficulties, but we believe that love conquers all. It slays dragons, walks through deserts, and climbs over mountains when necessary.
Based on this belief, we tend to interpret strong temptations toward sex outside of marriage (including the temptation to view pornography or privately act out) as a sign that a husband and wife don’t love each other. If they did, they would be so happy that looking at others wouldn’t be an issue. When someone struggles, we blame it on a lack of a feeling rather than on a lack of wisdom.
A focus on feelings provides little hope for the Christian men who are bound by pornography. Their history has made it just about impossible for them to feel what the Romantic Fairytale requires. In fact, their hearts have been shaped by a different sort of fairytale. There are “beautiful princesses” in it who promise “happily ever after,” but they do it in a way that undermines marriage.
Men tend to be visually stimulated, and most of them have spent their formative years with images of beautiful women flashing before their eyes (through entertainment and advertising, and sometimes through pornography). To the extent that they have indulged in these images, the “one flesh chemical and psychological machinery” I mentioned in the previous chapter[43] has worn deep groves into their minds. Many have become emotionally bound to fantasies that are out of touch with the reality of marriage. While they may speak of fairytale-like romance, their hearts have been captured by a virtual harem.
What real life woman can compete with a group of air brushed models and actresses? What wife can match the hormone charged expectations stirred up by a sex-saturated society? Because of this, half of the men in church hold on to their mistaken fairytales through pornography.
Women tend to be relationship oriented, and by the time they enter marriage most have taken in scores of amazing love stories. To the extent that they have indulged in these, their hearts have been shaped with unrealistic dreams of romantic bliss. Powerful hopes and perceived needs that no husband can fulfill have been fanned into flame. Her fantasy might not be as degrading as one based in pornography, but it is a fantasy nonetheless.
How many men can compete with the sort of contrived romance we see portrayed in movies? There is a good chance that a godly husband is already fighting the exhausting battle to make a living, build a family, and deal with his own deep issues. It is unlikely he can live up to what his wife believes should come naturally to him.
The Fairytale Stronghold is strengthened by the late age at which people marry in western societies. I don’t believe we can significantly change this, but we should recognize that when we delay the godly fulfillment of our sexual desires they tend to drift into fantasy. Consider the following verses:
But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.
If you are like me, you have interpreted these verses to mean: “If a man or woman in their twenties or older cannot exercise self-control, let them marry.” It wasn’t until recently that I considered these verses in the context of the time in which Paul wrote them. Many people in his day married in their teens (sometimes in their mid-teens). His culture would have read these verses to include the interpretation: “If an adolescent cannot exercise self-control, let him or her marry.”
I find it enlightening to consider the approach to sex used in ancient Israel. When a young man turned thirteen, he was considered an adult. He had probably already started a full time job and was saving his money to pay the dowry price for a bride. As his sexual hormones entered his system, he didn’t perceive them in terms of actresses, models, and love stories. Instead, they influenced him to see sex as part of building a family. He connected them to the hard work He was doing in order to soon fulfill the scripture:
Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Two actions are mentioned in this verse: becoming independent (leave his father and mother) and sexual union (be joined to his wife). The desire for both of these surges during adolescence, and in ancient Israel there was a godly outlet for them – financial independence and marriage at a young age.
Today’s culture provides no such outlet, and not surprisingly, today’s adolescents are famous for mishandling their desires for independence and sex. I believe this is, in part, because we require them to hold off what comes naturally rather than providing a way for them to fulfill their God-given design.
Please don’t misinterpret what I just said to mean that I believe that today’s adolescents should marry at a young age. It would be next to impossible for them to successfully do that. The educational and emotional demands of our culture are too great. The support system that would be required doesn’t exist, and I am not sure it could exist. Without significant changes, marriage of mid-teens would produce even more problems than marriage of late-teen currently does. We would see even more divorces and heartbreak.
If that is the case, you may wonder, why I am bringing up this subject at all. I do so because I believe we need to examine what is happening so we can counter the resulting damage in people’s hearts. As God helps us to understand the problem, we can look to Him for His solutions. Our desires for independence and sexual fulfillment can’t be put on hold for ten years without consequences. They will grow and develop whether we want them to or not, and in a society that attempts to excite them, they will tend to latch onto any of a number of misguided directions.
When those misguided directions become entrenched in our hearts, they become our personal fairytale – a stronghold built with the backing of the one-flesh chemistry of our erotic nature. Once it exists, the emotions are intense, hard to question, and difficult to change. They have locked themselves into a way of thinking that seems to define the way love works for us.
I saw a surprising example of this in a college professor of mine in the 1970s. He told our class that even after marriage people felt guilt about having sex with their spouses. I wasn’t sure what to make of his statement until I realized that he had grown up in the 1940s and 1950s when guilt had been used to encourage abstinence. A connection between guilt and sex had formed in his mind that had remained long after the reason for any guilt had been removed. Sex felt “dirty.”
That is different than the fairytale-like connections we tend to make today, but it shows what happens when misconceptions make their way into our still-forming sexuality. They tend to become permanent parts of that area of our lives.
What is the answer to this thorny stronghold? It is God and His wisdom.
Through wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.
Discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you …to deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words …
(Proverbs 2:11; 16)
The Fairytale Stronghold’s holds out “falling in love” as the solution to misled sexuality. It misunderstands the damage that has occurred. Romantic and sexual love for a spouse is extremely important, but they cannot build a house or keep someone from seduction. That comes from the kind of Holy Spirit inspired, nitty-gritty wisdom we have been studying in this book. We need to be equipped to make and carry out good decisions. The Holy Spirit must work in our hearts to form realistic expectations and skills based on truth. We have to walk in God’s ways even when our emotions are trying to drag us in another direction.
The Fairytale Stronghold promises ecstasy while it robs us of the ability to walk in the most delightful of human relationships. Its lie is that happiness and purity comes from a dreamy feeling rather than from hard-nosed practice at dying to our sinful ways and putting on God’s character.
The fruit of the lie shows itself in many forms. One is the approach that many single people take to dating. They go from one physical relationship to another until they find someone who they believe will inspire them to remain faithful. They look to feelings rather than to God’s plan for true love over a lifetime.
Many then lose heart when their marriage falls short of the fairytale. They believe they have been joined with the wrong person. God’s command against divorce seems unreasonable and cruel. How could He tell them to give up the beauty of “true love” in order to stay in an unfulfilling union with someone who no longer inspires the fire?
God has answers. His wisdom can get us past our disillusionment so that we become enraptured with our spouses (Proverbs 5:19), and He will do this as we walk with Him. Unfortunately, many choose to endure a painful divorce in the hopes of finding the “perfect lover.” They give up true happiness to pursue a fairytale.
It is important to take a serious look at the concept of falling in love. First, we should notice that men (and I assume women) are capable of falling in love with more than one person at the same time. Just look at the practice of polygamy in the Old Testament. Solomon, who wrote the beautiful love poem we find in the Bible (Song of Solomon), had a thousand wives and concubines, and the Bible makes it clear that he loved many of them.
But King Solomon loved many foreign women …
This verse shows that romantic love doesn’t automatically bind us into an exclusive relationship. Wisdom needs to be added. (And obviously, on this point, Solomon didn’t walk in that wisdom.)
It isn’t difficult to see how unreliable falling in love can be. Some men and women have been known to fall in love with one abusive partner after another. By following their romantic desires, they end up in a lifetime of mistreatment. Others fall in love with actresses and actors they don’t even know. Those with homosexual desires fall in love with others of the same sex
Many of us have had our romantic and erotic emotions shaped by foolishness that is so deep we can’t comprehend it. We have a horrible foundation for the sorts of choices that marriage requires. If we follow the Fairytale Stronghold, we will end up in disaster.
One of the most tragic consequences can be adultery. What happens when a married person meets someone who seems to be their “soul mate” (the person with whom they feel they can enjoy the fairytale), and it isn’t their current spouse? If they follow the stronghold, they will feel justified in pursuing an affair or divorcing their spouse in order to try to fulfill their desires.
This example by itself should be enough to shoot our misconceptions out of the sky, but strongholds are not so easily torn down. We cling to them even when they defy logic. In fact, we sometimes cling to them precisely because they defy logic. They draw us away from the harsh realities of discipline and obedience to God’s word and allow us to get lost in a make-believe world of beautiful feelings.
Please don’t think that I am saying we should give up on beautiful feelings. Romance and sexuality are a large part of marriage. God isn’t afraid to describe the relationship between husband and wife in terms that could be considered fairytale-like (Proverbs 5:18-19). We should seek those sorts of emotions with our spouses.
Our problem isn’t that we have fairytales; it is that we have the wrong fairytales. For many of us, our view of love is based in misled adolescent imaginations rather than in the truth of a real-life relationship with a spouse. Once our emotions have become attached to these sorts of enchantments, they can be extremely difficult to detach. We feel as if we either have to fall into them or risk living unfulfilled lives.
God’s wisdom, however, can teach us how to nurture and grow our emotions in an atmosphere of truth and grace. He can move us from misguided fantasies to our own personal “fairytale” with our spouse. Our romantic and sexual emotions will find fulfillment as they express His goodness in the marriage He has given us.
By the standards of the Fairytale Stronghold, any person who struggles with a sexual abnormality is unfit for a healthy Christian marriage. They sometimes feel as if the only fairytale available to them is one based in actions God has called sinful. For example, some Christians continue to struggle with homosexual desires after marriage. They can love an opposite-sex spouse, but not according to the standards of the Fairytale Stronghold (which tells them that if they were really in love, they wouldn’t have homosexual desires).
If they don’t see through the lie, they may conclude that they are giving up on the best that romance has to offer in order to pursue a morally pure yet unfulfilling relationship. Obedience to God appears to lock them into a lifetime of disappointment and hypocrisy. Ironically, true love as defined by God looks like a counterfeit.
Others don’t fully buy into the lie, but they turn against themselves because of their inability to meet up to the fairytale. I know the pain this causes, because I have done it. I had sexual struggles that refused to leave in spite of decades of obedience in my thoughts and actions. I eventually beat myself up and damaged my emotions with self-reproach over my continuing temptations. It wasn’t enough that I controlled them and made progress against them. According to the Fairytale Stronghold, the fact that they were there at all invalidated my love for my wife. I lived with the fear that I was an inadequate freak who was hurting her even on my best days. I wondered if I would ever change enough to love her in the way I felt a real husband should.
My self-reproach could have been avoided if I had found the courage to stand for what the book of Proverbs taught me. I did love my wife, and I showed that by storming Heaven for the wisdom to overcome my difficult sexual tendencies. My constant pursuit of God’s best for her sake showed that I cared about her like no other. My feelings of inadequacy were based on a lie.
I have seen a tragic irony that the Fairytale Stronghold can bring. Some men won’t read a book on overcoming sexual sin because they are afraid their wife will see them. If she knew about his temptations (especially if he gives in to them) she would be crushed. It would shatter the fairytale, and the husband fears (sometimes rightfully) that she wouldn’t be able to handle it. In order to protect the illusion, he stays away from God’s path to true love.
The husband and wife live in different worlds. She views their relationship as if they were being carried by angels into the beauty of God’s creation. She not only delights in it, she also feels a duty to satisfy his needs. A sexually addicted man, however, has a totally different perspective. He can enjoy wonderful experiences with his wife during sex, but afterward he is likely to be dropped back into the hedge of thorns that was formed long before he met her. His deceptive longings tell him that the only way to be happy is to engage in sex that his wife cannot provide.
My heart grieves for both of them. The entire future of their family hangs in the balance. If they fail to gain the wisdom needed to live as God intends, their make-believe world will last only as long as they can hold up the image of happiness. God’s version of romantic love is waiting for them, but they are afraid to let go of the fantasy. The Fairytale Stronghold can be extremely frightening to leave behind.[44]
Without addressing the Fairytale Stronghold, I am not sure how we can present answers to this plague. Picture a marvelous sermon which inspires half the men in the church to come forward and repent from viewing pornography. It would be nice if this would fix their problems, but in reality they will probably need months and perhaps years of work before they gain the wisdom to be comfortable with their commitment to purity. They must go through the often long and difficult process of allowing God to dismantle fairytales that have been cemented into their hearts by years of tempting images and sin.
And what will happen to their wives? Many of them will feel incredible rejection and betrayal as they watch their husbands walk to the altar. They don’t have a framework of truth that can explain their husbands’ problems and offer them hope and comfort. Their hearts will be torn between gladness over his repentance and humiliation that he needed to repent at all. It will take time for the Holy Spirit to show them how to come to grips with their feelings.
In addition, a wife may have her own fairytales to deal with. Her heart may not know how to love a man who falls so far short of her expectations. And since her fairytale is based in romance rather than pornography, it will be far harder to see than her husband’s. Our fairytales tend to be self-justifying; they just seem to be “right” for us. Even a man who violates his marriage vows will often blame his wife for not being the woman he feels he needs. How much more a woman who remains faithful and merely believes her husband should be an incarnation of her version of prince charming?
We need to learn to work with the Holy Spirit as He teaches us what to expect in our marriages. This usually isn’t an easy process:
…love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave; its flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame.
The Fairytale Stronghold is made of material that is strong as death, jealous, cruel as the grave, and like a vehement flame. We can’t simply look at it and say, “I was mistaken, but I will quickly put all of that behind me.” Instead, anger and frustration will likely rise as we attempt to move forward. Fear, guilt, and fault-finding will sometimes grab for our hearts. We may switch back and forth between blaming ourselves and blaming each other. Supernatural grace for forgiving one another will likely be essential as we make our way through difficult times.
Sometimes we will want to sweep the entire problem under the rug and adopt a “don’t ask; don’t tell” policy. It seems too disrupting to allow God to reshape us in this part of our being. Love is designed to be passionate – and that passion tends to dismantle even our clearest decisions. We take two steps forward and then lose our footing and slip back. Humility, patience, and wisdom must be learned along the journey.
As we grow to be led by the Holy Spirit, He will guide us through the mystery of our emotionally charged romantic and sexual emotions. He will call for us to lay our expectations at the foot of the cross. We must humbly seek His help as He turns our fairytale-like feelings to become based in the reality of a relationship between an imperfect husband and wife growing in grace. We will learn to love our spouse as he or she is rather than as our fairytale demands.
Our feelings will still be as strong as death, jealous, cruel as the grave, and like a vehement flame, but that strength will transform to build our marriage rather than tear it down. Freedom comes as we persevere in pursuing God, hold on in His love, and learn to be wise as serpents.
I mentioned earlier that there were two fairytales that make up the Fairytale Stronghold. The romantic fairytale was the first. The second relates to the entire Christian life, and it also keeps us from addressing the plague of sexual sin in the church. It goes like this, “Person meets God. Person senses God’s love and falls so in love with Him that every major sin in person’s life is fairly quickly swept away.”
Sensing God’s love and being in love with Him are essential, but they aren’t enough by themselves. We also need wisdom from Him so we can learn how to live. We need the Holy Spirit to show us our faulty approaches and to teach us His better ways.
This second flavor of the Fairytale Stronghold causes us to see character as a virtue that God mystically drops into our hearts rather than a skill that His Spirit teaches us painstaking detail by painstaking detail in the dirt and grime of real life. It makes it hard for us to find patience for the unsightly emotions and habits of those who are bound in deep darkness. When freedom doesn’t quickly fall on them, we aren’t sure what to do with their ongoing struggles.
I couldn’t live the spiritual version of the Fairytale Stronghold any more than I could the romantic version. I had fear, anger, and sorrow bound up within me that fought against the love, peace, and joy God was bringing. My hedge of thorns kept me from what I believed should automatically happen once I surrendered to Jesus. The ugliness of my emotions was a far cry from my fairytale view of what my life should be.
This series of books describes a good deal of how God gave me His wisdom to turn that around. First and foremost, I got to know Jesus. Then I found ways to work around the brewing cauldron of discontent within me. Many of my short-term solutions weren’t the best ways to handle my problems, but I did the best I could with the wisdom I had. Eventually, God taught me how to get down into my darkest emotions, discover the Holy Spirit’s insight for restoration, and remove the demons that were stirring up the trouble.
Lord willing, Exchanged Glory IV: A Time for Every Purpose will describe the time in my life when the emotional part of that process took hold. It won’t be a pretty story, but it will be a real life account of how God helped me to come to grips with my pain and confusion. I grew to know Him as the One who was strong enough to overcome the horror of sin and death. He freed me from my fairytales and turned my life into a satisfying tale of battle, brokenness, and heaven-birthed healing.
It was worth the difficulty. In my marriage, it helped me to appreciate my wife for who she is rather than for who my immature expectations thought she would be. In my walk with God, it helped me to see that He is much bigger than my little definitions of how He should work. I now find Him speaking in ways I never expected and letting me in on secrets that excite me like nothing else. My life (to me at least) has become an incredible journey in which the Living God has revealed Himself to an otherwise lost and insignificant man. That’s a whole lot better than a fairytale.
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