According to the popular myth of our culture, once young people become sexually aware, they should start experimenting sexually, allowing themselves to experience the full range of sexual options and varieties. Culture says there are no real long-term risks to this kind of behavior, as long as proper precautions are taken.
Our culture gets it wrong.
To get it right, we have to go all the way back to the beginning. Sex is God’s good gift to a man and a woman to express their love for each other in a way that words cannot. This gift is best expressed in the committed relationship of a covenant marriage.
Sex is a language, and touches are the words. Like any language, there has to be something to say. In a sexual relationship, the couple says to each other, “I love you as I love no other. This part of me is reserved only for you.” When that happens, souls touch. In a committed relationship, the souls come together and stay together. This touching bonds the two together at a deeper level. The Bible says in this moment, the two become one flesh.
But if there’s no message, if there’s nothing to say, then the couple is left only with emptiness. Souls that touched are now torn apart by the separation. This pulling apart tears the soul and leaves it wounded and bleeding. Sure, it heals, but it also scars.
And scars don’t have any feeling. In time, the soul is so scarred that it can’t feel anything at all. Sex was never intended to be recreational.
It’s about meaning—the meaning of love, of self, of life. Sex is a beautiful gift, and as such, sex is to be treasured, not trivialized as a sport.
