daniel troy carmichael

Sexuality

"The Secret Place", from the story of the Shulamite woman (The Song of Solomon), by http://www.donnasmallenberg.com

Have you heard the latest study that children are hereditary? ...If your parents didn't have any, chances are you won't either!

Human sexuality is one of the most complex ideas I have pondered in all my life, of all the many spiritual and temporal ideas and knowledge I have set my heart to understand. Human sexuality is right up there with infinity, the effects of velocity and mass on time, and the Holy Trinity. Human sexuality is a mystery, the Bible says, that involves more than just skin on skin but an actual spiritual union analogous of the oneness the Body of Christ has with Jesus. It is so bold as to describe the oneness of husband and wife with Christ and the Church....Wow!

Though the Bible has lots to say on the subject--even devoting a whole book of the Bible to it, filled with subtle (and non-so-subtle) innuendo--the Church has done a poor job teaching human sexuality in its Biblical context for nigh unto two-thousand years. Most Christians do not have a proper Biblical world view of sex, but a distorted, less than right view. They wrongly think it something not to be mentioned or discussed with anything but a cursory response.

But God invented sex. And for us human be-ings, he tied sex to our spiritual nature, via the soul: something no other creature in existence has! Besides making it procreational, He has also made it recreational and relational. Have you ever pondered why of all animals humans are the only ones who procreate face-to-face? The Bible talks about a relational God as a relational being and the relational intimacies between husband and wife in such a similar context. It is face to face because it is more than a physical act; it is relational and deeply mysterious.

I'm slow on the uptake on a lot of things. I remembered I was engaged to my wife before I ever realized that women have hips and men didn't. (Ohhhhhhh.... I always thought the hips and waist were the same--duh! for men they are, lol...she had to tell me). So, I know I am slow to a lot of things and as I have been married nearly 19 years now, maybe it is time I realized some things that I never have before....And since I am writing this for myself and not others, I don't really mind if you have already figured all this out. Like I said, I'm slow!

Since about the time I became a Christian, I knew that the sex act was multifaceted in that it was somehow physical, soulical, and spiritual all at the same time. But I've always wondered about the sex drive. I mean, is it all just testosterone and chemical reactions and synaptic connections between nerve endings? Or is it also body/soul/spirit driven and, if so, how does it work and what is right and wrong? Noticing a beautiful sunset is not wrong, so what about a beautiful female? What really is lust and what is just admiring beauty? How do I know if I am sinning (i.e. lusting) versus not sinning (i.e. admiring God's handiwork)? Because of my desire to live holy for God, I have struggled with this since I was first sexually aware. I thank God for Romans 8:1 and Galatians 5:1, by the way, and you should, too.

I don't have the answers, but I have recently realized that the sex drive can be broken into multiple components, each sufficiently strong in and of itself to draw male and female to the sex act in either a holy or an unholy manner:

• The purely physical pleasure side, organic and nervous system driven. Like the rut for deer and elk, being in heat for dogs and cats, or going to Daytona Beach for Spring Break if you are a college student (laugh...it's funny). This is what a lot of "The World" focuses on--probably about 50% of "love" and sex is of this manner.

• Then there is the physical beauty of the human body: the curves of the female, the strength of the male. The soft and tender meeting the hardened and durable. It is male and female beauty viewed by the eyes, heard in the voice, smelled, tasted, touched. It is the attraction between husband and wife beyond hormones and our neurological system and compelled by beauty. For God has written beauty into the heart of mankind. The same beauty that causes a man to marvel at a sunset has basis for him wondering at the form of woman. This appears to be about 35% of what The World seems to be talking about when it talks sex and "love".

• Then what I call the soul area--the desire in our soul to have companionship with another, what draws friends together and, much more, husband and wife. The desire for intimacy beyond expression of words, thoughts, or touch. The desire to be one--truly one--where there is no distinction in thought between "me" and "us". The desire for "me" to be singularly plural--"me and my spouse as one". Like the union of the Trinity: the Divine Singular One-God, Three-in-One. This part of sexuality does not seem to be expressed well in The World, maybe 15% at best, and is what it cheaply calls "love" yet does not understand.

• Also in this soul-desiring area appears to be the desire to partake of another's character, or personality. The desire to share by joining with that person their goodness, integrity, and strength of person--or, in fallen and wicked form, the desire to share in the person's waywardness, lawlessness, rebelliousness.

• And then there is something deeper than all of these, the something I have always known, but STILL cannot put my thoughts around. There is something deeper, spiritual transcending time, place, and dimensions that happens at such a deep part, it becomes unfathomable as it intersects eternity. It is trust, faith, hope. Something eternal I cannot yet define, ineffable. It is something on the plane of existance wherin resides our own eternal spirit.