Sexual Purity
There is a prayer I pray often for my two girls: Lord, please give them the desire, the courage, and the fortitude to remain sexually pure until marriage.
Does it surprise you that my girls are just 3 and 5 years old? I believe it’s never too early to start praying that our children make wise sexual decisions, that they value their hearts and bodies, and that they see abstinence until marriage as an attainable prize worth striving for.
Unfortunately, the society we live in tells them and us just the opposite. For many kids growing up today, abstinence until marriage is a foreign concept. How and why would anyone choose such a path? Nobody on TV abstains. All the songs on the radio are about giving it away. And the teenage years are all about having fun and hooking up, right?
Influence Early
With a culture that bombards our kids with these messages, it will take a strong counter-message from parents, as well as fervent prayers lifted up, to guide them in a better way. The problem is that many parents, even Christian parents, don’t see sexual purity as a real possibility for their kids. “They’re going to do it anyway so what’s the use?” and “I did it; so will they” are common mentalities for parents. But what parents need to realize is that their perception of sex before marriage has a strong influence on that of their kids. If they believe and are vocal about their belief that sex is saved for marriage, their kids will be inclined to believe the same.
I work part-time for an abstinence education program that teaches in high schools. And every year I am amazed at some of the perceptions and world views my students bring into class. “Nobody can tell me how to live my life,” “I’m going to do what makes me happy,” and “Whether I have sex is nobody’s business but mine” are summaries of the comments I get on their anonymous first-day-of-class evaluations. Of course, I go on to teach them about the physical and emotional consequences of sex before marriage. I tell them about the STDs; the high rate of teen pregnancies; and the guilt, regret, and lowered self-esteem.
God Created Your Kids For More
But what I can’t tell them in the classroom is that God created them for more. And the reason there are so many negative consequences to premarital sex is because His plan was always monogamy for life—faithfulness until death because that’s what He shows to us. (2 Timothy 2:13). And it turns out, sex within the bounds of marriage is where freedom and satisfaction are found. It’s the joy that comes from commitment, just like we have with God.
I wish more parents painted this picture for their kids—that they realized what a gift it would be to pass on these truths. It’s not a one-time conversation, of course. It’s a way of viewing the world that’s imprinted and intertwined in all your talks about love, relationships, and self-worth. Obviously you can’t talk to your 5- and 3-year-olds about sex, but you can set the tone for the way they view marriage and relationships—steering away from talk of boyfriends and girlfriends and emphasizing the beauty of marriage and faithfulness.
And then you can pray like crazy their hearts are responsive to God’s desires.
This isn’t about being strict and legalistic. If your kids or mine fail in this area, (as most of us have in one way or another) we’ll, of course, love them the same and extend grace freely. It’s about wanting LIFE for our kids and wanting it more abundantly. It’s the same reason we force them to eat veggies and make them look both ways before crossing the street.
As mothers, it is our job to teach, instill, and model our values, while praying God makes them stick.
And as a woman who’s been there and a teacher who’s seen it all, this is one virtue I’m passionate about for my daughters. I believe our God is too.
Excellent advice Kelcie, and I am proof it works! Thanks for sharing.
We have messed up. We need to be aware of how we over emphasize “female purity”, as we ignore male purity. Both genders must be pure until marriage, so what’s up with the trend to focus only on girls and allow our husbands to escort our daughters to an activity where dad is exalted and allowed to lord over the mother’s daughter, while leaving her completely out of this creepy and inappropriate activity.
It is important to talk about purity with our boys also. The female usually has a partner, remember. Boys are the ones who usually are interested in sex and reach out to encourage the girls to perform, although the trend has somewhat changed and we do see where our weak and gullible girls have become so indoctrinated, that they will pursue the boys.
SoGod does not only expect for the girl to be pure, he expects the same behavior from boys, it’s that we have begun to follow man-made doctrine that make us fault and focus on our girls only. Wrong move!
Therefore, let us pray and talk with our boys too, about being pure too. There needs to be so many adjustments made in our approach to raising boys and girls, and it is not the role of dad only, to teach and guide the daughter. Children are to be raised by both parents. I have daughters and I am a daughter and my husband does not lord over my daughters. This is a joint effort. I firmly believe that the reason why there is so much sexual morality, is because we have dropped the ball on guiding our sons. Dads are allowed to hang around daughters while the sons are going “wild” too.
Feb 2015