Purity

How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word. -Psalm 119:9

I'm not entirely sure this verse would have helped me much when I was young. Not to say the Bible isn't helpful or applicable, but I think I would have read this and said "yeah, but what if he's really hot?" or "But what if we do ____, that doesn't count, right?"

I watched Easy A last night (and have now worked it into both my blogs and my Facebook page, hooray). And it brought to my mind the fact that high school really does seem to be all about who's losing their virginity. Maybe not in quite as dramatic a way, but still.

And yet, God calls us to be sexually pure. This is soooo not an area of life in which I excel.

On the other hand, looking back at that verse, it's not like it's entirely unhelpful. In fact, if you say "Ok, what does living by God's word mean?" It means actually reading the Bible, and studying it, and applying it to our own lives. It means understanding that God made us sexual creatures but that does not mean that we have to have sex. It means that as we grow a greater understanding of who God is and how much He loves us, we will have the desire to be more like Christ and less like our crazy, sex-filled selves. (And here's a hint--you can replace that last descriptor with sinful, arrogant, alcoholic, angry, etc. This doesn't just work for horny teenagers.)

And even to the kids who think "yeah but I've already done ______, now I want to do it again, and it's all I can think of, and you've got to be kidding me that I can't do this again? It's gonna kill me" well yeah, it might be difficult (that's kinda why we're supposed to abstain from it in the first place), but God has grace. If you truly say "God I know I shouldn't ________, and I want to live according to your will, but I just have no willpower right now," it's amazing how He will intervene. He'll make that hot guy you like completely unavailable, or make him fall asleep before anything can actually happen, or help you to fall asleep.

It's not like we can just throw it in God's lap and say "Ok unless you completely push me off course, I'm gonna barrel ahead on down the road," we should at least try. But he gets that it's hard. He created us, He knows what's going through our minds. He also allows us to do what we really try to do, so remember that at some level you actually have to want to stop doing  __________. Because we've got free will. If we tell God "nope, I'm gonna go screw the entire football team," He might just let us.

So here's to reading the Bible more, and getting a better understanding of God's love, so we don't have to try to seek it elsewhere.