Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Response to "sex outside of marriage" question (Spiritual Q&A @ http://ssgteamblog.blogspot.com/)

Below is my response to a question that I answered for Soul Solutions Healing Group. My response, responses from other writers, and many additional spiritual articles, are available at the Soul Solutions Healing Group Team Blog (http://ssgteamblog.blogspot.com/). The following response addresses a question about the desire for sex outside of marriage when such behavior doesn't align with personal beliefs.

.........However, I believe that challenges are injected into our lives for productive purposes. I believe that such challenges are actually compliments from God. This challenge has been given to you because God believes that you can satisfy the requirements to overcome the challenge. God has identified you as a man that has the patience and strength to effectively face this decision.

If we attempt to reap the fruits of a relationship before the relationship is fully grown, we face the risk of eating unripe fruit. The unripe fruit may satisfy our immediate desires, but ultimately won’t be as pleasing as it would be if the relationship had been fully developed. Following ingestion of the unripe fruit, we may realize that we ate the fruit too soon. Upon this realization, we can be plagued with the guilt and shame of allowing our immediate desires to triumph over our core values.

In many instances, when we allow our present desires to take precedence over our true selves, the present pleasure that we attain can often yield prolonged future discomfort. Contrarily, if we endure the discomfort of abstaining from the present desire for unripe fruit, we are blessed with the opportunity to realize the enhanced pleasure of ripened fruit. We are also blessed with the contentment of aligning our actions with our core values. Happiness exists when our behaviors are in alignment with our true selves.

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