Accounting for Humanity

Yesterday I went running (I know I was surprised too, it's been a little while) and I really enjoyed the time I had to just think and experience the beautiful sunset. One thing that really caught my attention was our relationship with an infinite, perfect God and sin.

God isn't a God of rules and regulations and things you have to follow, He's a God of love and power and grace. There are certain things He tells us He wants us to do for ourselves because He knows the pain and heartache that goes along with so many things we can do. Obvously, just like a small child whose parent tells it not to put that dirty toy in its mouth, we disobey because we want to experience it for ourselves. We don't want to be told what to do even if it's probably best for us, why? Why not?

This wasn't what hit me at that moment, it's not that intense right, what hit me like whoa was this verse mixed with the following thought, "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body" (1 Corinthians 6:18). One translation even says to "Run from sexual sin!" This is what the Bible is saying about sexual immorality right? ...But think about it in context of all sin. Now Scripture is saying especially with sexual sin because it is within the body and it takes on a whole new meaning because of it...however, I don't think it's right to only flee sin in the context of sexuality. After all, there are particular verses that address all sin as well: "But you, Timothy, are a man of God; so run from all these evil things. Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness"(1 Timothy 6:11), 1 Corinthians 10:13, etc.

People choose different physical boundaries within their relationship depending on their values, desires, needs, etc. Some people are less strict and some people more. One thing that came to mind as I was getting tired running, were the people who choose not to kiss until they're married or at least for a long time within the relationship...whoa, weird. Ha, that's funny that I say that considering I'm one of those people...of course I never ever thought I would be.

A lot of people ask why that's such a big deal to me or why that's even a reasonable option and that's what I was thinking about yesterday. See, I want to make sure that what I do isn't just for the sake of doing it to test myself (like deciding not to kiss until marriage), I want to do it in order to truly develop more into a woman of God that He created me to be. As I was thinking of the pros and cons of it, it hit me--this type of "extended" boundary helps to account for my own humanity. See, we as humans always "go too far." But what exactly does that mean? What does it have to mean? Really, you can only "go too far" by crossing that line of your the boundaries that you set for yourself because those are important to you. A person may make it their rule to not have sex and they may "go too far" without going all the way because they got a little too close. If a person accounts for this and makes a rule to not kiss, for example, even if they "go too far" it hasn't necessarily gotten to the point where they got a little too close to having sex.

Now I know, this may be a little strange to think about, but truly think about it. Now I'm not saying this was my train of thought in deciding this for now, because it kind of just happened by accident, but it really made me think. This doesn't only have to apply to physical boundaries within relationships either...remember, there's other sin out there ;)

See, what if instead of making it our priority to not do the sin that God says isn't good in the Bible, what if we took the initiative to take the next step and to not even get close. We don't want to test the waters and see how far we can push the envelope with God like we did with our parents when we were 3. Why not, instead of getting as close to the line without crossing it, do more to stay so far away from it that we can't even see it? Why not flee from sin or run away from sin instead of flirting with it? Why not account for our humanity and make sure we're serving God full heartedly instead of serving ourselves in the process?

Now I'm not saying you have to make it a rule in your relationship to not kiss or whatever or whatever. Not my job to say that. I'm saying, you know yourself better than you let on and you know when you're probably sinning without "going all the way" (that doesn't just apply to sexual immorality now). How could you change yourself for the better just by not even getting close? Think about it.