Whenever
sexual feelings rise up within you, it could be rather overwhelming. You may
want to look for some means to ease off. Many who are not Christians (in the
real sense of the word) get hooked up with someone of the opposite sex and they
make out. Others, whether Christians or no, would opt for masturbation. Some
believe it is safer, seeing that they do it by themselves, and not with another
person. However, these two acts are sinful as far as God is concerned, for it
is not possible to handle sexual feelings through these so called ‘quick
fixes’.Given
the above, having sex and/or engaging in masturbation are no ways to take care
of sexual feelings. You would instead require the following:
§
Thorough Understanding
of Your Body Mechanism or Chemistry.
By this, I mean you would have to know how
your body behaves and when these
sexual feelings arise. Of course these feelings aren’t there twenty-four hours
of the day. So when do these feelings arise? This is the question you will have
to answer for yourself. For some, it is whenever they see the (human) object of
attraction. For others, it is whenever they watch erotic scenes on the screen
or read erotic materials. For others yet, it is all of the above. You would
need to know which or what affects you and do well to steer clear of it.
§
A Lot of Patience. You would require a lot of patience as a young and
single person in dealing with sexual feelings. You must realise that it is not
time for you to begin to explore these feelings until you are married.
Patience, therefore, is a virtue you must cultivate during this period of your
life. Lots of it. Don’t worry; as you read on, you’ll see how to do this.
§
Internal Steadiness.
You must learn how to speak to yourself,
and make you obey you. In other words, when these sexual feelings arise –
knowing that it is not yet time for you to begin to explore them; and that doing
so grieves the Spirit of God – you must be able to speak to yourself to steady
your emotions and put them in check. This is not so easy, but it becomes easy
with practice and consistency, until it becomes part of you.
During my time as
an undergraduate in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, I practiced this a great
deal. Whenever I saw a beautiful damsel ahead of me walking towards my
direction, and I sense my senses going haywire, I’d softly speak to myself,
Hey, she is just beautiful, that’s all about
her, okay? It’s not like you are going to end up marrying her anyway, so why
the trouble? Besides, she is a total stranger, who may even scorn you. Remember
you are a child of God, and she probably isn’t. Remember light shouldn’t have
any fellowship with darkness… Any of such would be the things I tell myself
all just to discourage myself from pursuing the thoughts and feelings – until she
walks past me and is gone. This brings me to the next and final point on this:
§
A Firm Commitment to
God. This is the most important
point here. This has to be in place if all of the other points above would work. You have to have made a firm commitment to God never to engage in
these things. You have to be a lover of God, and an ardent one at that, to be
able to make a firm commitment to God. In fact, spending time in prayers and
study of the Word of God on a regular basis helps solidify this commitment and
even goes a long way to stifle these sexual feelings until the right time. It
will help you when you need to steady yourself internally when the need arises.
Next week, we shall be exploring this a little further.
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