Handling Sexual Feelings (Part 2)

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:

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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.