Beloved

by Rachel Gardner

  Another nameless girl

  One of the main arguments I hear against purity and chastity from young Christians is the fact that in biblical times people would have been married off very young to the cousin of their parents’ choice! This may very well be true. Our world would be completely unrecognizable to any of the biblical characters – just as their world often is to ours. But there’s one strange story about chastity that jumps out at me every time I read it.

  In the Old Testament, during the dark time of the Judges when God’s people were a law unto themselves, there was a stupid father and a chaste daughter.

  Jephthah made an oath to God to sacrifice to him the first thing that would come through the door on his return home. (Note that God didn’t ask him to make this oath.) You can see what’s coming – Jephthah’s daughter skips out of the house to greet her father:

  When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish. ‘Oh, my daughter!’ he cried out. ‘You have completely destroyed me! You’ve brought disaster on me! For I have made a vow to the LORD, and I cannot take it back.’

  And she said, ‘Father, if you have made a vow to the LORD, you must do to me what you have vowed, for the LORD has given you a great victory over your enemies, the Ammonites. But first let me do this one thing: Let me go up and roam in the hills and weep with my friends for two months, because I will die a virgin.’

  ‘You may go,’ Jephthah said. And he sent her away for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never have children. When she returned home, her father kept the vow he had made, and she died a virgin.

  (Judges 11:35–39 NLT)

  This unsettling story has an air of the macabre about it, but stay with me, because what this nameless girl did next has made sure that her story is heard by every generation who reads the Bible. It also inspired women to start a festival in her honour.

  She recognized that within her culture she couldn’t go against her father’s word (as horrific as it was), so instead, she asked for something else. She asked for time to grieve in the hills with her girlfriends. Her chance of marriage and motherhood, as well as life, had been ripped from her. Yet, rather than going on some crazed bender, chasing all the things that might have been, she chose to embrace who she was, and died a virgin.

  There’s no way that Jephthah’s family is a model of how we should act! I’m also not about to deify his daughter for going to her grave a virgin. It’s not a story about virginity; it is, however, a story about what we pursue.

  Jephthah was culturally bound to follow through on the promise he made, no matter what, or however barbaric it sounds to us. His daughter was duty-bound to pursue the path to her death. I’m not suggesting that we should copy either of them. But the story challenges me to consider what I see as worth pursuing.

  Do I really think that being chaste is worth it?

  What do I feel I owe to myself to experience or have before I die?

  Can I seriously face the reality that I might choose chastity and never get married?

  What if I get married, and then have sex with only my husband for the rest of my life? Am I prepared to pursue chastity if this is what it means?

  One path

  I often have chats with young unmarried Christian couples who want to enjoy a sexual relationship with the person they love, while still living with integrity as a follower of Jesus. I ask them if they think they can pursue both paths. It’s often the case that this is the first time that either of them has thought about what this means. They’ve not considered what might happen if they break up.

  Premarital sex defrauds the future marriage partner of the person with whom you are involved. You are robbing that person of the virginity and single-minded intimacy that ought to be brought into a marriage. Thus, sexual impurity is as much a social injustice against others as it is a personal sin against God.14

  Choosing chastity before you are in a relationship, and having these conversations, really helps you get to grips with the issues of handling temptation, recognizing what turns you on and having your own set of boundaries that you are already living within. The boundaries might change a bit when you are in a relationship, but the hard work of thinking about where you would set them, and sticking to them, has already begun.

  Acting out a chaste lifestyle before you are in a relationship is one of the best ways to build up the muscles to help you within one. Knowing more about yourself and your responses to sexual stimuli, and practising self-control, are essential if you want to have faithfulness, good communication and realistic expectations in your relationship. God wants you to be sexually pure because he created you to be free and strong. And only a heart fixed on pursuing purity will produce this.

  That’s why Jason ran. That’s why I still choose to run when I’m tempted by other guys, rather than stay and sin.

  So if and when you are ready for a relationship, look for the guy who runs like the wind. Who is so determined to love you with all he is and has that he would get up and out of there instead of ever betraying you.

  And get fit! There will be times when you will need to run too. You’ll be tempted. You’ll be drawn into the fantasy of sexual experience without the covenanted commitment God asks of you.

  Sexual love is created by God as the expression flowing out of the lasting love that creates the faithful relationships that sexual passion depends on.

  This is worth having. It’s worth the wait.

  It really is.

  Wonderland

  So what have you discovered about yourself, sex and intimacy from any experiences you’ve had?

  Do you find yourself sliding rather than deciding when it comes to sex?

  Do you know the impact that sexualized images, watching sex scenes in films, being in certain situations and so on, have on your values and your confidence in living a sexually pure life?

  What will you do differently next time to prevent more sexually intimate experiences before marriage?

  Are you obsessing about being in a relationship, or deceiving yourself that being in the right relationship will make handling sexual temptations easier?

  Is sexual fidelity in marriage something you seek to be intentional about? If not, what could you do to change this?

  My sanctuary

  Choosing a life of sexual purity doesn’t just happen. The following four steps can be a useful tool to help you orientate yourself around this powerful way of life.

  Recognize

  To begin with, you need to be honest with yourself about how you’re living out your sexual purity. What are you struggling with?

  If you’re tempted to be too hard on yourself, or not real enough about your struggles, find a friend to reflect with. The goal of sexual purity is to pursue a holy life, whether you’re single, dating or married (1 Thessalonians 4:3–5). Holiness simply means a total devotion to God, so ask yourself where your sexual decisions or attitudes are affecting your devotion to God.

  Repent

  This is your chance to bring your struggles and mistakes to God. If previous sexual experiences or fantasies still have a hold over you, ask Jesus to cut the ties that hold you captive. Clear out any physical or emotional ‘memorabilia’. As you learn to repent of the times you sin, you’ll discover more and more of God’s forgiving and transforming grace and peace.

  Restore

  Every time we confess to God, he always forgives and restores us. His desire to set you free is always greater than sin’s power to destroy you. Which means that when you’re forgiven, you know that what’s past is behind you, and you get to start over.

  Reset

  Now it’s time to set the boundaries that will free you to live a pure and strong life. Be as detailed and realistic as you can. Ask yourself whether certain behaviours reflect your commitment to honouring your body, your partner and sex as a gift from God for marriage. Clear boundaries will help you to feel more confident in the decisions you make. Think about setting boundaries in t
he following areas:

  Entertainment – how can I make sure that the things I choose to watch or listen to don’t draw me away from pursuing sexual purity?

  Body image – how can I dress and behave in ways that enable me to live out my sexual purity?

  Relationship – where do I need to draw lines around physical and emotional intimacy when I’m dating someone?

  It’s worth the time, effort and prayer – it really is!

  Do you have any idea what’s under your bed?

  Under my bed is an old box stuffed full of photos of people and places I’ve loved. I even have scribbled notes from school friends, love letters, my old diary and the odd school report (not sure why!). Sometimes I spend hours trawling through them all, reliving the moments the images conjure up. My favourite is an old black-and-white photo of my granny who died years ago. She’s sitting at her table gazing out of the window, oblivious of the fact that she’s being photographed, captivated by something far away – at the end of the garden maybe? Or by a memory that lies deep within her? She’s perfectly still as she’s yielded to the moment that’s holding her, heart and soul.

  Sometimes we think that our life as followers of Jesus should look like this. Sorted. Focused. Confident. If anyone were to ask us what we’re doing with our life, we’d be able to reel off a list of things we know that God has called us to do. We’d know all the big stuff, like what job we’ll do, who we’re going to marry, what we’re going to call our pet lizard (Nebuchadnezzar, by the way). Our eyes are fixed firmly on the prize, and nothing will distract us from our goal!

  But the reality is quite different.

  There’s another photo in my box that I always look for. It’s of me and some school friends on a trip to France. We’re a huddle of smiling girls with long fluffy hair and matching backpacks. But none of the clothes I’m wearing are mine. It’s a photo that reminds me of how it felt to be confused, uncomfortable in my friend’s clothes, and sixteen! I had no idea how my life would pan out. I wanted to live for Jesus. Be all sold out for him. But I had no idea really what that would look like.

  I just wanted God to tell me what to do.

  Desperately.

  If you were to flick through the pages of my teenage diary, you’d see time and time again my frantic scribbles: ‘Please God, tell me what to do! I want my life to matter. Show me the way!’

  Does this ring any bells for you?

  But as well as our hunger to please God, our longing to know what he thinks we should do is sometimes about avoiding risk. There’s always a risk factor to the big decisions we make in life. What will happen if I ‘settle’ on this university course, this marriage partner, this career? So we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves for wanting to be certain that things are going to work out well.

  But wanting someone else to make the decision for us can also be another kind of cushion: it means we’ve got someone to blame if it all goes wrong. Sometimes, by looking for the ‘sign’ that something is God’s will, we’re really wanting someone else to take responsibility. I often chat with young women who feel crippled with indecision about their life choices. They’re so eager not to let God and their family or friends down, that they almost resort to being a little kid again and expecting everyone else, including God, to make their decisions for them. Or they surge ahead into a course of action, relationship or new job, convinced that God must be ‘in it’ as doors have opened so easily, only to do a complete U-turn the following week when problems arise.

  Kim had been praying for the right opportunity to move out of home for so long. Eventually, she found a perfect little flat just round the corner from her new job. Her parents seemed pleased too, and helped to pay the rent for the first two months as she settled in. Finally, she felt the freedom she had been craving, but then she wobbled. One Sunday after the service, she came and found me where I was hanging out in the crèche.

  ‘I don’t think God did want me to move out of home after all. Do you think he did, or did I just get that one wrong?’

  ‘What makes you think that you heard wrongly?’ I asked. ‘You seemed so sure last week that it was the right decision to make.’

  ‘It’s just been little things,’ she explained, ‘but they’ve got me a bit stressed. Like the boiler has broken down in the flat, and the neighbours are being so difficult about where I can leave my bicycle.’

  In many ways, she really wanted to know, ‘God, if this is your plan for me, then why isn’t it easier?’

  Moving out of home to be nearer her first ever job was probably one of the most significant and solo decisions Kim had ever made, so it was understandable that she sought approval for her decision. Like many of us, she grew up with a number of people speaking into her life and telling her their version of what she should do. She’d heard so many talks about God having good plans for her life, but coupled with the pressure she felt to get it right, the sinking feeling that she might have got it wrong was proving too much.

  Wouldn’t life be simpler if God just told us clearly what he wanted us to do?

  Simpler yes, but not better.

  Life isn’t simple. So, when things prove to be more difficult than we had hoped, that isn’t a sign that we misheard God. It’s a sign that we’re living. So I’ve got some advice for you. Don’t wait around in your favourite coffee shop for divine intervention to map out your life’s course – it won’t happen! Why? Because God is more interested in your growth than your comfort. He wants your love for him to grow, so that over time you not only have a stronger sense of what he might want you to do, but a greater willingness to do it.

  Clingy

  There’s a wonderful story of a young trainee Jesuit priest who spent three months in the slums of Calcutta with Mother Teresa before he took his final vows. As he worked tirelessly in the ‘House of Dying’, John Kavanaugh wrestled with whether or not he should return to his life in America, or give himself completely to the poor of India. One day he asked Mother Teresa to pray that God would give him clarity about what he should do with his life. She apparently refused his request. When he asked her why, she is recorded as having said, ‘Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to, and must let go of. I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.’15

  Whenever people tell their stories of God calling them, they tend to head for the highlights, like the word they received from someone at the end of a meeting. But if we were to look at their lives as a whole, we’d see a very different story. For all the one-off God moments of sheer clarity, there would be weeks, months, even years, of silence and sacrifice. Where all they knew to do was to choose to live for Jesus in every ordinary moment.

  I have a friend who’s a well-known and loved worship leader. Whenever she’s at events, people queue up round the block to ask her how they can get to where she is. It always makes her laugh, because the place ‘she is’ most of the time is living her regular life for the audience of One in her local church, at home with her family or out with friends who don’t know how amazing Jesus is. In the scheme of her whole life, her platform moments are precious and few.

  Often the people we see up on platforms or in places of influence and calling have had tough journeys getting there. Being significant wasn’t their first thought. Being surrendered was. Before they felt the calling of God, they knew the sacrifice that came with living for God. Of being broken and rebuilt in his image. They had no idea what God was going to do with their lives; they only knew they could choose whether to trust him or not. And as they did, they began to catch the heartbeat of a God who is always looking for people to join him in reaching the lost, the last and the least. Serving his great mission would mean nothing less than complete trust, total surrender. But it would also ensure an experience of life that would be amazingly full: ‘This is what my Father wants: that anyone who sees the Son and trusts who he is and what he does and then aligns with him will enter real life, eternal life’ (John 6:40 MSG).
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  Such life will spill out and touch others.

  There is one aspect of our calling that we can be really clear about: it will involve us suffering in some way. This is not the kind of message we always hear in churches or from other Christians. I know that as a speaker at events, I sometimes shy away from this truth because I don’t want to come across too ‘heavy’. But God opened my eyes to how ludicrous my thinking was a few years ago at a festival where I was speaking.

  It had been raining solidly for days, so the mud in the marquee was almost knee-high in places. As I started my talk, rolls of thunder shook the tent so hard that the power supply cut out. I had to shout as I tried to stay in view of the car headlights that were beaming onto the stage. It was crazy! To top it all, I was still determined to do the elaborate prayer-station-type response, with the softly spoken prayer and plinky-plonky music I had planned. But it became increasingly obvious that no-one in their right mind was going to get out of their seat and do anything except go home!

  I finished, stepped off the stage and sank to my knees in the mud. The tools I normally took to the stage with me (cool images, film clips, nifty responses) had been stripped away, and all that was left was an insecure woman, hungry for God, but doubting what he had called her to do. I knelt there for what felt like ages as the tent doors flapped in the howling wind.

  Then I saw something that took my breath away.

  As I got up to move, I was surrounded by young people kneeling in the mud too. They were filthy and they were hungry for God. They knew that life was hard, and that following Jesus makes life even more complicated. They knew that no-one gets richer or escapes suffering by following Jesus. Kneeling in the mud with these incredible disciples has stayed with me as one of the most real and raw responses to God’s Word that I have ever experienced. I have no doubt that some of them have gone on to suffer in different ways for their love of Jesus. My hope is that each one is still growing in their trust of God and their willingness to keep kneeling in the mud and surrender all that they are for his sake.