One Flesh

Have you ever found yourself bound up by your sexual desires? So much to the point that they’re driving your every action & controlling your motives? This is one form of what I believe the Bible is referring to when it speaks of sexual immorality. It’s not just prostitution or what some Christian’s may consider sex before marriage as a sin or other sexual acts of harm like rape, molestation & pedophilia.

A lot more people in our day & age, in our toxic sex culture are being emotionally manipulated by their own sexual urges. Most people don’t even know that their emotions are linked to sexual desires & are causing them to sin by emotionally manipulating others to unconsciously control them.

I see this happen a lot in relationships where women are using sex as a bargaining chip. Withholding sex from their partners as a way to punish them for their own emotional reactions to something their partner may have done or said. This is a tactic used by so many women in relationships because they are taught at an early age, maybe through their own caregivers & environment or through social media, TV, movies & magazines that they are to seduce & subdue men with their sexual power. That men love a “bitch” or want to be lusted after & chased.

“Flee from sexual immorality. For every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” || 1 Corinthians 6:18

Sex isn’t inherently bad. It’s the context in which it is used that makes in sinful in nature & destructive to one’s own health; mentally, emotionally, physically & spiritually & is harmful to the men or women that are lured by these sexually immoral motives. I believe that most women & men are unconscious of these ways in which they are using their sexual energy to manipulate & control their partners. This can easily take a toll on a relationship & start the relationship off on unstable ground.

“Therefore a man shall leaves his father & his mother & hold fast to his wife, & they shall become one flesh.” || Genesis 2:24

Today’s relationships are being built on sexual compatibility before being built on God & it’s causing a lot of unhappiness in relationships that over time aren’t fulfilling & ultimately lead to divorce or resentment & dysfunction. Our society is teaching young men & women to “test the waters” sexually before entering into an emotionally & spiritually committed connection. This has lead to “hook up” culture & is leaving so many men & women lusting after sex, rather than seeking out connections formed by emotional, spiritual & intellectual compatibility.

There’s a morality lacking in todays “swipe right” culture to confirm your attractability based on a few photos & shallow bio. The temptation is at our fingertips. It’s this mentality of immediate gratification that is creating disorder to Gods Order. God has a specific plan & purpose for marriage. It states in the Bible multiple times that marriage is sacred & that it is one of the ways in which He works through us to fulfill his purpose for mankind. We’ve certainly strayed from his path for us in regard to marriage. Today it’s more of a technicality, a Pinterest board fantasy, or a box to mark off on our checklist. It’s a status symbol & is often tied to a persons self worth.

“& God blessed them. & God said to them, “be fruitful & multiply & fill the earth & subdue it, & have dominion over the birds of the heavens & over every living thing that moves on the earth.” || Genesis 1:28

People are jumping into relationships as a way to avoid being with God. It gives them an excuse to not be alone & to project all their trauma, insecurities, doubts, fear, guilt & shame onto their partner. Instead of committing to a partnership in order to please & obey God & fulfill his promise, people are choosing to enter into relationships to please their own ego & meet their own needs that they aren’t being taught to lean on God for. They’re looking to relationships to save them, rather than forming an intimate relationship with God’s Son as their Savior.

Women have been taught for millennia to look to men to be their knight & shining armor. To come & rescue them from their own pain or suffering or loneliness or fears. They are taught from an early age to become dependent on men to be their holy grail, that they will “find the one” & everything in their life will finally fall into place & they’ll live happily ever after. Then most of the time are let down by this ideal they have of marriage. All the while women are taught to neglect their own happiness. To rely on others to fulfill their hearts, that constantly feels like it’s lacking or missing something.

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church & gave himself up for her.”

|| Ephesians 5:33

“Wives, submit to your husbands, as to the Lord.” || Ephesians 5:22

They often feel that this void in their heart & life can be filled with a successful career or the love of a partner or the love of a child & so they desperately enter into any relationship that comes their way, with no sound structure, in order to fill this gapping hole they feel inside. Or they fill it with one night stands & meaningless, drunken sex. This longing to be in a loving & Godly partnership lives within us all, especially as women. We desire to be married & have a family. At least most of us.

There’s also this other end of the spectrum of women in this age that can not stand the concept of submitting to a man, they boycott men, they are overly independent & claim they don’t need a man, that men are useless & they’re better off without them, that they don’t want them, that they all suck & they don’t provide any pleasure for them. This stems from another deeply rooted belief formed by our society to “smash the patriarchy” & toxic feminism, essentially it is a wound in many women’s hearts that have been caused by men that aren’t living for God. By men that aren’t themselves submitted to Jesus Christ. They may have been used or abused or rejected by them, especially in childhood & this created a belief system that keeps young girls & women angry & resentful towards men. They don’t feel safe because their sense of safety is coming from the world & not from God

“For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands.” || 1 Peter 3:5

What’s happening is they’re relating to men through the lens of their unresolved trauma due to the fact that men in our society are taught to see women as objects to own & control. Through things like porn unhealthy religious indoctrination & TV & movies & media. This keeps most men emotionally & spiritually immature & they use their own sexual urges to manipulate & control & even abuse women. It’s why we have so much date-rape happening in our society. Boys have been used by our society to create sexually immoral men. So that it creates a disruption in God’s Order, which is: Christ, man, woman, child. & it keeps men & women from coming into union for God’s use. To produce Godly offspring.

“Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? & what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, & let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.” Malachi 2:15

This is a social issue & can be challenging to talk about because of so much sexual trauma experienced by both men & women. There’s not a lot of safe places to open up about it & to start a dialogue about how we ended up here collectively without blame & shame. I find that women seem to cast blame on men for why relationships are the way they are, that they can’t commit or they can’t provide, all the while they completely deny their own “daddy issues” & use it as a way to punish men. & men in our society are taught to provide the exact opposite thing that women truly want & need. Which isn’t money, muscles, bravado & big trucks… it’s honesty, devotion, strength of heart, emotional maturity & riches of the soul.

“What is desired in a man is steadfast love, & a poor man is better than a liar.”

|| Proverbs 19:22

So of course it’s going to be a battle of the sexes because instead of going to God for guidance on our relationships & our sexual needs, we’re taught to go to things like porn or to the internet or to our friends or even to coaches & therapist. Which if you’ve experienced any form of sexual abuse I would highly recommend seeking professional help along with turning to God & to scripture. (I also want to extend openness, understanding & compassion to those who may have suffered sexual trauma in churches or other religious institutions due to corruption)

Relationships & sexual desires can be challenging to navigate, especially if you grew up in a dysfunctional household, with parents that weren’t unified in God, but were married to essentially fill a role they thought they had to play in order to “fit in”, or a family that had addiction or domestic violence. These aren’t an example of a Godly Marriage or relationship. They are an example of worldly marriage & connections. They can often leave you feeling confused about what you desire in a relationship or if you even want marriage at all. They can keep you stuck in unhealthy relationships that push you even further away from God.

“In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” || Ephesians 5:28

“Husbands love your wives & do not be harsh with them.” || Colossians 3:19

Ultimately Godly Relationships we’re created to come into union with Jesus Christ. They were designed as a holy covenant to bring you closer together through your mutual love for God. If a marriage is not centered around Christ then it isn’t built on a solid foundation & it can lead to dysfunction, destruction & to pain & divorce. These aren’t the things God intended for relationships. But they have become a societal norm that keep people using relationships as a form of escape, rather than for the glory of God. Modern day relationships have become like a new drug, an addiction to cycles of harm, rather than a safe place to find solace & love from the Holy Spirit.

“& the man & his wife were both naked & were not ashamed.” || Genesis 2:25

Thank you for reading!

Blessings be with you, Ashley <3

———> be sure to check out my podcast where I dive deeper into this subject to talk about celibacy, sex magic, twin flames & shed light on my personal experiences around sex, trauma, relationships, Godly marriage & scripture!

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