Well, I finally reached the end of my long fast-from-the-girlfriend week.  If you remember, I planned to surprise her by visiting her at her dorm.  I had in mind a pretty fairy tale-like moment.  Well . . .

August 30, 1997 2:48 PM

     Sometimes I just want to throw my hands up in the air and say, “I GIVE UP!” –to whoever’s listening.  I dreamed of Faith last night.  That dream was that I surprised her today and that her response was not nearly as good as I hoped.  Well, I guess you could say that today was a dream come true.

     I wanted it to be like when I surprised her weeks ago at the camp where she was working.  I wanted her face to light up.  I wanted her to be overjoyed.  I know she had to have loved me! I don’t care how long we’ve known each other – just everything she did used to show it.  I knew it.

     Now, it’s like nothing she does seems to totally convince me.  So what happened? Perhaps it was the sin.  She seems to feel guilty still.  I am so glad that God’s grace took away shame and guilt.  He forgives, what makes Him Savior is His power to forget.

     First, let me deal frankly with the phrase “the sin” that appears in the paragraph above.  By the grace of God and the skin of my teeth, I am glad that when I married my wife, Katherine, we were both virgins.  I think that is extraordinarily important.  And maybe we should talk about that more sometime in this blog.  But I want to add here the fact—the confession—that I made a lot of mistakes in my physical relationships with girls I dated before marriage.  Ughh . . . I feel uncomfortable getting into this. 

     Physical intimacy is just a very slippery slope, I found.  What would begin with a kiss, leads to so much more and pretty soon things get out of hand.  Instead of having a relationship that is driven by love, friendship, and mutual respect; you have one that is too often driven by lust.  Faith and I had gotten too involved physically – more than what we felt good about.  At least in a couple moments, lust had taken the driver’s seat.  And our hearts were deeply convicted.

     Honestly, I don’t know why there is so much debate about premarital physical intimacy – the wrongness of it.  I had the debates myself – with myself.  As long as you are not having sex, I would argue, it wasn’t sinful.  Seems a dumb argument now.  It apparently didn’t matter that I was, in those moments, totally self-indulgent and uncaring.  It didn’t matter that I put my own fleshly desires ahead of the conscience of my girlfriend. 

     I remember hearing a story about a king that was interviewing potential charioteers.  The first said, “I am so good that I can take your chariot at full speed right up to within a foot of a high cliff and bring it to a quick stop – keeping you perfectly safe.”  The second charioteer said, “That’s nothing, I’ll get to within an inch of the cliff and come to a safe stop.”  The king was impressed and then turning to the third said, “And what about you?  Why should I hire you?”  The last charioteer said simply, “Oh King, if I’m your charioteer, I won’t get anywhere near the cliff.”

     I never could figure out where to draw the line between what kind of physical intimacy was okay and what was sinful for the unmarried follower of Jesus.  I think you have to question your motivations – love or lust?  Selfless or selfish?  I think you have to seek to avoid the cliffs.  Not try to get as close as possible without sinning.  Flee from the cliffs (1 Cor. 6:18, 2 Tim. 2:22).  There’s no glory in that kind of risk.

     At some point, we should also talk about guilt and embracing the forgiveness of God.  That’s a pretty big deal.

     I have such a yearning.  I’m so disappointed.  I wish I wasn’t.  I know it’s not Christ-like to feel the way I do.

     I just knew today would give me the answer I wanted.

4:55 PM

     Peace.

     For the record, I don’t think that feeling sad and disappointed is unChrist-like.  I guess I felt that way then for some reason.  That’s stupid.  Jesus was sad a number of times (i.e. John 11:35, Luke 19:41).

     Anyway, the disappointment that I felt about the way my relationship with Faith was going was pretty extreme.  I think I remember throwing lawn furniture.  Maybe that wasn’t Christ-like.  It’s not like I was cleansing a temple or anything.  Well, Faith hadn’t broken up with me, but she’d really confused me.  I don’t remember all the details now.  But I do remember that girls are really confusing.