things.

hello again.

I've been thinking about lust lately. what it means, and how to avoid it. I think I've settled on defining it as treating someone else's body without respect, and outside the context of love and courage and trust that God's given to us. Which means looking away when someone is changing, or tossing them a sweatshirt when their tshirt is totally see-through. I also have been praying a lot about lust in my and josh's relationship--that if you feel something, desire to go further, move outside of those boundaries, etc, but you don't respond to it out of respect for each other and love for God, is that lust? Because the emotion is definately present, but it's controlled/subdued/extinguished/whatever by a recognization that this isn't how God meant it, and so you ignore it.

Is this okay? I'm still trying to figure it out. The best I've got is that we're broken, as sinful people, and so it's impossible for us to not feel these things that aren't all right, to not question boundaries and things like that, but it's the Spirit in us that brings us back to reality, that reminds us of the love God has for us and wants us to have for each other, but on his terms and in his time.

Does that make sense? It's starting to.

So, I look for precedent, biblical and otherwise. John Stott says, in Basic Christianity, that "it is by love that the centrifugal force of sin is counteracted, that sin divides where love unites, and sin separates where love reconciles." so, lust, then, should be divisive. it should tear down what love builds up. I don't feel that.

biblically, I think about 1thess4, which talks about controlling your body in a way that's holy and honorable, and seeing that honor and holiness in others. it says that we're not only called to be pure and holy, but that we should be "more and more" for God. So, that ties in a lot with the idea of overarching respect, and of wanting to bring your partner closer to God. It should be a mutual building up, and you should both see that in each other.

When it comes to a place where one or both of you feels like something's crossing a line, that's probably because it no longer treats the other with the respect they deserve. I dunno. I like the idea of seeing each other as a gift from God, something that's a blessing but that has to be treated with love and respect, because it is such a gift.

So, moral of story: I do understand lust. And even though I sometimes fall short, I don't think that Josh and my's relationship is lustful. Praise God for that.