OUT OF MY DEPTH
SPEED LIMIT SEX
KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD . . . PHIL WAGLER
M
ost guys, particularly those seeking to love God with their bodies and minds, know certain things are crucial to sexual wholeness. Avoid pornography. Watch your eyes—the ultimate paradox. Don’t place yourself in situations where passion can trump conviction. All these, and more, we know. And, all these, are easily approached as speed limit signs. Maybe it’s just me, but my sex drive runs deeper than abiding by a few rules. Bear with me while I drive this analogy a bit further. I’ve had the good fortune of not getting a speeding ticket in a while. I say “good fortune” because I have probably just gotten better at picking my spots. I confess I can treat speed limits like general suggestions. Traffic laws don’t stop me from speeding. Sadly, even distantpast fines haven’t really stopped me either; they’ve just made me wiser. Shoot, I’m starting to feel like Paul, who pined, “I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong” (Romans 7:21). I am a wretched man. When I blow by a speed limit sign, something deeper in me is at work. I am late because of poor planning. I feel entitled because of my carelessness or laziness. Yeah, that’s hard to admit. Others should abide by that limit, but me, I’m the one to whom this does not apply. At other times I’m just plain rebellious. I want to be the fast and furious! Who doesn’t? There is risk here—which is part of the adventure. This desire to risk is a window into how I’m hardwired to live by faith. Dig beneath the surface, however, and I
find that my riskiness can be far less parabolic; it can simply be rebellion. And, given the amount of time I’ve been able to slip through the radar traps or go just a bit slower than those suckers who got caught, the truth is I’m playing with fire because something in my soul as a driver is not settled. Now, take the metaphorical offramp with me back to our lives as sexual beings. Sex—as my wife so aptly put it when I told her I was writing a column about sex—is not about sex. It’s about true intimacy. It’s even about idolatry. Ultimately, sex is about my soul. A lot of guys, myself included at times, can treat sex like we treat speed limits. We acknowledge the parameters, but believe our risk taking—even if it’s just in our minds—will never catch up to us. But driving is more than driving, and sex is more than sex. The real question is the gaze of my soul. Jesus said: “Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is.” (Matthew 6:22-23). He says this in the context of where our treasure is and how we think about money. His point is a crucial spiritual principle: if my eyes are on the wrong thing, my entire being pays the price. Even worse, if I conclude my eyes are on the right thing—the speed limit sign in our analogy—there’s actually a deep and troubling darkness within, and I am supremely deceived. The
real issue is not whether I’m watching the signs and avoiding trouble, it’s whether I’m focused on God and living in the freedom of Christ! Guys, you can put up a firewall around your sexuality in order to stay pure—and this can be helpful—but your soul is deeper and more cunning than that. You can maintain fidelity in your marriage or singleness and still be thinking more about sex than true intimacy. How sad if we see our wives as the means to please our sex drive rather than our partner made in God’s image with whom we share the deepest human intimacy possible! You see, we can obey the speed limits, but if you are not fixing your eyes properly; if first love is unclear, if your soul is not at rest, then you will remain sexually immature and even broken. Our primary gaze cannot be sex—even “moral” sexuality. In the same way gazing upon money—even with the purest ethical investing in mind—can mean mammon still holds sway over your soul, so it is with sex. Our first gaze must be Jesus, the Saviour and Lover of our souls, else we have succumbed to a most dangerous self-deception. Sex is not about sex; it’s about your soul. Godly sexuality is not rooted in obeying a few speed limit signs. Godly sexuality is first and foremost about God and whether your soul has found its rest in him.
/ PHIL WAGLER serves as Training & Team Health Leader with MB Mission. He lives in Surrey, BC, is married to Jen, and grateful to share with her the joys and challenges of raising six kids.
NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2015 SEVEN 33