Sex and Santa

Eileen Shipton

Back to Words

There is nothing quite like Christmas Day when you get all your presents from under the tree and have the excitement of unwrapping each one. I always used to nag my mum (ok so I may still do it) to tell me what she had got me, but she wouldn’t. She said that would spoil the fun of Christmas Day. She always had to hide my Christmas presents really really well, otherwise she knew that I would find and unwrap them. I am really bad at waiting for surprises. I know full well that if I had ever found the secret hiding place of all my presents then Christmas Day would have been rubbish! No surprises and no excitement.
Can you see where this analogy is going… ? Christmas presents were made for … Christmas Day, and sex … was made for marriage! We can all see the sense, can we not, for saving our festive gifts for their right time and place, so as to gain their full enjoyment? So can we also get our attitude right too on the right time and place for sex?

God’s plan regarding all this is that a man and a woman enjoy sex within the security of a committed relationship, i.e. marriage. The Bible says that ‘Marriage should be honoured by all and the marriage bed [sex] kept pure’ (Hebrews 4a). We don’t have to look too hard to see that most people today consider this idea very outdated, if not downright pointless.

Guarding our virginity these days is not particularly cool; I have friends who think I am completely cuckoo for still holding onto mine at nearly 26 years old. Yet we also don’t have to look too hard to see that in our society, relationships have been devalued, and sex has lost the preciousness that God intended it to have. I know people who have had so many sexual partners that sex means nothing at all to them any more. I am gutted for them that because they couldn’t wait, that awesome gift has been ruined. God isn’t out to spoil our fun - actually quite the opposite - He wants us to wait for the right timing, otherwise we are the ones spoiling it for ourselves. Yes waiting is really hard sometimes! Nobody said it would be easy but I am convinced it will be well worth it in the end!

Just one more note for anyone who is thinking ‘well that’s great but its kinda too late for me.’ God has very high standards but He is also ready to forgive in an instant. Anyone who has already gone wrong on this one, but is sorry, need only say just that – sorry. And it’s gone; as far as the east is from the west. Jesus is in the business of washing us as pure as the snow, as if we never messed up in the first place. How flippin awesome is that!