How to Use "The Lust Dare"
Day #30: New Creation
“Therefore, if
anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have
passed away; behold, all things have become new.” -2 Corinthians 5:17
So I told you
a couple of times before that I had some particular struggles and fears in my
intense battle with lust. Honestly, my biggest fear was that one day I would
have to tell the man who wanted to court me and seek my hand in marriage that I
had not stayed pure for him. That I had allowed myself to give into the sin of
lust and indulged in it for a long time. That I had soiled my thoughts with
impure imaginings, and that I had soiled my mind with the things that I read
and reflected on.
See, I was a
pastor’s daughter, and then later a youth pastor’s daughter. I had read
multiple books out there about purity, I had been to all the “modest is
hottest” conferences, I was holding tight to the plan not to kiss until
marriage. I was clean, and pure, and innocent. But that all ended. And I had
grown up hearing that our heart was like cupcake, and that impurity was like
giving a piece of the cupcake away, thus someday leaving our husbands with less
than a full cupcake.
So there I
was, battling lust, with this big hurt of “I no longer have a full cupcake.”
Someday, I was going to have to offer my soiled heart, no longer pure, to a man
and say “Sorry I didn’t try harder to protect this from harm.” At least that is
what I thought.
After
battling lust for months, I began to realize that God was giving me a new
purity. That in some ways, now much better understanding what pure and clean
was, I was more pure than I had ever been before. God began to reveal to me in
small ways that He indeed was making a new creation out of me; a creation that
had a full, unsoiled, beautiful cupcake of a heart.
But that
didn’t really sink in until when I finally had to face my fear. The very last
day of November, 2013, a man asked me to court him with the full intention of
marriage. My answer to him was rather humorous, but you will have to hear that
part of the story* another time. The first night of our relationship, I sat
down in his living room with his parents, and in a quiet choked voice, told
them about my battle with lust. I told them of my darkest sin and the one main
thing about my life that I wished wholeheartedly that I could go back and
change.
There was
some silence after I told them. The man who had asked me to court him just kind
of sat there, staring at me with an unreadable expression. His mother thanked
me quietly for sharing. And his father asked if they could go out and stone me.
(You would have to know this guy in order to fully appreciate his dry sense of
humor). But finally, my silent companion spoke. He told me I was very brave to
share that with him, and in essence said that he would never hold that sin
against me. It was a very freeing moment for me.
Then that
moment was followed up with a wonderful token not 3 months later. Valentine’s
Day of 2014, I was not together with my Valentine, and it was the first year for
both of us that we had had a Valentine. We talked on the phone, texted, and
messaged on Facebook throughout the day, and then I woke the next morning to find
3 white roses on the table. My mother told me that they were from my man, and
that he had asked Dad to get specifically “3 white roses.”
So in a phone
conversation a little while later, I asked him why he had picked 3 white roses.
He told me that the number signified me, him, and God, and that the white was a
symbol of purity. I kind of choked up at that and admitted “I know that God has
washed me clean, but some days it is really hard to remind myself that I am
indeed pure again.”
And do you
know what he said?! After a pause, he said sincerely “Well in my eyes, you are
as pure as a woman possibly could be.” Let me just say that I hope and pray
that all of you are as blessed with such a wonderful man as I have!
But if a
sinner can forgive me of that sin, how much more can God forgive? How much more
can the God who loved us enough to forgive all of our sins through the death of
His Son see us as new and clean again?
You are not
soiled. You are not stained forever. You are made new, a new creation in Christ,
being renewed day by day. We are not only made new when born again, but every
day as God renews and cleanses and forgives. You can in all honesty hold a white rose in your hand and know that is
symbolizes your new heart in Christ. This is an amazing thing!
On this last
lust dare, just remember this: we are not held down by our past sin with lust,
or even by our current battle with it, but are instead being made new and
cleansed and renewed day by day.
“For behold, I create
new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered or
come to mind.”
-Isaiah 65:17
Today’s Dare
Buy a white rose or
some other token that you can keep as a daily reminder that you are indeed a
new creation. And rejoice, for you have completed the love dare! May the things
that you have gathered from this entire dare be ones that you can use for the
rest of your lives as you no longer let the lusts of the flesh have the
victory.
Comments
Post a Comment