unkaglen:

Anonymous asked: I’m currently in a relationship with my boyfriend. Both of his parents are pastors. He and his parents inspired me to strengthen my relationship with Christ. Unfortunately we give into the temptation of our flesh and things get as close as they can without actually having intercourse. I can see where his relationship is going and I don’t like it. Our relationship is not centered around God nor bringing the glory to God that He deserves. 

Unka Glen answered: I’m sorry to hear that your relationship isn’t going as I know you hoped it would, and I know that can hurt. I’m sure you started this thing with the best of intentions, and a desire to do it right, but as you now know, it takes a good deal of intentional planning and execution to get these relationships going where you want them to go. Getting the right thing done is often an exercise in going against everything your flesh wants to see happen. Love, and good intentions, and good, sweet people like yourselves just aren’t enough.

It takes work.

But, as the Chinese say, “it’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness”. Honestly, most relationships stumble out of the gate in one way or another. The problem is that relationships seem to have an odd momentum about them, once you get them going in one direction, it seems hard to get them going in another direction. But the truth is, you can do anything you want, even make this relationship glorify God in the highest, right now, if you both want it to be that way.

In fact, why not, in a sense, just start over? Rework everything from scratch. Think positive and ask yourself how good this could be, if we did a little more thinking and planning? The physical side will still be there, and it’ll still be enjoyable. But you’re going to set new boundaries, and keep them, and reward yourselves for keeping them. Philippians 3:13b-14 says “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

I think the shocker here, is that you are about to discover that you denied yourself huge joys and whole new worlds of spiritual and emotional pleasure. You cheated yourself out of those pleasures because you were distracted by the physical. You weren’t going for too much pleasure, you settled for too little. 

You weren’t going for too much pleasure, you settled for too little. - Well said, Unka Glen.