Abstience: Why?

They asked me why I do what I do.
"Ben, why do you not have sex? Why are you still a virgin?"
For a while, the thoughts and same questions have been plaguing my own mind. Why do I do what I do? Or rather, why do I do what I don't? It's taken me a few weeks to finally formulate an answer. Well, one that I like, anyway. I never really liked giving Biblical, "Sunday School" answers. You know, the ones that you were taught to say in Sunday School when you were in elementary and middle school. The teacher would pose a question to you like, "Why is evolution unbiblical?", and after stumbling over your words and stammering, she filled your mouth with words with a straight up answer of, "Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1. You should know this by now, Ben."
I never really liked those moments. I'd rather find my answers for myself. I'm an explorer. Give me a question or something to find out for you, and I WILL find it out. Don't hand feed it to me, but let me experience it on my own. You could tell me to do something the right way, but until my way fails and I experience that failure, I won't do it the right way. I'll just do it my way, thank you. I feel like the world, as non-Christians would not fully understand my Biblical answer about why or why I don't do something.
"Ben, why do you not have sex? Why are you still a virgin?"
"Uhh…because the Bible says so and that's what God wants from me, and I want to honor Him."
"I don't believe in God…"
"Well…"
And that's where the awkward silence of raised eyebrows would come in as they look at me questioningly, waiting for a logical answer to their simple question.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how spiritual it is. The world may not understand my answer, and that's fine. What matters is that I possibly plant a seed or even open up questions for them. What matters is that I believe what I believe. Period. You may not understand it, and it might not make a whole lot of sense, but my beliefs are my own. It no longer becomes important for me to make sense to the world, not seem weird, and to be "safe". What becomes important is that I stand firm in my belief, explain it to the best I can, and pray for the best.
Recently, I came across a band named Prepared Like A Bride. Christian metal band. Good music. But what I can't get over, and this is partly what led me to the epiphany of why I do what I don't do, is the name. Prepared Like A Bride. Prepared Like A Bride. Prepared Like A Bride. Pure and spotless. Holy and set apart. Astonishingly beautiful and breathtaking. Oh how I long to stand at the altar some day and watch in awe, breathless, as I watch my bride-to-be take her first steps down the aisle, arm-in-arm with her father. Writing this now, I feel the grip on my heart. The tug on my emotions. The longing within. Pure and spotless. Astonishingly beautiful and breathtaking. Holy and set apart.
In Revelation 19, we are first exposed to the meeting between Christ, coming down from heaven, and the church, ascending to heaven. In the beginning of Revelation 19, a multitude begins to shout praises and affirmation to God. "He has condemned the great prostitute [Satan] who has corrupted the earth by her adulteries [sin]…Hallelujah…Praise our God all you His servants…" Pretty worshipful stuff, here. Finally, in verse 7 the analogy of the church being the bride of Christ, enters the room. Breathtaking. Commanding awe and wonder. "Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear." Later, an angel even invites the writer of Revelation, John, to join in on the wedding reception of this wedding between Christ and his bride, the church. The rest of Revelation 19 and for most of chapter 20 is spent talking about the defeat of Satan by Christ. The end of the world. The ultimate wrath, love, and justice of God being poured out on mankind one last time. In chapter 21, the references pick back up. First, it compares the New Jerusalem that Christ has prepared for the church as the new bride (v. 2). What really gets me here, though, is verse 9. John, still viewing this awesome story laid out before him via vision, sees an angel who says to him, "Come, I will show you the bride [the church, now in heaven], the wife of The Lamb." It is for that very sentence that I choose abstinence, that I choose purity.
Throughout the entire Bible, we see time after time that Christ commands, not only a life of purity, but that man and woman wait for each other. This is most notable in Genesis 1 where it talks about husband and wife leaving parents and joining. Becoming one. In Song of Solomon, we see an epic metaphor of a love affair between a husband and wife being compared to the undying love that Christ has for the church, and the love that we should have for Christ. In the gospels Christ reinstates time after time that to even lust is adultery. Paul follows this concept up throughout the entirety of his Pauline Epistles.
My one desire as a Christian is—or at least needs to be—to be one with Christ. To follow his commands, to keep him holy and imminent in my life, and to make his name, glory, holiness, and love known throughout the entire earth. To be so in tune with Him and connected that my ways are His ways and that His thoughts are my thoughts.
Obviously, if Christ calls me to be pure and I defy that command, that goes against everything I believe and everything I want. That becomes a sin between Christ and I and something that keeps me from becoming one with Him and bringing Him glory in and through my life. So if you ask why I remain abstinent that is the very basic reason. I want to do what Christ wants and I wish to honor Him with my life. Steering away from His holy and perfect plan of purity does not do this, and is therefore something I don't need in my life, and something that keeps me from Him.
On a deeper level, though, I want to be holy and spotless when I am presented to Christ. As the church is the pure and spotless bride of Christ, so my own marriage needs to be pure and spotless and holy before the Lord. Defiling the marriage bed before marriage and going against His plan takes away that purity and paints a stain on that white garment. God's church is pure and spotless. God's bride is pure and spotless. So my marriage needs to be pure and spotless.
On a basic note, though, it's just smarter. With all the STD's and sicknesses running rampant throughout our culture, I don't want to end up with one. I don't want any chance of endangering my wife's health and sanity by sleeping around right now. In turn, I hope and pray that she feels the same. Knowing that my wife has a STD that could potentially infect me would take away a lot from the experience of sex.
I mean, do I even look like I can afford and handle a kid right now?
I want my wedding night, and the rest of my marriage, to be meaningful. I've heard it said multiple times that sex is the glue that holds marriage and love together. Without that sex, and without that glue, it falls apart. How can that glue be strong if it doesn't mean anything? Having sex now takes away exponentially from the true meaning of sharing that experience for the first time with the one person in your entire life who you will have that experience with. The true greatness and happiness of sex diminishes each time, and before you know it, it soon becomes another mundane task. Saving it for marriage helps it to keep some of that shiny lustre. Much like I will undress my wife on our wedding night, so we will finally unwrap the gift of sex together that first night and find a shiny and mysterious gift that we need to experience together.
So with these thoughts, hopes, and prayers in my mind, I press forward. I can't say this journey has been easy, and I can't say that I haven't thought about giving in. In fact, I think about what I could gain by giving in right now fairly often. But in the end, what really matters and what really lasts are the choices that I make in the heat of the moment.
Walk with me.

--DyingAnOriginal