Lessons on sex

All other knowledge may get outdated but never the knowledge on sex. Lol.

If you could remember, what was your first lesson on sex? I asked myself that question recently and I bet just like many others, my first lesson on sex (and probably the only lesson I ever got from my Christian parents) was to simply abstain from sex…without even knowing or being told what sex is in the first place. Haha. Our Christian parents see sex as a very dangerous zone so they never go beyond “abstain” to openly discuss it with their kids…all the while assuming, hoping and praying that will be enough information to keep their kids sexually pure, to wit, virgins for life. Lol

It’s a good thing to never want your kids to do it, before marriage especially, but reality is that they might break your heart…they might not wait that long. They might surely experiment along the line.

But like I always say, when it comes to sex, innocence with knowledge is far better than innocence without knowledge. It’s better to have good knowledge about sex and not engage in it, than to not know anything about it and engage in it. Sometimes, too much naivety with sexual matters can lead to your own undoing.

Seriously, talking to your kids early about sex is all good. They need to know early about God’s design for sex, the when, how and why.

OK, enough of the preamble. Today I’m sharing a few lessons I gathered recently on sex:

LESSON 1: “The average Christian has bought a bucket-full of lies regarding sex. Those lies may be so embedded in your thinking that they feel a lot like truth. The essence of who you are sexually and how you approach intimacy in your marriage is in your thought life. To the extent the enemy has infiltrated your thinking, God’s truth about sex will remain on the pages of your Bible and never make it to your bedroom. The battle begins and ends with your thoughts”

You need to realize that there are so many lies out there that it becomes so hard to know sometimes who is saying the truth.

LESSON 2: “While sexual restraint is the challenge before marriage, uninhibited sexual expression is the challenge within marriage”

LESSON 3: “Within the covenant of marriage, erotic, exciting sex is a worthy pursuit for both the husband and the wife. A godly marriage should include frequent and satisfying sexual intimacy”

LESSON 4: “I think many Christian couples have no idea what freedom they have in the bedroom. God made the marriage relationship a safe place for a husband and wife to explore, experiment, laugh, and get lost in sensational sex”

LESSON 5: “Every marriage experiences some obstacle in physical intimacy. Differences in desire, medical issues, baggage from poor choices in the past, a poor body image to name just a few”. Simply, a great sex life requires a great deal of effort…not laziness.

LESSON 6: “The enemy will do anything he can to put you in the bedroom before you get married. And he will do everything he can to keep you out of the bedroom after you’re married”.

If you read this, you are blessed because you now know a lot more than just abstinence. You’ve gained some extra knowledge. Haha.

We’ll love to hear your thoughts. Share with us in the comment box.

© Mark Gadogbe (McApple), 2017

Marriage & Personal Development Author

…not always the right thing

Sometimes what is comfortable and natural is not always the right thing. Many of us are immersed in unhealthy patterns in all kinds of areas of our lives. We spend too much time on the internet. We yell too much at our kids. We get up too late and are always in a hurry. We have no organization in our lives and always feel a little discombobulated. We’re doing what comes naturally and feels comfortable, but it’s actually hurting us. And we can be like that in our marriages, too. We stop talking about matters of the heart and only talk logistics: who is going to the grocery store, who is going to help mom this weekend. We criticize when we should keep our mouth shut; we retreat to our own hobbies instead of spending time together.

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Marriage Rut…

“It is rare to find a couple as madly in love with each other as they were when they were dating. Most marriages have fallen into a routine; a boring, lifeless and discouraging routine. If you have kids, then it seems to be even harder to find time to connect with your spouse”

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Marrying late

Oh yeah, almost everybody dreams of marrying young I believe, at least in their twenties. But someway somehow, life happened and you feel like you are on a time bomb. For some it was their own choice; maybe focusing on their career in those early years and assuming love will just find them. For others, it’s a chain of disappointments and broken hearts; wasted years on the wrong person and then as the years go by the right people seem hard to come by. Perhaps the longer the wait, the more potential partners get taken off the marriage market and the shallower the pool of potential singles become?

You’ll find so many reasons why people’s marriages have delayed but what’s kind of true is that only a few such people are able to still carry on in life with their self esteem still intact, especially when it wasn’t by choice. It’s such a frustrating feeling not being successful in love and having to wait for so long to find that happiness and fulfillment when it’s not by choice. Unfortunately for some, when that ideal time is past, they are left with a feeling that can best be described as having to settle with a less than ideal partner.

It’s hard, I know. I didn’t have to go through that but I think we could still pause and try to see the blessing in marrying late too. Marriage is hard work and so much responsibility; sometimes crippling your personal development in some areas of life where being unmarried would have ensured faster results. Plus, younger couples, perhaps just starting out in life are often battling financial problems (from the huge demands on married life) that can put a lot of stress on a marriage.

One woman shared her story:

“Getting married at barely 20 meant my husband and I literally started with nothing and we were broke much of the time especially by the time the kids started coming in”

I believe for many young couples, the testimony above is just like a drop in an ocean. For indeed, many young couples have had the challenge of building their life from nothing, right from scratch!

Perhaps for those who married late, though having been denied the early bliss of companionship and perhaps the opportunity of having a child early, they would have used the period to set stronger financial and material foundations. It is expected that most couples who marry late would be more financially sustainable and would have more essential material possessions (say their own house, car, etc) compared to younger couples and this could be a blessing in disguise. To say the least, paying high rents for an apartment with little to save for one’s own house (a great necessity) is a growing challenge for young couples. Reminds me of a friend who told me recently that if he had not married early (which he appreciates though) he would have had his own house by now and I told him people have houses but are not married and are not happy and wishing the opposite has happened.

It is often reported that as a result of financial security alone (which most young couples take a big risk on), those who married significantly later in life report less work-related stress, less marital conflict and more couple interaction and satisfaction.

There’s a blessing in everything o. Count your blessings where you find yourself. Delay is not denial and maybe you just have to reposition yourself better; maybe you have to try doing things differently and relating with people differently; maybe you just need a new outlook on life and not let such disappointments knock out your self-worth.

But whatever the situation, if you are Christian, you can trust that every life circumstance eventually works for your good. After all, the most important factor shouldn’t be time but who; time is of essence but who you marry tops it all. That’s because depending on the character of the person you marry, your life can either be one of perpetual bliss or hell on earth, whether you married early or not. Also because Christians don’t believe in divorce merely on the grounds of some little “irreconcilable differences” nor do they treat marriage as merely a contract between two parties that can be terminated at any time and on any grounds as they so wish, makes who you marry an important factor than time.

Nonetheless, even if there is a perfect time to get married, then it’s only God’s time. And God’s time for everybody is different. Your time will come and don’t let our self esteem deteriorate as if the only way of measuring success and fulfillment in life is whether or not one is married.

Mark Gadogbe (McApple)

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She’s too young for you…

Maybe she’s too young for you…if she can’t make any critical decisions like:

• Whether she will marry you now or tomorrow
• Whether she wants to have two kids or one
• Whether she wants to be a career woman or just a housewife
• Whether she wants to live in the village or town
• Whether she will use part of her money to support the home or not
• Whether she is old enough to make her decisions or stick to her parents’
• Whether she must choose the man she wants to marry or her parents must
• Whether to love you all the way or not

The list is so long…but the choice remains yours.

She can’t make the simplest of decisions?? Then maybe…

With marriage comes a lot of very critical decisions to make. Decisions in marriage, no matter how small, are no child’s play. It’s no place for “too young” folks. Being “too young for you” is not necessarily about age…but the mental ability to decide what one wants out of life and in a marriage.

Indecision is a big killer in marriage. Marriages are planned and that means loads of decision making. It’s not an “anything goes” affair.

So whether he or she is too young for you is a question you can’t avoid to ponder. Lol.

Mark Gadogbe (McApple)

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