Every Young Man's Battle: Stategies for Victory in the Real World of Sexual Temptation: The Every Man Series (26 page)

“In practice, this meant that I was
not to be alone with the person I was dating. Obviously, I didn’t take
this to the extreme. I
could
ride in a car with her, for instance. On
the other hand, if we were sitting in the car talking, it had to be in a place
like her parents’ driveway—not some lover’s lane. I also made
it a rule that I couldn’t be alone in a house with the girl I was
dating.

“I kept these standards when I moved away from my parents
because I felt it was wise and very honorable to God. Of course, it was much
easier when I was living at home. I could say, ‘I can’t do it
because my parents won’t let me.’ Now I had to keep those same
standards as my own. But what a great standard! I’ve just gotten married,
and you better believe that I’m so glad that I stood strong, especially
when Lisa and I were engaged. I can think of several occasions when, without
this standard living strong in our lives, it would have been easy to lose the
purity in our relationship.

“Before we got married, Lisa and I
allowed ourselves to sit in the car and talk many times in my parents’
driveway. (While I no longer lived there, we often visited.) The neighbors
would always peek out their kitchen curtains at us. We always waved at them,
but we never got a wave in return! God bless those neighbors…they were
definitely a part of our accountability, whether we liked it or not. I’m
sure my mom was doing the same thing, but at least she was never obvious about
it!

“Another defense was to tell everyone I knew about my
standards. After that, the standards were never hard to follow because most
people knew what they were. If I messed up, every guy in town seemed to know
about it, and they would bash me for it. When God places a conviction on your
heart, that standard becomes just as important as the ones He wrote out clearly
in the Bible. This is what can set apart the ‘average’ Christian
dating couple from the ones who want God’s perfect will.

“I
remember the time shortly after I met Lisa. I was driving her home after doing
some group dating things. We were trying to think of something we could do
because it was still pretty early. Lisa turned to me and said, ‘Do you
want to come back to my place? We could make some dessert and play some board
games.’ You have to know that Lisa was living on her own at the time, and
I could feel the lump in my throat and the knot in my stomach in a split
second. Thoughts flooded my mind and heart… Lisa did have a roommate,
but I wasn’t sure she’d be there or how long she might stay. I knew
we weren’t yet ‘technically dating,’ but I was sure starting
to like this girl.

“How do I explain to this nice girl that I
couldn’t go back to her house to simply play games? Should I say that I
needed to go home because I was tired? But if I did, she’d know that I
was avoiding telling her something because it was still early. I decided to
face it head on, knowing full well that she could laugh and tell me how silly I
was. I urgently thought,
Lord, help me!
It felt like an eternity
before I could get any words out. I nervously said, ‘You might think this
sounds a little funny, but I have a rule for myself that I don’t spend
time alone with a girl in her home. I just don’t put myself in those
situations.’ The moment those words left my mouth, I felt a huge weight
lifted off my chest. I was so proud, yet at the same time, I was scared to hear
Lisa’s response. To my shock, she quickly said, ‘Don’t worry
about it. We’ll find something else to do.’

“I
seriously can’t remember what she suggested we could do that evening, but
at that moment, I felt like the Lord rewarded me for taking a stand for Him.
Even though I didn’t know at that time that Lisa would be my future wife,
the Lord knew.”

Danny and Uriah are cut from the same cloth.
Young men like Danny have real honor, courage, and love.

Honoring the
father means that you ask his permission when it comes time to marry. When I
asked my father-in-law for Brenda’s hand in marriage, he was on his
deathbed. Although he strengthened from time to time, we both knew his time on
earth was nearly over. I entered his hospital room, much stronger than he but
far more frightened. I knew how much he loved his daughter. I knew how he once
held her and let her cry when she came home with a squirrel-cut instead of a
haircut. I knew how he proudly gave her a used, red Chevy Nova as a gift. I
knew how he used to swim way out into the ocean and let her sit on him like a
raft, floating merrily. I knew how he had diligently raised her in purity,
keeping her in church and away from ribald influences on her life.

When I asked for her hand, he said something to me that has remained
engraved indelibly in my memory over the years. “Though I don’t
know you well,” he began, “I know you’re the kind of man who
will do what you say. I know you’ll take care of her.” Never in my
life had a man believed in me so, trusting my manhood and entrusting me with
something so valuable. He gave his cherished only daughter to me, even while
knowing he could never step back in to defend her if I didn’t keep my
word, that he would never be there to remind me of my promises, that he would
never be there to put that sparkle back in her eye if I ever made it
disappear.

I owed him because he trusted me, both while Brenda and I
were dating and right now, as he lies in his grave. I owed him because he
provided such a wonderful daughter to me. I owed him because of his great
investment in her. When I see him again in heaven, I won’t have to avert
my eyes sheepishly in shame. He gave me the baton, and I ran well with it.

That’s love and honor. That’s authenticity.

We thought it would be interesting for you to hear from
your counterparts—young women. What do they think about all this? What
type of pressures are they feeling? What are they looking for in a guy?

Before we go much deeper, you should know that many young women today are
growing up without a male presence in the home. An estimated 30 percent of
girls and young women don’t know what it’s like to have a full-time
dad, to feel the warmth of his embrace and to watch how he treats her mother.
You can blame the high divorce rate and the quarter-century rise in single
parenting for this development.

Furthermore, there’s the sad
phenomenon of abuse, including inappropriate sexual behavior. Countless girls
are fondled and raped by cousins, uncles, and their mother’s
boyfriends—as many as one out of three, if we’re to believe the
statistics. Our culture has left many young women so hurting, lonely, and
insecure that they’re willing to trade their bodies just for a chance to
hold someone close and look deeply into another person’s eyes. Now,
keeping all of this in mind, what did the girls have to say?

I
interviewed three young women for this chapter: Amber, Brynna, and Cassie.
Amber started the conversation by saying, “I know that most of us girls
fall short of God’s standards in the way we conduct ourselves. We need to
feel accepted, and when we don’t understand the value we have from being
a daughter of the King or even our own fathers, we search hard for acceptance.
Sometimes it seems like a fair trade to lower our standards to meet those needs
within us.”

Guys, they said, have a way of finding emotionally
needy young women. Amber said, “Many girls are insecure, so they let the
guys do what they want, even if it disagrees with them, just so they can have
that relationship with him. If she stops his advances, she fears he’ll
break up with her, and then she’ll no longer have that identity with him.
I see that happen to my friends all the time.”

But remember,
guys—we’re called to be like Christ. That means treating her like
we
would like to be treated. This means that we aren’t to bruise
the broken reed. This means leaving the girls you date better for having known
you. I (Fred) can’t think of a single girl I dated that I left better
than when I met her, which is a pretty sad indictment of where my head was at.
And what about Steve? Do you think the abortion left his girlfriend better off?
Of course not.

And yet, being better off for having known you is
exactly what women want. If you provide it, you’ll be their hero. I once
heard a teenage girl say wistfully, “You know, I really missed the boat
when I let Bill slip away. He was truly kind, and he never hurt me
once.”

“Girls desire to be loved and cherished for the
person they are,” Brynna commented. “We like to be told we’re
beautiful with no hidden agendas.”

Added Amber: “Guys, you
need to let them know you care more about their heart than the way they
dress.”

Cassie simply stated, “Please be a
leader.”

Yet too often the only leadership we take is to charge
across her sexual boundaries. “Girls want guys to take the lead in the
relationship,” said Cassie. “Yet often it’s the guys who are
pushing the boundaries. When that has happened to me, I felt very resentful. I
know that it makes girls just feel used. We neither feel validated in who we
are nor in what we stand for as women. I remember the time when a guy I really
liked tried some things that made me uncomfortable. I asked him to stop, but he
persisted. Finally, he just wore me down and I eventually gave in. He had
weakened my defenses.”

Understand what’s being said here.
There’s nothing manly about pushing past your girlfriend’s sexual
boundaries, especially when their pain or their desire for acceptance weakens
their defenses. Besides, sex isn’t so much a physical act as it’s
an emotional act for women—much different from the male perspective.

You may be saying,
Wait a minute, Fred. The girls I know sure look like
they’re all about sex.
One guy put it this way: “Girls in my
youth group definitely have caused me to stumble. It’s really hard for a
guy to worship God when they’re standing right in front of you with a
sleeveless shirt and tight, tight shorts. I’m joking, of course, but
sometimes I feel as though I have to repent for having gone to
church!”

We don’t deny this, nor are we saying that girls
are never tempted by sex, or that they hate every minute of it. Amber said she
knew she’d done some things that were wrong sexually, things that should
be reserved for marriage. “But I didn’t lower my standards just
because the guy was pushing for it,” she said. “I wanted to be
touched just as much as he wanted to touch me. It has happened often, and each
time in the middle of it I would be thinking,
This isn’t right, but
it isn’t that wrong. We’re not having intercourse, and we’re
not taking our clothes off.
Plus, it just felt so good that it was hard to
stop.”

Yes, it’s even possible for a girl to race across
your
borders once in a while, so you have to be prepared for that too.
Remember, young women are just as influenced by our sensual culture as you are.
One of our pastors told me, “I’m starting to think that our girls
are just as horny as the guys.”

But don’t get the idea that
young women think like you do about sex. They don’t. They aren’t
visually oriented like you. Amber said, “It’s honestly
inconceivable to me that just by looking at something sensual a guy can get so
turned on that he has to masturbate! I can’t comprehend that at
all.”

Amber’s statement ought to remind us: The biggest difference is that
sex is not a girl’s top priority in the relationship, and you need to
understand this very clearly. Maybe it can most simply be said this way:

• Guys give emotions so they can get sex.

• Girls give
sex so they can get the emotions.

Guys, girls want a relationship with
you, but they should not have to give sex to get it.

“What can a
guy do to make me feel cherished?” asked Amber. “By showing that he
desires to spend quality time with me, telling me why he loves me, and trusting
me with his thoughts and feelings. He can’t be afraid to tell me the
truth, even if it hurts. He has to honor my family and respect my body by not
compromising our boundaries. He needs to keep his promises and be a man of his
word by looking out for
my
protection and best interests.”

As you can see, sex has little priority with Amber, which is the same story
for Brynna. “If you want to know what turns me on, then it’s when
he remembers what I tell him or gives me an unexpected gift of something I had
mentioned in passing. It’s when he sends me a card for no reason, gives
me hugs or a little kiss, holds my hand in public, and grants me independence
with my friends. Oh yes, and showing me respect and praising me in front of
others.”

Not much sex there. Let’s try Cassie. “I
want him to be attentive and appreciate who I am and what I like,” she
began. “I want him to care for me, not just give advice or fix everything
before we even talk about it. I want him to do special, thoughtful things for
me out of the blue, like presenting me with flowers, gifts, and notes. I want
him to open doors and pay for our dates. I want him to act like a gentleman and
be proud of me.”

No sexual priorities there, either. These young
ladies aren’t looking for a little action. They are looking for a little
relationship along with some spiritual and physical leadership from you. Cassie
said, “I often feel that I care more about my purity than my boyfriend,
Kevin, does, although he’s a great spiritual leader in many areas. We
sometimes fast for special needs and for our future together. But this
leadership doesn’t show up in our physical relationship. We’ve
decided together on boundaries, but he often pushes hard at them. When I
resist, he pouts or asks why I don’t desire him physically. I hate making
him feel bad and having the blame pushed back on me, so sometimes I’ve
given in. Kevin’s happy and loving after that, but I get very resentful.
Once we even broke up for a number of months.”