the great and dangerous gift

Lewis talks about the gift of sex today in A Year with C.S. Lewis.

He tells us that God's plan is for man and woman to be joined together in the beautiful mystery of sexual union. Lewis tells us that man and woman become "one organism" when they are thus joined. And we know that from this mystical union, new life comes into the world.

We can see that this is a reflection, in a limited human way, of the eternal relationship between the three persons of the Trinity. God the Father loves God the Son, and that love produces a third person - the Holy Spirit. That love and that relationship are high above our human, sexual relationships. Their relationship transcends not only ours, but even our ability to understand it fully. But we CAN see that the love between two persons has been producing another person for all eternity... so it's not exactly a new thing, though it IS still wondrous, when the love between man and woman produce a new person.

Lewis goes on to talk about how it is unnatural and wrong to have sex outside of marriage, since in doing so you're separating the pleasure from the purpose of the act. He compares it to eating. But it can be compared to any of our pleasures. God made things pleasant so that we can enjoy the things that we must do for life. But we selfishly turn that pleasure into sin anytime we interrupt the connection between the pleasure and the purpose of the act.

So many people today have made that separation. They have taken sexual pleasure and made it something selfish and completely severed from the act of procreation. They do this to their own detriment. Because just as eating food just for pleasure and then spitting it out again deprives us from the blessing of nutrition, so does having sex without the possibility of children deprive us of the great blessing of the new life that springs from the act. And pornography takes that severing one step farther, because the pleasure doesn't even involve another person anymore, but just one person alone, taking sexual pleasure from watching others, and turning sexuality into something it was never intended to be - lonely and selfish. Sex was created to be just the opposite - together and giving.

Let's pray for all of the millions of people around the world who are addicted to pornography. That they might be freed from the thing that pulls them into shame, selfishness, and loneliness.

God, thank You for giving us such a great gift in our sexuality. Please help us to enjoy that gift responsibly, and in the togetherness and giving nature in which you intended it.