Anonymous Asks (337)

“Are lustful thoughts natural, and how do I deal with them when they keep coming back into my mind?”

God made the average young man to procreate. There are always exceptions to the average, of course, as the Lord Jesus noted to his disciples — that’s how it becomes an average in the first place. You need the outliers on both ends to put you smack bang in the middle of the pack.

You sound like you’re right there in the middle, Anonymous: a normal human, Christian male.

The Meaning of Lust

So the good news is: Congratulations, your lustful thoughts are perfectly natural! The bad news is the Christian has two natures, and they are in perpetual conflict. You will need to decide which one of those natures, old or new, is driving your thought processes. That may not be as obvious as you might think, based on how modern evangelical Christians talk about sexual desire.

England went through its Victorian phase, characterized by complex and rigid rules governing social behavior between the sexes. Of all people in our society, Christians are most likely to be uncritically Victorian in their outlook. As a result, our language uses the word “lust” to translate a Greek term that in our Bibles is actually morally neutral. In Luke, the Lord Jesus used the same Greek word that is translated “lust” (as in homosexual lust) in Romans 1:24 to describe how urgently he wished to enjoy the Passover celebration with his disciples. There was nothing remotely sexual or inappropriate about our Lord’s desire for fellowship with his own, but if we were consistent and ruthlessly literal in our English translations, we would have to call it “lust”. Thankfully, we are not consistent.

So then, only context can tell us whether epithymia means a state of mind we need to avoid like the plague, or a feeling both natural and even situationally appropriate. To put it another way, there is such a thing as biblical, ordinate lust. How about that?

Ordinate Lust

Here’s an attempt to illustrate that very weird idea. You’ve found an attractive, wise and godly young Christian woman you want to marry. You prayed about it. She said yes. You put a ring on her finger, both families got all excited … and then you couldn’t book a hall for the reception until June, and it’s only November. If you find yourself distracted by the occasional semi-explicit vision of that wedding night seven months down the road as you try to figure out how you’re going to approach becoming “one flesh” before God, congratulations: you’re normal. I’m not sure you’re even sinning in any way that matters. The object of your “lust” is an ordinate one, and you are handling your desire in the most Christian way possible. Come on! Have you never read the Song of Solomon? What would be really weird is if you never thought of your betrothed that way or beat yourself up for it unnecessarily. You might carry your Victorianism into the marriage and give yourself (or her) a complex. Get over your guilt, and pray for those seven months to pass quickly. The only way you can really go wrong in such a situation is to act precipitously on your feelings, or to stoke them unnecessarily when they must morally remain unrequited for now. But what comes into your head about her? Don’t worry about it unless it’s creepy and unhealthy, in which case you have other issues.

What can you say about such times? “Thank you, Lord, for anticipation.” For many people, it’s better than the reality. Try to carry over that level of enthusiasm and apply it to the Lord’s return. That’s what marriage is really supposed to point to. Speaking practically, keep trying to feel those same things for your beloved as you move on through your married life and your friends and acquaintances are succumbing to marital ennui. As Solomon puts it, “Rejoice in the wife of your youth.”

Inordinate Lust

That’s ordinate “lust”. But you’re probably talking about lust that isn’t quite so ordinate. What makes intense desire inappropriate is directing it at the wrong object, or at the right object at the wrong time. Lust is inappropriate when it is directed at a woman who is already taken. That should be obvious. If you wish that you had Jessie’s Girl, well, just stop. The reason you “can’t find a woman like that” is because you’re fixated on a girl you can’t have. So run away. Run far away if necessary. Hanging around will only stoke those feelings and riddle you with guilt.

I’m talking about married women, of course, and I include engaged women in that as well, at least until the point they break their engagement. We are not Jews, and our engagement process is not quite as morally binding and culturally offensive to call off. I’m also talking about unsaved women. If you are craving one of those, get far, far away. I am in my seventh decade and I have yet to see a single mismatch between light and darkness end well. Not one. She will destroy your life, and no, the chances you will bring her into the kingdom are somewhere between slim and none. On top of that, I’m also talking about perfectly decent women you’ve asked who said no to your overtures, even if you think they said yes earlier. Believe them now, and move on. Take it from the Lord. The lyrics to Every Breath You Take are not romantic; they’re just creepy. Don’t be that guy. If you are having sexual fantasies about women you can’t have, you definitely have a problem. It’s not just unproductive and frustrating, it’s flat out wrong.

By the way, when I refer to a woman as “taken”, I’m not talking about dating one of your peers casually. Dating is not even a biblical concept. Until he pops the question and she says yes, she’s not taken yet, she’s just out shopping and you’re only one aisle over. My own father had set his sights on a woman who was dating another Christian man. So he sat down with the guy one day and bluntly asked him the question, “Are you serious about her? Are you going to marry her?” The man confessed he probably would not. Mom was a pleasant way for him to pass the time until he found “the right one”. Dad told him, in effect, “Get out of the road.” Thankfully, he did. Sometimes all that stands between a man and the object of his desire is courage and frankness.

What to Do About It?

Here we come to the crux of the problem. You’ve asked a really good question, Anonymous. “How do I deal with lustful thoughts that keep coming back?”

1/ Don’t Stoke Them

You can’t help what you feel in the moment, especially when you are caught by surprise. You can only react to it morally and move on, hoping that practice makes perfect. But you can definitely avoid stoking inappropriate desires. As I wrote some years ago in another context:

“There’s a huge difference between, on the one hand, watching a young man or woman you don’t know get up and give her testimony and feeling a sudden, inappropriate surge of sexual desire which you reject in the presence of God, and, on the other hand, feeling a surge of sexual attraction because you have parked at the bottom of a dark lane with someone you know you shouldn’t be alone with. If the first is sinful at all, it is definitely less sinful than the second.”

Don’t go places you shouldn’t with people you shouldn’t.

2/ Don’t Make Too Much of Your Feelings

The second rule is like the first: don’t make more of your obsessions than they merit. Don’t join a Christian support group for young men dealing with lust. You’ll end up talking about the very thing you need to think about less. Don’t seek out friends and talk about your troubles all the time. Don’t hang around temptation once you have established you have no right to an interest. I have an older relative whose obsession over a married Christian man led her to leave town to avoid the feelings she was having for him. She was not going too far. Presumably you’ve read the Sermon on the Mount. (And yes, it all worked out in the end for her. Sometimes these things do. But assume they won’t and behave accordingly.)

3/ Don’t Let Satan Drag You Down

If you fall down in your thought life, don’t stay down. Ask for forgiveness, get up, and carry right on. Emotions are tricky things, and some of us control them better than others. So long as you have not actually done anything wicked in response to your feelings, you are way better off than if you had. Don’t give yourself an excuse to get out of the race. If the Lord commanded Peter to forgive his brother seventy times seven times, you can bet he will forgive you for your mental slips way more times than that.

4/ Replace the Time You Spend Lusting with Something Better

Admittedly, this is easier said than done. Physical exercise is good. Try being distracted by a woman when you have 250 lbs up in the air over your head. You won’t do it twice. Reading is also good. Just don’t read about marriage, romance or women. If you find yourself sitting around moping about the woman you can’t have, punish yourself by going and doing a good deed for a fellow believer. A blank space in your life will not fill itself with anything good. So get out there, do something productive, and tire yourself out in the service of God. You never know who you might meet by accident one of these days. And at least when you go to bed at night, you’ll pass out and sleep deeply instead of fretting in the dark.

5/ Use Your Energy to Make the Impossible Possible

Often, young men allow themselves to get all caught up in romantic infatuations when they are nowhere near ready to marry. This is a recipe for frustration. It’s also pretty stupid to ask the Lord to bring the right woman along when you’re playing videogames in your parents’ basement without two cents to rub together. Get a job, start saving, and put yourself in a position to be ready to care for that godly young woman when the Lord finally brings her along. Devote the time you are spending fantasizing to stocking shelves, learning to lead by studying the scriptures, starting your own business or otherwise preparing to provide. Investing in your own development will also help you not to sell yourself short by settling for less than you should. If it costs you pain and hours of work, you will think twice before throwing it away on someone who doesn’t love the Lord like you do.

6/ Not My Will But Thine

My mother got married by giving up on marriage. Everything she had tried to contrive on her own had gone so badly that she told the Lord, “I’m willing to be single if that’s what you have in store for me.” She promptly acquired a husband and four children. If you love yourself, you will lose it. If you give it up for Christ, be prepared to gain it back in spades.