Kissing Leads To Missing

Keep steady my steps according to your promise, and let no iniquity get dominion over me.
(Psalm 119:33 – ESV)

Kissing starts the ball rolling, and like a snowball downhill, it can get bigger and bigger, and move faster and faster until it is an avalanche of emotional and physical urges that cannot be stopped very easily. It is better to wait to start the process (kissing at all) until you and the relationship itself are more mature. This goes for any age. I will explain what I mean by “more mature” in a moment.

I am not saying that you are too young to have these feelings, of course you are not, you are indeed having them that is why I am writing this. What we are saying is that you are too young to deal with this effectively, you have much too much to deal with now anyway. If you don’t deal with other young adult priorities, you will be stunted in your emotional, spiritual, psychological, and even intellectual and career growth. You are too young to worry about this now, you have other priorities that will be left out and not developed if you place too much emphasis in this area.

Now, perhaps the fire has already been lit, but that doesn’t mean that we have to let it burn out of control; there is forgiveness and a second chance to regain purity and sanity. Yes I said sanity, because once we have gone ahead of God and let our emotions and urges have their way with us, we will insanely keep searching for fulfillment in all the wrong ways. We got this need that we have to feed. The problem is, we don’t understand how to truly get what we want because what we want isn’t what we need. Then we keep going back to the same old ways and getting the same old hurts.

Perhaps you know the cycle. We get a good-looking boyfriend or girlfriend, and then it doesn’t last, or they just use us, or all they want is . . . or they have different expectations than us, or we find out they’re not so cool after all, or we see someone else who is even hotter looking then them. You can’t stay happy. Whatever the reason, we get trapped and just when we feel like we have crawled out of the pit, we fall right back into another one. Some people get married before they even recognize that they are a slave to the cycle, and they never break free from it.

Unfortunately, I know this can be extremely hard to deal with once Pandora’s box has been opened. This sudden adventure into the exciting world of passion and romance leads many without a desire to do anything other than what will prepare them for more and better relationships of the romantic variety. By saying romantic love I include sexual gratification as well as emotional pleasure, with boys often desiring more of the former, and girls the latter, but these vary depending on the person. Most people want some from each category, so I include them both under “romantic love”. All our goals are directed toward that end, even career and leisure activities are weighed in terms of how they will affect our relational status and prospects for romantic love. We ignore important parts of our total development that need working on, and our whole person suffers. Ironically this hinders our chances at a lasting, successful, and fulfilling relationship later in life.

Yes, sexuality is as good and wonderful as you dream it is. It is powerful, and to be desired. In the physical realm, it is God’s great gift to us. That is why it needs to be put in the proper order. Those that cheapen sex by not waiting are actually saying it is less important, not more. They lessen its power, saying it’s no big deal. But it can be a big deal if you will let it have its proper place. Truthfully, we are placing more significance on sex, not less, because we know that it can be the best part of a lasting relationship.

Hear me clearly here, it is not about denying you one of life’s ultimate pleasures, it is about enhancing it. Sex is good, and so we want to increase the quality of it, not hasten the onset of it. Kissing and sex is supposed to be at the end, the culmination of a bond that has been built on trust and a mutual admiration and respect for the other person.

When we place it at the beginning, we don’t develop our interests based on other important factors that will lead to a satisfying relationship. We never give the relationship time to develop before we rush into too much passion. It should be like a crescendo, growing in intensity, not flaming out because the start was better than the finish. The passion ought to build as we get to know one another, we learn about each other, and grow to appreciate the other person as a whole person, not just for what they do that makes me feel good. Otherwise, when the good times go bad, the party’s over. This is why so many couples get divorced; they never understood that for better or worse meant that the worse would happen to them, and they aren’t prepared to deal.

When we start the pattern off wrong, then we don’t understand all that a relationship is supposed to be about, and we only seek partial fulfillment. We become satisfied with what is less then a mature intimacy. It’s like the person whose always picking the fruit off the tree before it’s ripe; it may taste good, but it isn’t all it was meant to be, and he keeps picking the fruit early because he doesn’t know any better. He is satisfied with less than the best.

But normal humans cannot resist the temptation to go back once they’ve had their initial fix of the “love drug”, even if it is only half the potency of the real thing. Oh, sure, they might try and fight off the passion by saying, “I’m swearing off guys for now”, or “I’m not into dating right now”. How many times have you heard that one before? If you haven’t you will. Your feelings and urges are nothing new, people have been feeling them since God took the rib out of Adam, made Eve, and left the two as needing each other to feel complete.

When we have given in to the temptation, then we realize that void that God put in us, one that was meant to be fulfilled in marriage, but we have already tasted of it, and now we feel that void and keep searching and searching to have the need met. It is a real need, and a good one, but not one that we are ready for, yes ready to feel, but not ready to deal. I will not deny the hunger for the need to be met, you just were not meant to feel or fill the need until marriage.

Older folk may think that they have been there before and are mature enough to “handle it”. Perhaps you are, but is your relationship? Not if you believe that you shouldn’t wait for sex until your relationship has matured to the point of marriage. And you are not ready for marriage until you and your relationship are mature. But you can’t wait, you say. Or perhaps you say, “Well then I’ll just get married.” True, better to marry than burn with passion. But if you haven’t waited for the relationship to mature, are you prepared for the consequences when you find out the other person wasn’t all that you thought they would be?

You went ahead and began kissing. Now you burn with passion and longing because you’re lonely. If you’re young, you put other hopes and dreams on hold, and disrespect those who would try and help you. You need to stop the fire from spreading, and get back to working on your character. The chemistry and commitment come later. You need to be set free of the cycle of kissing and missing.