I am learning that God designed sex to be amazing, mystical, life affirming and a living, giving gift. It’s the kind of experience men would fight wars for and women would endure high heels for. It is the kind of experience that God, in His infinite creativity and intentional wisdom, would use to compare his love for the church. The 5^th chapter of Ephesians outlines this comparison as Paul inspirationally compares the perfect union of husband and wife to Christ and his bride, the Church. What a love story! What girl wouldn’t (paraphrasing Eph 5:25-32) want a man who would love her, give himself up for her, help make her holy, help make her feel radiant and without fault, present her to the world as his perfect match, and to treat her and care for her like she was intrinsically woven into his essence, his own body – which by the way she is if we recall how Eve got here. Wow! And what man wouldn’t want a wife fully and totally on board with his vision and life in such a way as to be the light of her world? A women who at ever moment would affirm his strength, his abilities and his manliness above all other men’s man stuff.

And it is for this fact, Paul writes, “’…the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery…” (Ephesians 5:31-32). In our souls we yearn for this type of union with our spouses or future spouses. It is written on our hearts as if a promise. I would contend that the closer we get to God, the truer the promise of lavish sex becomes in married life. We can even experience these possibilities in our own romance with Him. In essence, the closer we grow to God, the more hopelessly romantic we become. Scott Peck in A Road Less Traveled wrote about being suspicious of a religious convert whose conversion was not also met with an intensified sexuality. He saw sex as a search for meaning; as is our search for God. When the two become one … well, that’s a whole lot of meaning.

I have been told, however, that when approaching scripture, to heed the scripture that may set up the section. I have always noticed that Bible editors love to insert the Husband and Wife header and in doing so draws one’s attention away from the verses the immediately preced this union metaphor. The word “therefore” draws my attention even to Chapter 4 which heeds us “to put off your old selves” (Eph. 4:22) to“be imitators of God as dearly loved children” (Eph. 5:1), to “live a life of love” (Eph. 5:2) and that the “fruitless deeds of darkness” (Eph. 5:11) need to be “exposed”. As we shine the light on our darkness and shame, we ought also to be intentional in making the most out of every opportunity in this journey of our’s and to be filled with the Spirit. Our lavish sex with our earthly spouse is conditional, I would contend, upon our exposing our sins, making the most out of the opportunities to share with others who God is and by drinking in the strength from the living water, Jesus Christ himself.  Lavish sex is worth being an imitator of God for. Lavish sex, for the single, is worth waiting for as we learn to find sufficiency in the arms of our Lord.

If we don’t talk about the ugly stuff, we can never claim the good gift that the Lord has prepared for us in an amazing sexual union with our marriage partner. I am drawn to sex therapy, sexual wholeness and exposing the dark areas of my life in hopes to liberate you and I from shame and prepare us to take hold of what the Lord wants to lavish on us, a great sex life with our spouses.