Journey to Surrender

Who wouldn't want a little perfected lovemaking in their marriage?

Today I am pleased to have Julie Sibert posting about one of the many important topics  from the book she co-authored, Pursuit of Passion. Read on to find out more about what "perfected lovemaking" is and what it means for your marriage.

I'm also pleased to start a regular tradition I'm calling "Friday Freebies." This year, I'll be periodically doing giveaways (on Fridays, as the name indicates) featuring great resources and tools for your marriage.

See the end of Julie's post for today's giveaway details. My thanks to her for providing our first Friday Freebie.

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By Julie Sibert

“The camera never lies.”

Movie directors ride our dollars all the way to the bank on that one little phrase, especially when it comes to romantic dramas.  Who among us doesn’t love a good love story?

Boy meets girl.  Boy and girl go through angst.  Boy and girl find their way back to each other.

Happily. Ever. After.

In many of those romantic dramas, there are sometimes a few sex scenes thrown in as well.  Often, they are not even overtly sexual.  They discretely and flawlessly convey passion, love and pleasure, relying on the viewer’s imagination to fill in the blanks.

We are left with this idea of love perfectly played out in a physical way. Yes, that is what the movies often tell us about sex.

And then, of course, there’s what mama tells you about sex.  Or doesn’t tell you, depending on how your upbringing unfolded. Each of us could offer up a different version of the messages our parents conveyed to us about sex, but in Christian camps, those versions tend to migrate to one of two lines.

Along one line, sex is portrayed as a horrendous sin of which teens and young single adults best steer clear.  A big no-no.  Bad. Gross. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Along the other line, a lot of silence.  Sex is rarely or never discussed.  It is an elusive mystery, and all that silence seems to perpetually shroud it in shame, embarrassment and awkwardness.

Is it no wonder many of us stumble through puberty and right into adulthood without even our little toe standing on a solid foundation of accurate information about sex?

So we try to sort it out on our own, right?  Usually we do this with a fair amount of commentary from people who are as misinformed as we are.  It’s like navigating the relational landscape with a trail mix of half-truths, exaggerations, assumptions and crude jokes.

No surprise, we are left hungry.

Some people (including myself in my younger days) tried to fill that hunger by actually exploring the path of arousal and sex.

“If I’m turned on, is that a sign of love?”

“If I really like this person, should we have sex?”

“If we have sex, and we both seem to enjoy it, does that mean we have a future together?”

What a confusing and exhausting journey, compounded by the fact that learning about sex this way has become the societal norm.

But you know what the movies and mama (and your friends) never told you about sex?

That there is a difference between having sex, making love and perfected love making.  Of the three, it’s the last camp that should really pique your interest.  Only with perfected love making is God happily in the mix, willingly revealing to you authentic intimacy.

Sex isn’t just about a physical connection or even genuine emotional connection.  Certainly we can find plenty of examples among single people where there is a mix of those connections.  Sexual encounters that are purely physical may even be categorized as “just sex.”   Encounters where there also is a deep emotional connection may be thought of as “more than sex” or “making love.”

“So why should I care about perfected love making?” you may be wondering.

First of all, don't let that word “perfected” throw you into confusion.  This isn’t about being perfect.  Rather, it’s about embracing God’s vision for intimacy in your marriage.

Perfected love making is one of the many aspects of intimacy that my co-author and I explore in our new eBook Pursuit of Passion: Discovering True Intimacy in Your Marriage. 

The reason we dig into it is because so many couples come into marriage with skewed sexual messages and experiences.  To say there are a lot of sexual struggles going on in many marriages would be an understatement.

We want married couples to embrace that no matter the skewed sexual messages or experiences they had coming into marriage, the Lord equips them to experience something authentically profound in their sexual intimacy.

Perfected Love Making is much more than how a couple feels physically and emotionally when they have sex. This only takes place completely where oneness is found – and that’s within the context of a God-ordained marriage.  PLM is distinctly different (and better!) than having sex or making love because those experiences lack the oneness that can be found only when a husband and a wife are covenantally united before God in marriage.

God definitely wants you having sex with your spouse that is passionate, pleasurable and abundant in love.  He offers you perfected love making that is far beyond the distorted or vague messages you may have heard from the movies, your mama, your friends or your past sexual encounters.

He is so generous in this regard!  He cares deeply about what is happening in your marriage bed.

What do you believe you and your spouse could do to embrace God’s vision for your intimacy?

Comment on this post by midnight Tuesday (January 21st) and you will be entered into a drawing for a Kindle copy of the eBook Pursuit of Passion: Discovering True Intimacy in Your Marriage. Be sure to check back on Wednesday, when the winner will be announced.

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Julie Sibert writes and speaks about sexual intimacy in marriage and is the co-author of Pursuit of Passion: Discovering True Intimacy in Your Marriage.  You can follow her blog at www.IntimacyInMarriage.com. She lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband, their two boys and one rambunctious German Shorthair Pointer dog who kind of wants to chew up the kitchen floor.