Making Marriage Work (18 page)

Unless perverted outside of marriage, sexuality is to be holy, fun, and wholesome. It’s a stress reliever that brings two people into a closeness that cannot be found in any other way except through a right relationship in a marriage union.

Unless perverted outside of marriage, sexuality is to be holy, fun, and wholesome.

If the devil works so hard at perverting something, it’s because he knows how much power there is in a good sex life. That is why he works so hard at trying to pervert it and tear apart couples who are committed to each other. He knows what the Word says. He heard Jesus say,
“Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven”
(Matthew 18:19
NIV
).

Agreement is a powerful weapon of spiritual warfare against the devil. Two people who are in agreement can cause miracles to happen. If a husband and wife are in agreement, the devil comprehends the damage they could do to his own plan to steal the blessings of God from them. The devil wants to destroy and pervert sex inside of marriage; he wants to distract couples away from the bond of agreement that this act was intended to bring between them. Many couples disagree about — and even during — sex. But God’s purpose and His truth need to be brought back into focus. A right godly sexual relationship between two married people is beautiful, and it is a weapon against the devil’s plot to destroy.

Sometimes you may even argue over what is right to do and what is not right. One partner may want to do something with which the other one does not feel comfortable. How do you handle that? First, let me say that I certainly don’t have all the answers, nor do I consider myself an expert, but I will share what I believe God has shown me.

I don’t believe it is wise to try to force your marriage partner to go against their conscience. I realize there are probably some people, usually women, who are extremely shy and overly conscience-stricken in this area. If that is the case, forcing them to something with which they are not comfortable is not the answer. Proper education will help; prayer will help; patience will help — force will only make it worse.

I cannot give you a list of “do’s” and “do not’s,” but I would hope that an honest consideration of body parts would educate us concerning what they are and are not to be used for. Each couple must follow their own convictions in these areas. We are to avoid all evil and perversion. Sex is a natural act; nobody has to be taught how to do it, not even animals. Let nature take its course, and enjoy each other.

A GODLY ATTITUDE IS A WEAPON OF WARFARE

Being abused like I was, I didn’t have a very good attitude towards sex. And even though my physical body would respond fairly well, my mind, my mentality didn’t want anything to do with it. There were times when Dave and I might be lying in bed and he would say, “You don’t ever approach me.”

I would endure whatever I needed to, but I didn’t participate. I just sort of lay there like a dead fish. I had the attitude of “Here I am; do whatever you have to do, but don’t expect me to get involved.” Unfortunately, many women have this attitude towards sex, and it is causing a problem in their marriages.

God wants you to enjoy sex and view it a precious thing between a husband and his wife. I have learned that even when I am too tired to enjoy the sex act, I can still greatly enjoy being close to my husband and giving him pleasure. It is holy in God’s sight.

At a point of frustration, not wanting to continue to push my husband away, I asked the Lord, “When am I going to get anything out of this?”

He replied, “When you decide to put something into it.” It’s amazing how good God’s answers are to the questions we take to Him. I wasn’t expecting that answer, but that was what He told me. “When you decide to put something into it.”

Passivity robs us of many things, including pleasure in our marriage union. We put off doing the right thing because it seems too hard or because we get embarrassed. We put off assertiveness in our marriage relationship because we were abused. We put it off because we’ve had problems in the past and we will not take the time to focus on getting well. We will not get free until we obey God and do what He is telling us to do.

Because of being forced into sex when I was young, if Dave ever encouraged me to make love when I didn’t want to, I believed he was “forcing me.” Dave would never force me, but any playful attempt on his part to persuade me to change my mind after I had said “no” would make me almost violently mad. I would snap at him with, “Stop trying to make me do stuff I don’t want to do.”

I would get really upset, until God revealed to me that my emotional reaction was toward my past and that I needed to let that old stuff die out. God encouraged me to do what I knew I should do, and not what I felt like doing. I had to let my flesh be crucified in Christ and accept God’s truth in my life.

When you see what the Word says and do what God is saying, no matter how hard it is, you will begin to enjoy a release from the past and a new expectancy for the future. There were many times when I let my husband make love to me simply out of obedience to God, and though Dave didn’t know it, tears were running down my face. I was in agony from trying to obey God and get rid of the bondage in my soul from the problems that I had when I was growing up.

When you obey God’s Word no matter how difficult, you will begin to enjoy a release from the past and a new expectancy for the future.

There were times when I hurt so bad emotionally in my soul that I have laid on my office floor and held onto the legs of the furniture in my room to keep from running away from God. But obedience brings victory and reward, and I am now here, a living witness, proof that it pays off to do things God’s way.

I am the proof that if you are willing to do things God’s way, not only will you be joyous and happy, not only will you be free and have a successful marriage, but God can use your testimony just like He is using us to reach out and set multiplied others free. He will use the right relationship that you have with Him and with each other to bring life into the world.

Make the choice to enjoy life. Make the choice to live God’s plan. He will dry every tear in our eyes and bring joy in the morning when we are obedient to His ways.

Most likely, your flesh will feel the pain while you are getting free of old ways of thinking. But hold to something that will keep you from running away from God. God wouldn’t let me continue to mistreat Dave while I was in the process of changing and renewing my mind.

Some people who were abused and mistreated by people in their past retaliate on their current partner when it was not their fault. My father was very controlling and manipulative, and he would get violent if I showed any dislike for what he was doing. To survive his abuse, I had to pretend that it was happening to somebody else.

I had taught myself not to mentally participate in the sex act. Having developed the habit of fantasizing that it wasn’t happening to me was the only way I knew to engage myself in intimate moments with Dave. I, Joyce Meyer, couldn’t get involved. I had to pretend like it was somebody else.

As I grew in knowledge of the Word, God began to convict me to make the choice to choose life. In one way, getting free is hard, but in another way, it is easy because God has a personalized, individual plan for everyone. God knows infinitely the problems that each person faces and though everyone’s problems are different, God knows what it will take to get over them.

The Holy Spirit is ready to help those who call upon the Lord. If you will simply and systematically agree to obey God, He will walk you out of every bondage that you have and take you into a life of freedom. But if you choose not to obey God, you will never get out of bondage because you can’t get in enough prayer lines and you can’t get enough counseling to ever be set free.

If you will simply and systematically obey God, He will walk you out of every bondage into a life of freedom.

You have to be willing to listen to God for direction on what you should do to restore life in your marriage. Shutting out His voice is adversely affecting your marriage if you are bringing unholy fantasies into that marriage bed, and your mind needs to be renewed. God will bring the healing, but the choice to resist temptations is yours.

When you ask God to set you free, He will start showing you little changes that you can handle a little bit at a time. But you will never get free unless you are willing to do what He tells you to do each step of the way.

For example, once I stopped fantasizing that I was not even in the room with Dave, the Lord would quicken me with new suggestions that sound funny to me now, but were major obstacles to overcome at the time. I always kept my eyes shut all the time so I wouldn’t see anything. I remember clearly when the Holy Ghost said to me, “It’s time to open your eyes.” That step of obedience was hard for me.

I struggled with obedience when the Lord first said, “Now, you approach Dave. You go and let Dave know that you want to make love.” Buried way back in the back of my mind was, this whole act is not right. I was still believing that angels and the Holy Ghost and everybody else went and hid when we made love.

We get funny ideas about sex, but I learned to pray my way through them. I learned to obey God even though tears were running down my cheeks. Once in a while Dave would catch me crying and say, “What’s wrong?” I would tell him I was just trying to obey God but was having a hard time doing so. Dave respected my willingness to do whatever I needed to do to be set free.

I remember when the Lord said, “Now, why don’t you leave the lights on tonight.” And so I would obey God, one thing after another — I chose to obey God. God has walked me out of that bondage and into victory and into freedom to enjoy my sex life.

I’m not positive that I’ll ever be 100 percent the way that I could have been had I not been abused. There are scars from abuse, and I don’t know that I can ever completely relate to what would be 100 percent normal. But I know that I am forever pressing on to that place of victory. I have enough freedom that even if I still find some problems, I’m freer than most people who have never even been abused.

LOVE IS A WEAPON IN WARFARE

I believe that sex between a man and a woman who are married and love each other — that is, sex — in God’s order, is spiritual warfare. I don’t know that I can fully explain all that I believe the Lord has shown me concerning this, but I know what I have learned through personal experience. He has shown me several times how making love to my husband can prevent spiritual attacks that are formed against us. I have seen it happen enough that I’m getting the fear of God on me about it. Once you get the fear of God on you about something, it is easier to obey God because you are also afraid of disobeying.

There are times when I had a desire for Dave, but because of the poor attitude that I have had toward sex, I would ignore the prompting and decide that it was “too much trouble” to take time to be with him. Women probably relate to this response more than men, but God had to show me that my attitude was wrong, and obedience to this prompting was not too much trouble, but that yielding to that drive would save us trouble through what was coming toward us.

When the desire to be with my husband is present, the Lord is letting me know that there is a need for Dave and me to come together. When I don’t respond to this leading, I have felt the Lord say to me, “If you don’t listen to Me, you are going to have trouble.” I can make all kinds of excuses, “Oh, God, I don’t want to tonight. I’m tired; I need to go to sleep. I’m this, I’m that, I’m something else.” But the Lord will gently prompt me with warnings not to deprive myself from Dave at that time. But recently, not too many months prior to this teaching, I can recall two specific times I chose to ignore clear instruction from the voice of God and refused to obey His leading.

The very next day, on both occasions where I specifically felt the Lord had spoken to me in advance, something happened that was an obvious attack from the enemy. One time we got in an argument and the other time the devil just launched a blatant attack in our household. I don’t even remember all the particulars, but God reminded me of what He had said to me the night before saying, “I told you.”

Why is it that sex is spiritual warfare?

There’s something powerful in that coming together. It reseals the marriage covenant and closes the door on the devil. The devil is full of hatred toward proper lovemaking between a married couple who love each other. Their union is a holy and a beautiful thing that drives the devil backward from any progress he might have been making to separate them.

The lovemaking of a married couple is a holy and beautiful thing that drives backward any progress the devil might have made toward separating them.

That is as much as God has shown me so far. When we obey God we may not see the fiery darts that were shot at us, but disobedience pays a great price. I have seen the misery that results from ignoring the gentle leading of God, so I’m beginning to get the fear of God on me in a positive and uplifting way concerning this. It is natural to go our own way, but supernatural power to thwart the enemy comes into our life when we follow God in His way.

We don’t always have to know the “why” behind everything that God leads us to do; what we are to do is obey. I have had times, and you probably have also, when I have felt led to pray about a certain situation or for someone, and because I did not think it was a good time, ignored the leading of the Holy Spirit. I discovered later when trouble came in that area that I missed an opportunity to divert an attack from Satan upon me or someone else I knew.

Some may think it is wrong to speak of sex and prayer in the same breath, but we must remember that God originated sex and the normal desires that come with it. It is man who has perverted sex and made it seem ugly and unholy. The book of Proverbs lists several things that are said to be
too wonderful
(to explain), and one of them is …
the way of a man with a maid
(Proverbs 30:18,19). We of course should discuss the subject with great respect and propriety for it is truly a mysterious secret that was birthed in the heart of God.