defeated

disclaimer: mom, dad, grandpa and others who get uncomfortable when i write about one of the most prominent sins that my generation deals with, be forewarned, i am once again going to write about sex.
 
for many people, abstinence is something that they believe very strongly in. for a lot of those people it comes relatively easy, people who have had either little to no sexual experience tend to find it easier to be abstinent, i know this from personal experience to be true.
Not to say that those people are never tempted, but once a person gives in to the same sin, over and over and over and over... the harder it is for that person to break free.
i am one of those people who has a tough time breaking free.

there are countless reasons to have premarital sex:
loneliness
stress
hopelessness
lust
defeat
confusion
a feeling of helpless and despair

boredom
curiosity
pride
anger
rebellion
selfishness
bitterness
apathy
ignorance

These are just a few things i can think of off the top of my head... now the root cause for giving in to the temptation of fornication is simply this:
not giving those things over to God

even though i gave my sexual sin over to God, repented and turned away, i held onto the things that caused me to fall in the first place. Loneliness, a feeling of helpless and despair, lust, hopelessness, confusion, stress beyond my ability to carry etc...

if I had immediately given these things to God, laid them at His feet and recognized their destructive power, perhaps I would not be sitting here feeling so completely ridiculous and ashamed.
what made me want to turn away? was it something that was too much for me to handle that God could not provide a way for escape? No. Nothing is. Unfortunately I was blind to all of the precursors of sin. Holding onto stress is the biggest thing... it doesn't seem like a blatant sin but it is. Not trusting God with our lives is what draws us away. Thinking that we know what to do with our lives more than God does, that our plan is better than His, is very dangerous. in fact, it was the downfall of an infamous angel, who we all now know as Satan.

This is my latest discovery and I think it may be a crucial one. If i want to stay abstinent, to live holy and blameless in His eyes, to pursue God with all that I am- I have to give Him everything, even things that don't seem to matter. It's the little things we love holding onto that are our downfall. for if we are holding on to anything other God, when we stumble, our hands will be full of little, itty-bitty things that we cherish. Nothing but Christ has any foundation. When we stumble and are holding onto anything other than Christ- we fall. We will fall if we hold onto our lust, our stress, our pride, independence, feelings of superiority, hopelessness, confusion. Many of us enjoy those things, or feel the need to hold onto them.

"let go to be held up child"

this is what needs to happen before we can truly be free.