Saving Yourself For Marriage Won't Save Your Marriage
Don't idolize what you don't do between your legs
There is a demographic of Christian women who use their purity/virginity/abstinence status as a magic charm to evoke a certain idealistic outcome of marriage.
You will hear many women say that they are “saving themselves for marriage” or “saving themselves for their future husband” — but you rarely hear them mentioning God.
In fact, the phrase “saving yourself until marriage”, isn’t even a biblical one.
Anytime the bible talks about avoiding sexual immorality, it typically mentions for the purpose of glorifying God — not a man (or woman).
1 Thessalonians 4:3
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;”
Which begs the question — if the motivation of your lack of sexual activity outside of marriage is for a man (husband, a future spouse), doesn’t this take away from the focus being on your relationship with God? What if God does not give you a husband or (let me phrase it in a way you can digest because most Christian women’s worst fear is not giving them this particular thing) what if marriage, for whatever reason, doesn’t happen for you? Who are you “saving yourself for” then?
The issue is not practicing chastity. The issue is the focus being away from God and towards a man you are already idolizing, and may not even come (yet).
There is also a belief that if you do get said husband and have practiced abstaining until marriage, that the marriage you are entering into will not have certain issues such as, but not limited to:
Infidelity: “Me and my husband were obedient. Therefore, the experience of sexual immoralities within our marriage is null and void. God would never allow us to suffer in that way considering what we have sacrificed. Never!”
Divorce: “God clearly put me and my husband together. Look at our fruit. We exercised holiness and discipline leading up to your marriage, so our marriage cannot fall victim to the hand of divorce. It’s not our portion!”
Abuse: “Everything was done right and in virtue. So, abuse is out of the question.”
Oh and I forget to add…honorable mention:
“My husband and I will NOT experience spiritual warfare as aggressively as those who fornicated leading up to marriage. We did it the right way so we are exempt from bad things happening. Those are for the couples who were sinful and lawless.”
*sips tea*
As you come to grow in your walk with Christ, you will come to learn that life is funny and sometimes you cannot always call out certain things ahead of time. God has a funny way of showing you that the underserving will indeed get the best part of the crop.
There was a group of Christian girlfriends — two who were virgins up until marriage and two who were not. Now, the two friends who were virgins were very confident that because of how much sexual sin they did not do, their marital prospects and outcomes would significantly outperform the marriages (in terms of being blessed, fruitful, stable) of the other two friends who had sexual experiences prior to marriage and may have undergone a termination or two.
Can you guess amongst the four, who ended up divorced and cheated on and who didn’t?
It was the two who thought they were absolved from “life happening” to them because of their virginity status.
One of them experienced infertility issues that was the catalyst of their husband stepping out and having a child with another woman. The other realized the person she married was living a double life and a divorce followed shortly after — he also gave her HIV.
The other two who were not “holy and sanctified” are currently living a blissful marriage. To the disappointment of many — they are experiencing the goodness they “did not deserve” and they are not experiencing the “spiritual warfare” many thought they were doomed to experience. Despite the abortions, they have healthy babies (even twins!) and were not cursed with infertility and child development issues. Despite the irresponsible lifestyle they lived, God was merciful in apportioning stable and faithful households for each of them. Despite the irresponsibility, they turned out to be very sober minded wives and mothers. Despite their dark past, they are living in a bright present.
Life can be like that.
Now, this is not to say that should not practice abstinence and be carefree in the name of grace and mercy — that’s not the argument.
The argument is not to use your works (in this case sexual activity — or lack thereof) to be an indicator and measurement of how you think certain things will turn out. This is spiritual pride.
We understand that God blesses and he has certain instructions that are meant to help us avoid certain consequences and outcomes. It is not a surprise that if you don’t have sex outside of marriage, you won’t have a child outside of wedlock. Easy math.
If you don’t steal, you won’t be arrested for theft. Easy math.
If you don’t talk too much, you are less likely to say something you should not have and incriminate yourself, or expose something that should be kept private. Easy math.
And so on and so forth.
What God’s instructions doesn’t account for, explicitly, is what other people decide to do to you irrespective of however you have honored God.
In the case of marriage, you cannot speak for what someone will chose to do within the marriage, regardless of what you have done to honor God. This is why a lot of Christian women who did things the “right way” leading up to marriage get angry and resentful at God when their marriages or partners do not turn out the way the thought they deserved. And let’s be honest. A lot of the time they resent the women who weren’t as holy and righteous as they were, but are not experiencing certain tragedies that they are.
Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
To be balanced — we will never fully know how people are “paying the price” for what they did or did not do. This is why, no matter what you choose to do, there should not be an algorithm of what you think you are owed. Sometimes, life doesn’t work that way for whatever reason. And there will be certain things that happen to you that you will not be able to decode in this lifetime, or, at least for now. God is the keeper of all things and knower of all things — it is up to him to decide what he wants to let us in on.
Matthew 5:45
He lets the sun rise for all people, whether they are good or bad. He sends rain to those who do right and to those who do wrong.
There are plenty of “good girls” who did not get their happy endings and plenty of “bad girls” who received mercy and did.
There are plenty of “unserious people” who got life changing opportunities and plenty of “hardworking people” who are toiling in vain and seem to miss divine timings.
Some may attribute to these discrepancies as “spiritual warfare” and the “enemy attacking” — but the truth is, that is not always going to be the case. It’s an easy excuse to throw around when things don’t make sense, but it doesn’t always apply to all circumstances.
Ecclesiastes 11:5
“As you do not know the path of the wind or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.”
So as you make decisions in life, continue being hopeful and have faith that God will deal profitably with you. Also, have the self-awareness that no matter what you confidently think will happen — you still have to sit and wait and actually see what does happen.
My instruction to us all is to try our best and do our best, and if things don’t turn out as we thought — let us try again.
James 4:14
How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.
C’est la vie!
Xoxo,
Victoria Achieng’
So trueee 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿