Lust

Scripture

1 John 2:16

For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

Prayer

Adult:

Dear God,

My heart is not my heart right now. Lust runs through me. I wake up and go to sleep with this energy. I want what my mind wants. God please help me. God, help me find true passion. I love you.

Child:

Dear God,

Not sure what I want is good, but God can you help direct me to what you want? Thanks!

Activities:

Lust was never a topic in my mind until it touched my life. When the passion stopped is when the lust started. We did not act on these thoughts, but dreamt of people who had similar interests, were attractive, etc. We thought of bringing spice to our relationship and maybe adding someone new would add a different level of excitement. Luckily, we found different ways to spice up life, but know how easy it is to have lust enter your mind and relationship. With all of the commercials, movies, television shows, society talking sex all of the time, swingers becoming a popular trend, and pornography on the rise, we fell into many of the traps. As you get older and feel less attractive, feeling lust for others or having others feel lust for you can be enticing.  Luckily our faith and being able to recognize what we were feeling helped us make better choices and helped us to concentrate on our marriage and why our love was more important than lust. Also, one of the best things my husband and I did regarding lust actually occurred before our marriage. First, we were not one of the couples who waited to be married to have sex, but we also did not allow ourselves to have sex right away. We knew the relationship was serious and we were on the path to be engaged  before we had sex. Many men will say there are women you have sex with and women who you take home to Mom; which I believe is a true statement. Relationships that rush into physical intimacy can miss out on the relationship intimacy. Plus, knowing you are not going to have sex right away, can be very hot on its own and makes you appreciate kissing, cuddling, etc. Thinking back to the beginning, we would kiss for hours and even now this brings butterflies to my stomach. My husband and I also decided when we were getting married to not have sex during the engagement period. Honestly, it was difficult to restrain ourselves, but now know it definitely made sex 100% better for us and made sex more about love then solely lust. In my opinion, not solely concentrating on sex provided a good foundation for our relationship and after several years of marriage, although sex is still an important component of marriage, we know other areas of the marriage are also key to making a marriage successful.

Adult

1. Get out of your pajamas and be active – Go dancing or join a cooking class. People who are active tend to be happier people and don’t have the time to react to their lustful thoughts.
2. Don’t have anything around that tempts you. If you can’t keep away from going to porn sites on your computer – then get rid of your computer.
3. Find ways to have passion in your relationship and not passion outside of your relationship. Go buy a sexy board game, come up with a fun game yourself, wear something sexy, try something new, etc.
4. Live out each other’s love language. For instance, if your love language is quality time don’t just sit in front of the television. Go do something which is true quality time together.
5. Have a discussion about what you lust for in your marriage and what you are missing. Then make a goal list to determine how to close the gap.
6. Discuss what made you love each other in the first place and how you can get back to this place.
7. Re-enact some of your favorite memories together both romantically and sexually

Child (Small children should not have feelings of lust. If they do, you may want to seek professional help. The exercises below are for teenagers and young adults)

1. Be an active parent and know who are your child’s friends so you have a good idea of who is influencing your child in their teenage and young adult years. Invite friends into your home.
2. Don’t allow your children to be connected to social media sites without you having some controls on these sites. The goal is not to be over-powering, but it’s important your children are also safe.
3. Don’t be naïve or avoid talking about sex. Hormones come into play in the teenage years and you want to be on top of it. Perhaps, even take your child to a planned parenting class, so, they understand choices, etc. Also, have open discussions of your beliefs and experiences about sex, so, your child knows about sex from your perspective.
4. Set ground rules around going on dates, etc. Again, being strict doesn’t win you any points, but being an active parent does. Providing some leniency. Instead of punishing a child for looking at nude magazines, it may help with discussing sex and giving you some control over the matter.
5. Discuss scripture from the Bible and God’s thoughts about sex, marriage, etc.