I’ve improved since I fell into fornication, but how do I make sure it doesn’t happen again?
Question:
I would like to seek your advice on some personal issues. I have been able to overcome some of them in recent months, but I still have some and I decided this should come first.
About four years ago I attended college in my state. I am really likable, so I have so many friends including males and females but fewer females. Women tend to trust me and sometimes want to be more than just friends. Even before I got baptized, I knew that was going to be a big challenge for me because I was exposed to some things that really corrupted my mind when I was young and while I lived with my mom.
I knew that a fellow student liked me a lot. She gave me the hint, but I ignored it. Then she took it further: she told me directly. That was when my real problem started. I knew I was not mature enough to handle a relationship like that, so I told her I can't do that. I think I was not convincing enough or she was determined. She tried so many means to make me fall for her (I mean sleep with her). It didn't go her way, so we tried to remain friends for some months until when we were about to graduate. We had a party and alcoholic drinks were involved. I drank a couple of them, she drank too, but I think I drank more. After the party, she asked me to see her home. I went with her and even went into her room and it happened. After that day, it was as if the ground should open up for me to fall in. I wanted to blame it on the drink, but it happened again two other times. It became very clear I was the problem.
I was going to tell my preacher when I got home, but I didn't. The action haunted me for a very long time with those pictures coming so many times. It makes me feel so ashamed of myself that I even find it difficult to give anyone advice when I could not exercise self-control myself. At this moment I have overcome those thoughts. I have changed a lot, seriously.
I have seen from the way you answer questions that you don't bend the truth. Please, I want you to analyze me, tell me the things I did wrong, the ones I should have done and the ones I should do now. I also have this problem of not wanting to hurt people even for the right reasons. Although I have also improved in that area, I would also want more advice in that respect because that was why I could not rebuke her sharply. We are no longer together but we talked briefly the few times we have seen each other. I no longer have any feelings for her, and she knows that very well. I only talk with her, so that I can be able to make her part of the body of Christ someday.
Thanks.
Answer:
"Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Thessalonians 5:6-9).
The primary reason Christians don't get involved in alcohol and drugs is that these chemicals interfere with reason and judgment. You were able to refuse this girl's advances up until you got drunk. She didn't directly tell you to come over to have sex. Instead, she asked you to do small things that by themselves, if you didn't think about the consequences, didn't sound all that bad: come over and see my place, let me show you my bedroom, etc. The reason you weren't thinking ahead was the alcohol.
Once she got you to have sex with her, your resistance to this sin was broken. You did it before, so you told yourself another time wouldn't make it worse.
You told yourself that you didn't really want to hurt her, but this isn't truthful. Even though she wanted to have sex with you, you still used her for your own pleasure. "Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body" (I Corinthians 6:18). If you really had cared for her, you would not have helped her to sin and to have sinned with her. Love "does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth" (I Corinthians 13:6). There was nothing that you did that night and the days that followed which benefited this girl.
You are also not quite correct when you say you can't advise others. You can say with total conviction that alcohol clouds your thinking and makes you vulnerable to doing things you know you shouldn't do.
The probability that you'll be able to convince this girl to become a Christian is quite low. The problem is that your actions told her that you did not fully believe what you said. You've changed since then, but she isn't likely to realize this. The other problem is that while I don't know her motivation, what happened was not an accident. She had made it her goal to get your clothes off. Unless something radically changes her viewpoint, she isn't interested in living the Christian life.
What I would like you to do is go through Proverbs and highlight every verse that speaks about the adulterous or immoral woman and note how they applied to this situation.
Response:
Thanks a lot. I am very grateful for your help. May God bless you for the good work you are doing.
