Re: What makes me tick
Submitted by Emeth on February 3 2002 11:57:49
In reply to What makes me tick submitted by Ben on February 2 2002 07:33:03
|
Dear Ben, Thank you for you post. I have not posted here before because I was not interested in the discussions that were going on. Then I came across a post by Jules which essentially said that these posts were not what the board is about and that it’s about dealing with the struggle of boylove from a Christian perspective. I know this is my first post but if I may, I would like to comment on what you said. A few years ago, I came to the same realization that you came to—that my whole life revolved around boys. Nothing could motivate me like this desire I have about boys. There was very little motivation and even less energy for anything else. I’ve struggled to find answers to this problem. I don’t know where you’re at but all I can do is share my experience and maybe it’ll make sense to you. I found that my motivation was really a longing inside of me—a desire to fill the emptiness I felt inside. And it was a very painful emptiness. I think that that longing is really a longing for love, and a longing for connectedness with others and with God. I think that this longing is a universal human experience. By that I mean that you can see it in every human being, from the youngest infants to the elderly. You can see it across different cultures and throughout all of history. The ways that people try to satisfy this desire are different for each person—be it sex, drugs, or whatever. But the root experience, a longing for something more, is similar. I think that people are designed for intimacy with God, yet we let the world drown out God’s voice. But our need for him never goes away and instead of seeking fulfillment in him, we try to fill the emptiness with other things—sex, pornography, fantasy, etc. We look for immediate relief. Something that, as someone said, "will place a drop of water on our parched tongue." We become addicted, if you will, to whatever relief we have found. This addiction attaches itself to our desire for God so that we may not even be aware that our desire is really for him. I think that the promises of scripture and hope in Christ leads to a preliminary satisfaction of these desires. It may not seem like it at first because they do not offer immediate gratification. The things that I can come up myself, however, are not ultimately satisfying so I need something more. If Christianity could not offer anything more than what I can come up with on my own, then it would be no better than me and therefore useless. But the promises of rewards that are offered in scripture, when we understand them, are astounding. And I’m not talking about crowns, I’m talking about heaven and about God himself. If these physical pleasures that God placed within us are so strong that we can’t control them and our lives end up revolving around them, what would it be to drink from the fountainhead of the stream that even at these lower reaches we find so intoxicating? Yet that is what seems to be before us. I guess the best way for me to say it is to quote C.S. Lewis. (I hope I’m not violating copyright laws.) "If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." Anyway, I hope this makes sense. Maybe your experience is completely different. And I hope I’m not leaving you hanging because certainly a lot more can be said. Let me know what you think. Emeth |
Follow ups: