What do you do when you feel tempted with lust?
When I was younger, I used to view any kind of sexual feelings as lust. It would overwhelm me when I felt sexual arousal. I often didn’t understand why I felt it or what to do about it.
Sometimes I felt sexually aroused because I literally was lusting. Maybe I had looked at pornography or was fantasizing about something in my head. Perhaps I had read something erotic and allowed my mind wander. Any of these things will cause one to feel sexually aroused.
But a person will also feel sexually aroused when there is a buildup of sexual hormones in his or her body. It doesn’t necessarily mean one is lusting.
How do you know the difference? And what do you do in those moments?
Let’s start off by defining what lust is.
I think we have a lot of definitions for lust that are generally unhelpful. They are too vague and encompass too many things that are actually quite good. We need a working definition of lust that is specific to one’s desire for sexual intimacy in a way that is not according to God’s design for sexual intimacy.
Sex is good. God created it. He made it pleasurable. He wants us to enjoy his creation. He wants us to enjoy intimacy with another human being.
God also gives desires. He awakens desires within us to direct us to things he wants to show us. He wants to be the fulfiller of our desires.
Sex is not bad; it’s good. And it is not wrong to desire sex. It’s quite right, as a matter of fact.
But God, as a good loving Creator, has designed parameters for which sexual intimacy are to be enjoyed and pleasured in. So I suggest we define lust as wanting something that is God-given in a way that God did not design for us to have it.
In this instance, it is sexual intimacy we are wanting.
What should a person do when she wants sexual intimacy in a way that God did not design for her to have it, or at a time when she cannot have it in the way God designed for her to have it?
1. Stop trying harder
We all want to demonstrate a lifestyle peace and wholeness. And whenever we realize we’re actually manifesting chaos and disorder, we tend to work harder at proving signs of peace and wholeness. But that never works. In fact, it will only compound our chaos because we’re not going to be able to display signs of wholeness without dealing with on the inside whatever is causing the chaos.
So stop trying.
As humans, we are deeply broken. We only make selfish choices. It’s possible even our attempts to display signs of sexual freedom could be wrought with pride and self-centeredness, and our pride and self-centeredness need to be addressed before we can ever find true freedom from lust.[1]
2. Invite others into your journey
If you’ve never talked with anyone about your struggle with lust before, opening up about it could feel like the riskiest thing you’ve ever done. But the enemy feeds on isolation. He’ll throw all kinds of lies at you which hold you in bondage.
Christian brothers and sisters are supposed to bear the type of burdens with each other that cause us to sin (Gal. 6:1-3). Most of us can identify with the struggle, so find someone you feel safe with and share your story.
And if you don’t feel safe with anyone, ask yourself why? Is there a history in your relationship with that person that makes it difficult for you to feel safe? Or might you be assuming what they will think or say and those assumptions cause you to not feel safe?
If it’s the latter, hold those assumptions at bay and risk it.
If it’s the former, reach out to me and my wife and we can connect you with reputable (and safe) people who can walk with you on your journey.
3. Remember you are biologically wired for sex
Your sexuality lies at the core of your physical makeup. Not only is sex embedded within human reproduction, sex hormones are connected with our physical and emotional framework.[2]
We will feel the need for sex depending on how things are going for us physically or emotionally. And it doesn’t necessarily mean we are lusting.
Studies show that having sex regularly helps boost one’s immune system, improves female bladder control, lowers blood pressure, lowers heart attack risk, lessens physical pain, may lessen chances for prostate cancer, improves sleep, and eases stress.[3]
Sex is good for you. God gave it to humanity. And it makes perfect sense why one might want it. Don’t mistake the emotional or physical desire for sex as something to be addressed with spiritual disciplines if it actually comes as the natural result of how God has inter-wired your body.
4. Consider emotional connections to your sexuality
Adrenaline and dopamine are the hormones that make up our sex drive. When a person climaxes and feels a sense of complete release and freedom—even peace—he is feeling dopamine course through his body. He’s getting an “adrenaline rush.”[4]
Dopamine is our “happy hormone” and adrenaline causes us to not feel pain, at least for a while. So when things happen in our lives that cause us to feel sad, disappointed, or alone we look for something to make us happy. When we’re hurting, we look for something to suppress the pain we feel.
Sometimes there are things done to us that cause pain and sadness, like being speared in the chest. Other times there’s something missing that causes pain and sadness, like when a person has lost his voice or a limb.
Could it be that your struggle with lust is being fueled by emotional disorder or pain?[5] Take some time to reflect on your life and consider how things that have happened in your life may be affecting you emotionally which is quite likely fueling your lust.
5. Trust that God’s design is for your best and walk in faith, resisting the urge to depart from his design for an immediate personal fulfillment
All of the above has helped gain a fuller perspective of why a person might want sexual intimacy. But it still doesn’t necessarily answer what a person is to do with that desire if he or she cannot have it.
Sometimes, simple knowledge about what you’re dealing with can help.
But it won’t necessarily take the desire away.
The single person still has nowhere to go with his strong sexual urges.
The man or woman whose spouse fails to meet their sexual needs as often as they feel them have no release for their strong sexual urges.
The married couple whose lives are too busy to have sex as often as they may desire it have nothing to do in the middle of the day when they experience strong sexual urges.
Could masturbation be an appropriate release if lust is clearly not at the bottom of it? Perhaps. But even masturbation eggs the desire on. It’s merely a shadow of the real thing.
And even the real thing, once fully experienced and enjoyed, can become an addictive habit for the couple who turns to sex for every stress they face or pain they experience.
At the end of the day, we have to trust that God’s design for one-flesh union between a man and woman (Gen. 2) in the context of which both partners are meeting each other’s needs and not demanding the fulfillment of their own (1 Co. 7) is for our own good and wellbeing.
It will require, at times, a dying to our self—a clinging to intimacy with Jesus. But if we don’t trust God’s design as being for our good, we will depart from it and find emptiness and death.
Our sexual urges, when pure and holy, can motivate us to develop healthy community and create or cultivate God’s goodness and beauty in the world around us.
If possible, this can happen gloriously through birthing children from marital oneness.
But if marital oneness is not possible, it can also happen just as gloriously through birthing relationships and cultural artifacts in your immediately or global community.
Going from here
It can be a paralyzing feeling when you face a passionate desire for something you cannot fulfill in a godly way at that moment. Every one of us—even when married—will go through times when we have sexual desire at a moment we cannot properly fulfill it. Or maybe we’re wanting sex in a way that is not aligned with God’s design.
Lust absolutely cripples us as men and women of God. In fact, it in tangles us in a net that prohibits us from being able to freely bear God’s image throughout all of creation.
God does not want us entangled in the net of lust.
He wants us to live free—free to fight for others with nothing to hide.
Jesus invites us into a communal relationship not only with God himself, but with other brothers and sisters who are experiencing Holy Spirit power transform their inner life.
Don’t feel ashamed if you struggle with lust; feel normal. Then go talk with others, remember how you’re biologically wired, consider emotional connections to your sexuality, and walk in faith according to God’s design.
He is with you. He loves you and will never forsake you—even when it feels you fall flat on your face over and over again.
Question: Which one of these actions jumps out to you as especially helpful? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.
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[1] This is the story of humanity, beginning in Genesis 2. For an abbreviated refresher, read Colossians 2, Ephesians 1-2, or Romans 1-3.
[2] Bruce Lengeman, To Kill a Lion (Apopka: NewBookPublishing.com, 2010), 30, 47-48.
[3] See “10 Surprising Health Benefits of Sex” at https://www.webmd.com/sex-relationships/guide/sex-and-health#1 (accessed February 10, 2020).
[4] To see a scientific explanation of how dopamine affects us in the process of sexual arousal, check out Treatment for Stimulant Disorders chapter 2—How Stimulants Affect the Brain and Behavior, or visit https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK64328/ (accessed May 12, 2018).
[5] For more research on this topic, check out Susan Krauss Whitbourne Ph.D., “An Inside Look at Sexual Fantasies,” Psychology Today, January 15, 2013, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201301/inside-look-sexual-fantasies/.
