On Tilt

In poker, they have a term called, “On tilt”. When a player is on tilt, they have just lost a lot of money because they either made a bad mistake, or because they had a great hand that got beat by an extraordinary plan. When you lose a lot of money in poker, many times it’s best to fold your next hand regardless what it is, because when a player is on tilt, that player is more likely to make another bad decision. I’ve literally watched as professional poker players (yes, I actually watch poker on tv…) go from being the leader of 200 plus players with over a million chips and then lose a hand… and then, another.. and then make a terrible call, because they’re so frustrated, and literally in three hands (or rounds), the person literally goes from leader to losing all their chips… all because they made one bad decision. Or maybe they didn’t make a bad decision, but rather, they simply got beat by a better hand. Either way, it was because of their response to the loss that they are now out of chips and on their way home…

In many ways today, I have found that many couples within the Christian community, who have many assumptions about how they are supposed to live. I found myself feeling that I had to live up to an unspoken standard within the church. I felt like I needed to “Date Biblically”. Now don’t get me wrong here… I think the Bible is incredibly important and is the highest authority by which a Christian ought to live their life. But the Bible only mentions two things to couples who are not married.

First, that sex before marriage (fornication) is prohibited. We’ve already discussed that sex before marriage removes the intended meaning of sex. God intended sex to be a uniting act that literally joins the husband and the wife together as one. If you have sex with multiple people, how can you be one with them and with the person you will eventually love? You give each person you sleep with a piece of you, and you take a part of them.

Second, we are commanded to be “equally yoked”. In 2 Corinthians 6:14 it says,

“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?”

Paul is saying that we need to make sure that when we pick a partner for the rest of our life, that they are spiritually yoked to us. The metaphor is this: If you can picture two oxen next to each other. If one is strong and the other weak, they would not be able to walk straight, for the weak one would bring the strong one down. In the same way, Paul encourages those who are believers to marry within their faith, for otherwise, if the goals of the two are not the same, then they will simply wear each other out.

Beyond this, Biblical dating looked something like this. You met a girl. You like the girl. You negotiated with her Father. You “buy” her. You head back home to your father’s house. You build onto his house. Once you complete that, you bring the girl to the house you’ve built, you get married. End of story.

Can you imagine if we really pursued biblical dating? What about when Abraham sends his servant to pick out a wife for his son Isaac? The servant goes to a well, meets a girl named Rebekah, and then asks, so will you marry my master’s son? And to this, without meeting Isaac, without discussing living conditions, what Isaac does for a living, how many kids he wants, what his personality it like, if he’s attractive, nothing. Instead, Laban and Bethuel, the Father and brother of Rebekah, respond this way:

“This is totally from God. We have no say in the matter, either yes or no. Rebekah is yours: Take her and go; let her be the wife of your master’s son, God has made it plain.”
(Genesis 24:50-51)

Can you imagine dating like this? How crazy!

Now the Bible does offer some personal things to people individually. That we are to be kind, encouraging, etc. And it has plenty to say about those who are married, but nothing about dating. There is no standard for dating within the Bible. Within that regard, there is no biblical dating.

But when I make mistakes, I still don’t want others to know. Why do Christians try to hide their mistakes? Well, I can only speak from my story, but I found for me personally, that when my girlfriend and I made a physical mistake, that we both responded differently. I initially felt guilty, but would quickly suppress that feeling by thinking of other things, or trying to convince myself that I would be better next time. My girlfriend, initially would be fine with it, but eventually, and for a long period of time, she would feel like many girls feel after they “go too far…” One girl described it as,

“Unlike guys, girls think about it (their mistake) throughout the day, and I would feel like I had given a part of myself away… I would feel worthless and used.”

I’ve found this to be true with many people I’ve talked to and stories I’ve read. What’s interesting about guys, is that, at least I, did think about it throughout the day, but in order to not admit failure, in order to appear confident, would hide my feelings of guilt. I didn’t want my girlfriend to know I had failed. I found a lot of my self-confidence and self-worth in my ability to be successful in other peoples eyes… especially hers. And so, I would want to appear like I had it all together, but little did she know that I was bleeding internally. See, I was raised that guys were supposed to protect girls… guys were not to be hunters, seeking girls as their prey, but rather, guys are to be knights, protecting girls from guys with the hunter mentality. I’ve had lots of friends who are girls, and I’ve constantly fought to keep those guys away from them. I would become protective of them and if I ever found out that a guy was mistreating a girl, I would immediately confront him and straighten him out… but in my relationship, the guy I always thought I would be, I wasn’t. In my relationship, no matter how hard I tried, I constantly desired to cross the line physically, and this constantly led to me feeling like I didn’t have it, that I wasn’t enough, that I was a hunter.

As a result, I went into hiding. I didn’t want anyone else to know that I had made a mistake… everyone else had it together… and then I found out, no one had it together. Most of the people I knew were where I was, had been where I was, or sadly was headed down the path to where I was. Trying to act like I had it together, but falling apart and afraid.

This happened on one night when I was particularly frustrated, at a breaking point, a point of weakness… I finally got to the point where I had screwed up so many times that I actually talked to one night to a friend of mine who had been married for about 8 months. He told me an interesting thing, he and his now wife had struggled with this too. He had been transparent with me and many others about his shortcomings, except in this area.

Why would he hide his shortcomings in his relationship but in many other areas of his life be genuine and transparent? And why is it, that so many Christians struggle, but few are willing to talk about it? I think it has to do with this misconception of Christian dating…

See, what I spoke about earlier, about being, “On tilt” is what I see as the picture of Christian dating… Why is it that the statistics of divorce in the church and those outside the church are the same? I believe it is because Christians are afraid to admit that they don’t meet the standard. They are afraid to admit that they aren’t dating “biblically”… and once they make that first mistake, it snowballs into another mistake and another…

When I told others I struggled, the immediate response was this…

“You should institute a curfew…” or “you should try a multi-level seating…” meaning that when we’re alone together at night, that we should have one person on the couch and one on the ground…

These are great ideas… don’t get me wrong. But is that even the issue? I put lots of rules into effect, and broke them all. The reason I am here is not because I didn’t have rules, but because I broke them… why do we think that the answer to this problem is to put more rules in place? It doesn’t make sense, and at best, it’s a band-aid on a much deeper problem.

See, I think the problem is that many couples are “On Tilt” when it comes to the physical purity of their relationship and I think that they then read 1 Corinthians 7:9 which says:

“But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”

And so, rather than solve the problem, they simply get married, thinking that will solve the problem… The problem, is not entirely sexual temptation, but rather an issue of a lack of self-control. We aren’t just dealing with the desire to have sex, but rather, we’re dealing with the age-old struggle of self-control… And this pours into a persons marriage… sure, for a time, things are great… but eventually, one of them may not use self-control when it comes to spending money, or how much time they spend on the computer, or how much food they eat… The problem has changed, but the issue is the same.

See, I’ve found that what I need is not rules… what I need is reform. I need to learn to control my desires, thoughts, etc. And the worst part is, the test doesn’t start when I am finally with my girlfriend… No, the test begins now…

I was told this summer by a pastor I interned under that one day, “Your church will become you…” And this thought terrified me. What if I became the pastor of a church, and it eventually began to think the way I did? What if it had the lack of self-discipline I had? What if it was as lazy as I can be? And it was not until some time later that I realized that the same is true of my relationship. What you want to happen in your relationship, will happen. So if you find yourself fantasizing about what you and your significant other have done or will do, or what you want to happen, don’t be surprised when it does, and be prepared for the heartache that can bring. In our thought life, the desires and fantasies seem so harmless… but when they become reality, they are quite painful. If I want to be pure with my girlfriend when I am with her, I need to prepare myself now. I need to be training myself now to face the temptation that I will face. I was listening to a gold medalist talk about the feeling they have on race day… it went something like this…

“I love race day… The hard part is done… after all the hard work you’ve put in… all you have to do is perform like you trained…”

What a true statement! If you show up to a race, how you do that day will play a part in how you place… but in reality, if you think the test is only on race day, try showing up to a marathon the day of without training and see how you do… if you have never trained your body, you will fail. If you’ve never trained your mind and your will to chose purity, you’ll fail when the temptation comes…

I encourage you, please break the cycle! Be genuine with those around you, and train your body and mind now to choose purity. Don’t establish more rules, they will only be broken, but rather seek reform that only comes from Christ, only comes from a change of perspective and heart, but the change will spill over into your relationships… only when we truly are the knight in character, only when we’ve trained ourselves to desire purity, can we be the knights, the protectors that God intended us to be…