When it comes to purity and chastity, as Christians, it seems as though we’re always looking for the line between sin and virtue, always looking to define exactly what that line is, and what makes us cross it. And unfortunately, it’s often not because we want to stay away from the other side, it’s usually because we want to get as close to it without crossing it as possible.

It can get a little tricky when a particular line is defined for us too, because different boundaries apply to different people. For example: If you’re of drinking age, is one beer in a pub too much to have? Many people would say that it absolutely wasn’t, and for many people, it isn’t too much. But what if you’re an alcoholic? Then I’d say you’re flirting with disaster.

In our fight for purity it’s very important that we know ourselves. It’s important that we know our strengths, but most importantly, that we know our weaknesses. And furthermore, it’s important that we’re honest with ourselves about them. A fall into lust can very easily be accomplished by convincing ourselves that we’re stronger than we know we really are. “Oh sure, I can surf the internet even though I’m feeling particularly tempted right now. It’s no big deal.” Normally, surfing the internet might not be an issue. But if we’re suffering a temptation of lust, it can be chastity suicide.

So why all this talk of lines? It all came to mind because I had been thinking about one particular example of someone drawing a line in regards to looking at beautiful women. The question has been asked many times, “Is it wrong to look at a beautiful woman?” and I’ve heard many answers. But the one that I’ve commonly heard is, “You can look at a beautiful woman once and say, ‘Praise God!’, but if you look twice, then that’s lustful.” Now, I have an issue with this line of thinking. Because that is most certainly not what Jesus told us. Christ said that if we look at a woman with lust, we have committed adultery in our hearts. He doesn’t mention any numbers. If you think about it, you could be at the beach on a hot day, and look at dozens upon dozens of women only one time each. Would that still be considered pure?

While that example was the seed of this article, I think the more important issue here is an understanding of why we are striving to be chaste men of God. We are striving to be chaste out of a desire to love. Whether that be a desire to love our present or future wives, or a desire to love God through some other vocation, the purpose of chastity is to free us to be able to love properly. Fully. So when we think about it that way, if we want to love someone, we shouldn’t be flirting with disaster by coming as close as possible to the line between purity and impurity. In fact, it would be a more loving act to understand how we react to temptation, and then set a decent buffer between us and that line, so that we don’t ever come even close to it.

Think about the lines that you might struggle with staying on the right side of, and set a new line that is a significant distance from the first one. If we exercise chastity in this way, we have much more of a chance of moving away from purity, and moving closer to God. Because... line dancing isn't pretty. In terms of chastity. But... also in terms of real line dancing. *shudder*

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Comments

•   |Registered |2010-08-06 01:50:05 Esd11  - Great Article
  I find that line dancing is something I tend to do a lot. So often I convince myself that I'm just a little curious and
  as long as I don't blatantly sin, there's not a problem. But I know that I'm just lying to myself, that the near
  occasion of sin more often than not leads to the mortal sin.
  
  I like the idea of consciously setting a buffer so as to
  stay well away from lust. I'll try and implement it; I think it will be beneficial in the struggle.
  
  Thanks for the
  article and God Bless.
  
  Evan

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