Usually when people ask me to speak, I'm all for it. Even when it involves exposing my very painful and embarrassing past, I get excited about the opportunity to discover more potential in my speaking skills, and be used by God to influence the lives of other people. But after a family at my church asked me to share my experiences with the consequences of casual sex and porn, I was scared.
It wasn't that I was scared to tell people about my ugly past. I do that all the time. What scared me was that they wanted me to share my story with 6th-12th grade boys and girls. That's means youth between the ages of 12 and 17. That's a huge age range. It'd be sorta like asking a veterinarian to explain to a group of male and female un-neutered dogs and cats (who are in heat) why they should abstain from sex to help keep the animal population down. At least that was my experience in high school, when I heard the sex talk.
Our youth leaders tried to convince us that casual sex and porn were dangerous. They made convincing arguments, and I think some of the students even half listened. But I didn't. I said yes to sex and porn from a very early age. And what I didn't understand was the consequences.
A litmus test for success
So as I prepared to speak to a group of my church's youth about my experience, my goal was to share what I wished I would have heard at their age. I have no way to be sure that they heard what I said, so I created a litmus test for success of my talk.
All you have to do is show this video to your kids. Then wait 10 or 20 years until they get married, and then ask them if they ever struggled with porn or casual sex. If they say no, then it worked.
Or
You could simply talk to them about sex and porn. You can give them the benefit of explaining some of your own successes and failures. The benefit for you is that your kids will actually listen to what you have to say, even if they seem like they don't care. Talks like the one I did are designed to be helpful, but what our kids really need is us being really real with them.
I've condensed the content of my 45 minute talk down to 10 or so minutes. After you watch it, I'll be curious to know, what do you wish someone would have told you about physical intimacy when you were a teenager?
Share the thing you wish you had heard when you were a teenager, or the thing you'd want to tell the next generation about physical relationships. Please leave your response in the comment section below.
Thanks for reading... and watching
Tim
0 comments:
Post a Comment