It’s all over the news, and it has been for months.  It has actually always been on the news, but in the last few months we have really seen an increase in the reporting of sexual harassment or assaults.  It seems that no one is immune from accusations and many people are admitting that they have in fact done the things they are accused of.

It’s terrible that so many allegations have surfaced, because I suspect that many of them are very true.  Others could be less clear cut than they are being presented, but the sad fact of the matter is that we have a problem.  We don’t know how to manage this very special interaction between 2 people in a way that is always safe and respectful for all parties.

Last night my fiance and I were eating dinner, and next to us a table full of men discussed a woman at work.  One of them had been assigned to ‘mentor’ her, and the rest of the table made sure to tell him that it could be best done by teaching her to get on her knees.  I can only hope that my soon-to-be wife never has coworkers like them.  I’m sick to my stomach thinking about it, imagining my best friend facing men like them.  How have we gotten to a place in our culture where this is openly discussed at dinner in public?

Wide swaths of our culture have accepted that pornography isn’t really that bad.  Our culture has accepted that flexibility in our interpretation of our sexual identity is more important than a strict interpretation of wrong and right.  We create apps to help us find our next sexual fix, and we indiscriminately take sexual gratification wherever we can find it.   Sex is our god and our goal.

I know that I’m scratching the surface of a very tender area in our cultural psyche, I know that one wrong word could label me intolerant or a bigot.  So I tell you these things with a confession that I was that man.  Perhaps not to the same extreme as those famous individuals who have famously misused people, but I have been a man of unclean hands and impure lips.  Does it matter to what extent or against whom I have transgressed?  Those people were still hurt by me, and I am filled with regret as I remember what I have done so selfishly.

This 25 days is to be spent focused on peace.

I can tell you that I have never once found it in seeking sexual gratification.

God sent his one and only son, and even though my sin was as red as crimson, I can be washed as white as snow.  I do not deserve this restoration, and I often struggle to believe it, but I can not deny the healing that is taking place in my life.  In the same way I have not found peace in pursuing some form of intimacy outside of marriage, I find that I do have peace as I wait.

I’m being slowly filled with peace, as I align my paths to those that God has set out for me.
Forsake sin.

Seek peace.

Be sure to check out the other people on the journey with me at 254peace.org, or on our Facebook page.  There are some awesome people participating this year, and they all have something important to say.