Desperation Breeds Degradation

This week for the blog hop I feel like I need to share something that wasn't really one of the topics listed. I suppose it relates to 1 Peter 5:7-8. This hit me so hard when I read chapter four on Monday that I need to share.  

I was reading along about how desperation breeds degradation. Completely relating it to my struggle with food and sweets for most of my life. Thinking, that makes sense, You get a craving and you want to satisfy it no matter what the cost. You enjoy that moment when you do give in. Then you realize it though "I just blew it again." That desperate moment makes you forget your standards and just want to satisfy you for the time being. 

"If we forget to be self controlled, and alert we are prime targets for Satan to usher us right away from the new standards we've set in our life." (pg 42)

Then I'm reading on about the mom who is in financial trouble and ends up stealing money. The next paragraph I stopped dead in my tracks and in tears. 

"A person who thinks she'd never have sex before marriage feels physically pressured from someone she desperately wants love from and suddenly finds herself in bed with him.' 

Just over eleven years ago I met the man who would become my husband. At age twenty I hadn't had a real boy friend. I had been kissed by one guy but not a real relationship which I was desperate for.  

So when I met Wayne, I honestly couldn't tell him no about anything. I wanted to feel loved by a man so desperately that I was afraid to tell him no. 

I had always planned to wait until marriage to have sex. Until that night he asked me and I was exactly the woman Lysa TeurKerst described. In that time of desperation I had degraded my standards and given up on it completely. 

The end of the story is that we were invited to a wonderful church a month before our daughter was born where we still attend today. We got married when she was three months old and this July will mark our ten year anniversary! 

I don't think I've ever been hit with what was really going on in my heart eleven years ago until I saw it laid out on the page for me. Lysa mentions having someone to be accountable to. Yes that's important for making healthy food choices but it's also a good idea for young girls! I had set that standard to not have premarital sex on my own. My family didn't see anything wrong with it at long as "you're careful."  I didn't have anyone holding me accountable and in that time of desperation I'd given in just as Satan wanted me to. 

1 Peter 5:7-8a, Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert.   NIV

 We have to be self controlled and alert in ALL areas of our life! Even if we don't expect it, Satan knows our weaknesses and desires. He has so many tricks to make us lower our standards and turn away from what God wants us to be! 1 Peter tells us to cast all our anxiety on Him. Anxiety=fear of what MIGHT BE. We're afraid of how we might feel if we don't give into that craving, what might happen if we tell a man no, what might happen if we don't get the money we need somehow. 

Whatever your standards are in life, have a friend, mentor, pastor, family member, someone to hold you accountable because even if we don't think we struggle with something Satan can get us to degrade our standards in that moment of desperation. 

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