Understanding Connection During Sex

Recently a friend asked how to make sex better. She said, “We both know how to enjoy sex, but sometimes it feels like we are worlds apart. How do we actually connect during sex?” I’ve written a lot about connection during sex, because I believe that is ultimately what we want, and what God intended. But step by step instructions don’t really work for something like connection. In fact, step by step instructions might make matters worse. Nobody can teach you how to connect. You have to feel your way there. But finding parallels can provide understanding and open us up to new avenues. Your relationship with God provides the most powerful road map to the sex life that you want.

Just think about your prayer life…

Self-Focused

When we learn to pray, we spend most of our time talking. Letting God know our needs, what we are struggling with, asking Him for help, or praying for people that we care about. The conversation is self-focused because life revolves around us. Even the act of prayer happens out of our desire to be righteous. We pray because we should and because we have been taught it is good for us.

Beginning to Listen

Eventually we begin to understand that the world doesn’t just revolve around us. We begin to listen to God as much as talk to Him. God has things to speak into our lives, to encourage us, to challenge us, and even to convict us. Prayer is not just an important thing to do to be a good person. Prayer is a life line that fills us up, comforts us and teaches us. We begin to understand that prayer is not just good for us. Prayer changes us.

Connection

As we pursue Christ, we eventually move from talking and listening, to just being. We sit in the presence of God and marvel in His glory. We feast in His goodness. Freed from having to do something, ask questions, or learn, we can simply be with Him. Though we might not talk, and he might not say a word, a gentle, indescribable knowing happens. He knows you, He delights in you, and that brings joy.

What About Sex?

The progression of sex happens in much the same way.

We start by worrying about ourselves or our performance. We want sex to be great both for ourselves and our partner so our thoughts of what we should or shouldn’t do over ride our connection. We are on the quest for the perfect technique, the best orgasm,  and the magic formula – all the while missing out on the simple pleasures of the moment. In the midst of such busyness, do we even see or feel our lover?

Eventually we wake up and learn to listen to our spouse. The myth of us naturally knowing what to do shattered, we seek answers from the source. Communication increases, both verbal and non-verbal and we tune into each others clues for direction. We must re-acclimate to the tug and pull of listening to our spouse and still hearing our own desires. Neither one more important, but both valued.

Eventually we move beyond just fulfilling each other’s needs to find thrill and excitement from just being with each other. Connection creates as much excitement as mechanics. To suddenly realize that your spouse sees into the deepest crevice of  your soul both terrifies and thrills. It is not just the orgasm that produces such pleasure, but the knowing of the one you share it with.

Final Thoughts

Connection requires trust, self-knowledge, the ability to hear from each other, learn from one other, and vulnerability. But connection does not happen when you are still wrapped up in getting to the finish line, or providing the most magical experience for your spouse. Connection happens when you dare to be still together, courageously open yourself, see each other, and go somewhere together.

How have you discovered connection during sex?

I have a zoom Men’s Edition 6 week class that starts tomorrow. We meet Thursdays from 7:30- 9:00 pm Central time. If anyone would like to join us, just email me at ruth.awakenlove@gmail.com for more details.

Finding God in the Midst of Sex

While figuring out how to have a better sex life with my husband, I found God—or should I say He found me. I’ve been a Christian my entire life. Besides a short stint of rebellion during college, I have always been connected to a church body. Still, my relationship with God was more intellectual then relational. I knew God with my mind, but not so much with my heart.

Going after intimacy with my husband helped me discover a deep intimacy with God. In the midst of insecurities, I’ve crawled up into God’s lap. As tears rolled down my cheeks from frustrations of growth, I’ve felt the steadiness and comfort of a Father that knows and understands me better than I know myself.I have fallen head over heels in love with Jesus. He has captured my heart, and the more I understand sex, the more I know who God is.

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A Window into Intimacy

 Intimacy is always about our relationship with God – it is a mirror

When I started really wrestling with what God wants for me and my marriage bed, this verse rocked my world.

Ephesians 5:31-32 –For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

Becoming One in marriage is a picture of intimacy with Christ.

Intimacy in Marriage

This verse gave me a frame work to start measuring what I believed about sex. I began comparing all of my ideas about sex, against my relationship with God, and it turned a lot of things up side down. I soon realized, just because something is our natural tendency, doesn’t mean that’s how God wants things to stay. He wants us to stretch and grow and that takes trusting him. I’ve written a bunch or articles based on this concept in the Mirror of Intimacy Category but a couple of ideas that immediately come to mind are…

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Tapping into the Senses for Better Sex

God created our bodies with amazing capabilities to taste, see, feel, hear and smell – and yet many of us miss out. Life is so busy, so garbled up, that instead of experiencing more, we experience less. Life is a blur and our senses become numb. We just move from place to place, keeping pace and yet missing out on so much.

Sometimes it takes intentional choices to create enough time and space to truly connect with God. I need to settle in, take a few deep breaths, release my thoughts and just be for a moment. If I want to encounter God, then I need to be still and listen for His voice. When I am out hiking, I ask God, “let me feel you”, or “let me see you”, and sometimes His answers blow me away. It takes time, it takes intentionality and it takes stretching your senses.

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Thirst

God created us to thirst. He gave us a drive that causes us to reach for something that will truly satisfy. When we reach for all kinds of other things that distract us, our thirst doesn’t go away. It continues to drive us toward what we really need, toward what God wants for us.

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To Know Our Spouse – Our Deepest Desire

Do you think you can have sex without getting to know your spouse?

I think a couple could  figure out what works and then just stick with it. They could rely on mechanics and physical responsiveness for a while… But eventually, things aren’t so great, because they get bored – because they aren’t getting to know each other. And if they are like most couples, they don’t talk about sex, so they just adapt. The wife may begin to check out mentally and fantasize about whatever creates enough excitement for her body to work.  Or she may just decide she doesn’t like sex, so she puts it at the bottom a very long “to do” list.

Women are very intuitive about whether you are getting to know each other during sex.  Many women relate to the frustration of a husband going through his routine without any clue whether his wife is actually enjoying things. She is laying there thinking, “here we go again. Yep. Here we go again”. Because she knows every step that is next. And because the husband is more intent on getting her to the finish line, then discovering something new, he just keeps at it. He tries harder and harder, while she becomes more and more frustrated.  He is not paying attention to the signs of her body, and he is not getting to know her.

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God Likes Marriage Steamy Hot

We are in a battle to save marriage

The way we save marriage is by making our marriage so good that our kids say,

“I want that! I want what mom and dad have!”

We save marriage by working on ourselves and learning to love each other like Christ loved the church – by putting our spouse’s needs before ours. We save marriage by committing to never consider divorce, even while working through gut wrenching pain. Rather than complaining about our spouse we take a hard look at ourselves and see what needs to change, and then pleading for God to make it so.  We save marriage by tapping into the gift of sex to make us into one, to find refreshment in each other, and to transform our marriage from lukewarm into steamy hot.

Revelation 3:16 says So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot or cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

God hates it when Christians act lukewarm. When Christians honor him with their mouth, but their heart is far from Him. To them, God is an obligation, a box on their checklist, and a duty. Rather than making real sacrifices, they serve just enough to feel good about themselves. They have no desire to know God or spend time with him and do not understand the depths of His love for them. They take care of themselves and rely on God for nothing. Worship is simply a ritual, void of awe or heart or freedom.

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Come to Me

God woos us. He calls us to come to Him. To lay down our burdens and our worries and to find Him with arms open wide. He doesn’t force us, he doesn’t manipulate us, he doesn’t barter with us. He just says “Come”.

  • Rev 3:20 – Here I am. I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.
  • Psalm 23:6 – Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.
  • Matthew 11:28 – “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

God loves us, even in our sin.  He loves us even if we ignore Him, or reject Him. He loves us though we forget him or get distracted. He loves us no matter what.

Romans 5:8 says, But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

God gives us free will to choose. He could have forced us to love him. He could have forced us to serve him. He could have commanded us to bow down in worship. He could have made us into robots to do his will – but He doesn’t. He wants us to choose Him. He wants us to Come to Him.

So, if we are supposed to love our spouse like Christ loved the church then…

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It’s About the Heart

God has always been more concerned with our heart than with our actions.

  • Matthew 5:8 – God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.
  • Proverbs 23:26 – Give me your heart. May your eyes take delight in following my ways.
  • Joel 2:12-13 – …Give me your hearts…Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead.
  • Matthew 15:8 – These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

God wants our heart. He wants us to fall head over heels in love with Him and when we do, our actions flow out of that.

I spent years trying to do the right things – going to church, studying the bible, serving – and it wasn’t until I stopped striving and just fell crazy in love with God that I really got it. God loves me so much, no matter what I do. Because He loves me, all I want to do is know Him more. I talk to Him, I go where He sends me, and I lay down what He asks me to lay down. When I am broken I run to Him. I worship Him because I must, and I cannot imagine my life without Him.

Based on Ephesians 5:31-32, if our sex life mirrors our relationship with God…

Then sex is not about going thru the motions, but it is about the heart!

I cannot tell you how many marriage books I’ve read that say, “you need to do it for your husband.” As if our husband wants us to just go through the motions – to show up and take care of his physical needs.

Honestly, I don’t think husbands are any different than God. I think they are much more interested in our heart, then in us going thru the motions. As Jim and I have taught Awaken-Love Men’s Edition, I have been struck by the singular message that men do not want their wife to just show up for sex. They want them to be engaged, to desire connection and to enjoy sex as much as they do. They want sex to flow out of their wife’s heart.We have to understand that sex is much more than a physical urge.

Sex is a way that we express what is in our heart.

Naked and Unashamed

Sex in marriage is supposed to be a little taste of what God intended in the Garden of Eden.  

To Be Naked and Unashamed.

God created us for intimacy – to be fully known – to Him and to our spouse. Because Jesus died for our sins and paid the price, we can have a face to face relationship with God. But being fully known takes courage.

I spent years trying to follow the rules, do the right thing, and take care of myself. I also spent years afraid to fail, say the wrong thing, or really show myself. When I finally understood just how broken I was, how incapable of doing anything on my own and how much I needed a savior, I was released from the burden of trying to be perfect. Jesus set me free – to fail, to let God work through me, to cry out to Him and to be myself. I let God fully know me and it has allowed me to be naked and unashamed with Him and with others.

But just like we are supposed to be Naked and Unashamed with God, we are supposed to be Naked and unashamed in marriage.

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