Good for Her

DISCLAIMER: I don't edit my manuscripts. I write them, then I preach them. There will be many typos!
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I need to start right where we ended last week, and I do want to start on a more serious note, though I hope we’ll have a lot of fun today, as rally, sex should be a lot of fun and play. But we ended the service by just singing, Your Grace is Enough. That was very intentional.

I had talked about the trajectory that God prescribes in scripture. Not just a description of what happens for many, but a prescription for the course of most people- leave home, find a spouse, get married, have kids, grow old and die. I wanted to be clear that not everyone is called to this trajectory. Some are called to singleness and chastity. Some are only just starting this trajectory. But statistically, 97% of us will marry and have at least 1 child.

But the reality is that this trajectory is rarely experienced in people’s lives. Most people will have to insert something along that line. Prom night. A boyfriend in college. A bunch of hookups in college. A porn addiction. A divorce. A rape. Or other things, horrible things. Few people go through life on such a simple trajectory. Most have to insert some sexual experience or event into that trajectory.

The last thing I want you to take from this series is that this means you’ve blown it, you messed up, you’re messed up, forget about pleasing God or having a pleasing sex life now. Too little, too late, too bad. No. That’s why we ended the service with the song, Your grace is enough. If you want God’s grace, it is there for you to dive in. Experience God’s grace. It’s deeper, richer, more loving and life giving than anything else in the universe. Experience his forgiveness. Experience his healing. Ask him to make you a new creation. Ask for anew start. He will give it to you.

OK, with that said, let’s talk about sex baby! Last week we talked about what makes it good for guys. Women, this is really easy. I mean really easy. You are so lucky. We men are extremely simple machines. We have like one moving part. You have like, a million. We are extremely predictable. The same stimulus will elicit the same response over and over and over again. We are very understandable. What is good for guys- seeing your wife naked. Adam saw Eve naked, he fell in love. It really was that simple. And it remains that simple. We are made as visually stimulated creatures, but the stimulation goes even beyond physical, it pulls in our emotions, our affections, our loyalties, our hearts.

There is a very negative down side to this created reality about men- we are drawn instinctively to pornographic and erotic images. We will always be tempted to look, to linger, to lust over women. The porn industry is actively pursuing young men, and women, trying to make the industry normal, accessible, in your face. It will try to capture your eyes, your affections, your heart as it captures your pocketbook. Women, you need to understand that many men do not just like porn- they have fallen in love with it, or at least, they think they have. It’s the thing that excites, thrills, wonders and amazes them. They are at one made to feel alive by it, but at the same time they are being killed by it. It is killing their love, their relationships, their heart and soul.

But there is a potential blessing to why God created men so visually- it causes us to fall deeply, madly, wonderfully in love with our wives. And when the one naked woman in our lives is our wife, she is always and forever our standard for beauty. She is the one we see naked, we imagine naked, we love naked. We love our naked wife when we are young and firm and frisky and 25, and when we are older, and not as firm, but still a bit frisky, and 75.

As we get into it now, you need to understand my under girding assumption, which is as follows: God made sex. Sex is good. Sex is for making babies. Sex is for bonding as a couple. And now as far as the bond goes, men want to bond more than women. Husbands generally want more sex. They want more sex because they are visual and have a stronger sexual appetite.

Studies tell us this (From the book)- men generally want more sex, and men are generally the initiators of sex. This does not mean that women do not want or enjoy sex. It means men think about it more, want it more, and so initiate it more. Here is what is so important to understand right fro the research- most of the wives surveyed stated they wished they had a stronger appetite for sex. But they don’t. In fact, women aren’t really into sex until about halfway through having sex. They love their husbands. The like sex. They just have other things on their mind, which is hard for men to believe, and it really takes them that long to get into it. So again, my assumption here is that while sex is good and enjoyable for women, and that what we are talking about today, the context for sex is almost always going to happen when the man initiates the sexual encounter.

Now women, I am speaking to the men here, but I am speaking on your behalf, so you are going to have to help me out. Embrace me as a sister! Kidding. But let me know ladies, let me know if I’m speaking the truth!
But now, men, it’s time for you to listen. Listen closely, because I have God’s word to share with you. I have insight that will change your life and your marriage. I have wisdom from the other side, and from the opposite sex, that will change everything. This may be the greatest day of your life. The morning that changes everything. Men are going to built a shire in my honor. This is going to be awesome. Listen up.

Song of Songs, SOS, it’s called that for a reason. Men, when you need help in your marriage relationship, send out the SOS, read the book. It will help you. It’s Solomon’s best stuff. It’s what he considers his greatest hits album. It is the harlequin romance novel of the bible. It’s has sparked controversy for millennium. Many have said it’s an allegory of Christ’s love for the church. Let me just say I really hope not, because it describes some kinds of love I only want with my wife, OK. I’m just saying, if it’s about the church, well, things are going to get weird. I just don’t think this is about the church. It is graphic. It is erotic. It is sexual. It is in your bible!

So here’s what’s happening- the lover has pursued his beloved. He has seen her working in the fields. He has seen her talking, laughing, working with her girl friends. Guys, note to self, she has girls friends, she will talk about everything with her girl friends, if you want to win her over, you must also win over her girl friends. This is just the way it is. Do not fight against nature. It is a losing battle. Just know this. Anyways, he is smitten by her beauty. He has seen her diligent work and is not put off by the fact that she is part of the working class. In fact, he is enamored with her strength and abilities. She is not some waif of a princess sitting in her chambers in a tall tower waiting to be rescued. She is the equivalent of a modern day, liberated working woman who can take care of herself. And the result is this- he wants her!

Read Ch.2:
Note: your wife is a rose, and other women are like thorns in comparison.
Note: there you go, you don’t have put on the red light baby, you just put the little box of Sunmaid raisins by the bedside table. Oh honey, I’m too tired tonight. But daring, I have brought you raisins and an apple- not just any apple- a granny smith, the largest, crispiest, tartest of all of God’s apples!
Read through v.13

She is longing for the one to pursue her, the one to find her, the one to arouse her passions and to rescue her, not because she can’t help herself, but because he desires her that much. That’s the key men. You must get this. She doesn’t need you to rescue her. She wants you to pursue her. There is a huge difference. She wants you to want her that much. Men, do you want to know what makes it good for her? Hot pursuit. Hot pursuit baby! Again, I’m going to talk about this in the context of marriage, as that is the playground for our hot sexual pursuit.

Husbands, your wife is hot! Husbands, you better see your wife as the one hot mama that she is. She is the rose amongst the thorns. She is hot and everyone else is not. So when she looks at some young co-ed and says, wow, isn’t she beautiful, look at her skinny little body. You say, dag honey, she looks like a walking mop. When she says I feel fat, you say let then let me feel fat too! When she asks do I look good in this, say yes, but you’d look better out of it. When she compares herself to someone else, you better make her the rose among the thorns. She wants to know, I am still the one, and that’s when you best not hesitate a moment and let her know- oh yeah!

Your wife is hot- your kind of hot, and she needs to be hotly pursued. Husbands, when your wife said “I do” she didn’t say “you’re done.” What she said was, I do give you permission, and my blessing, to hotly pursue me forever. Now let me give you this assurance, that because I said I do, you’ll always get your prize, but the kind of prize will be directly correlated to your level of pursuit. I’ll just let you mull that over a moment.

What makes it good for women? Hot Pursuit baby. Your woman wants you to hotly pursue her everyday, all day for the rest of your life together. That is what makes sex good for her. Your mission, should you choose to accept, like you won’t except, really, your mission is to go in hot pursuit of your wife.

Let me break down this pursuit in a way you can remember and apply. Men, you like games. You like to play x box, or golf, or hockey, or some other game. So you need to become experts at playing the game with your wife. You know what a win looks like, I don’t have to go into detail about that. I’m going the help you play the game so you can get to the win (incidentally, winning does mean a tie score. Let’s just be real clear about that. The analogy doesn’t work perfectly- you do want a tie score at the end.)

So here it is, to win the game, you need: Word Play- Chore Play- Fore Play.

Word Play. Men, your hot pursuit begins with your words. Read SOS and look no further than this most obvious point- you better become a poet. You better learn how to write or read poetry, because you wife wants the poetry. You better become a wordsmith in hot pursuit. Your words matter.

Some men approach marriage like this- well, I told her I loved her when we got married. If that fact should change, I’ll let her know. Dude, come on. You need to know that as visual as you are, your wife is even more verbal. Just remember that- I’m visual, she’s verbal. And if you want her to be good to you visually, you better be good to her verbally. You better shower her with poems, with affirmations, with words of love and affection. You can not underestimate the power of word play in your marriage and in your wife’s life.

Word play means you better be wooing her with your words. Your words are your number one piece of equipment in this game of hot pursuit. They really are. Now there are exceptions I’m sure. But for most of us, for our wives, our word play is the number one tool, the best equipment, the most important part of our equipment to use. Learn to use it well. Learn to build her up. Learn to speak in a tone a manner and way that she hears and responds to.

Second, while you’re engaging in hot pursuit, while your using your word play, don’t forget about the chore play. Doing chores bears direct on a woman’s pleasure and participation in the bedroom.

Am I implying that men should do chores in the hopes that this will get them more sex? Let me respond by saying if we are cleaning up, doing laundry, helping around the house and getting the kids to bed early, does it really matter why we are doing it? No really, we husbands should be doing chores because we are a part of the household and because, well, we should.

But it does work like this. If there is no mess in the kitchen, no clothes to be cleaned, the kids are in bed, the lunches packed for tomorrow, then you can simply say, well, I guess there’s nothing left to do, I suppose I’ll just run off to bed. Dude, by that point she’ll probably beat you there!

But really, men, you know how you can’t not look? Well, your wife can’t not look at the mess in the house. She can’t think about the bedroom until other things are taken care of. You know how I said women, when you take care of yourself, we husbands feel like you are taking care of us. Well men, here’s the flip side. When you take care of the chores, she feels like you are taking care of her.

It just works that way. Think about it this way, in the way that you desire sex as it can pulls you out of exhaustion, women must first be pulled out of exhaustion to desire sex. So if she is exhausted, spent and tired of doing chores until 11pm, sex is not going to be good for her.

Incidentally, let me give you a bit more advice, when your doing chore play, you can’t make that a part of your word play. They are two separate components to the pursuit. I learned that this week when, after finishing cleaning up the kitchen I announced, honey, I’m done with my chore play. And she simply said, now it doesn’t count anymore.

Finally then, you can get onto the foreplay. Where does that start? When doesn’t it start? Men, you are like a microwave. Hot and ready. Women are crock-pots, they are slow cookers. You better turn them on in the morning and let them heat up all day! Now let me break this down for you- you have to do this in both intentional ways and in subtle ways.

Go ahead and be very intentional in letting her know your desires. At the breakfast table, as your walking out the door, give her a smooch and say hey hot momma, it’s been a while since I rocked your world. What do you say we rock out tonight? If she says we just rocked out last night, I’m busy, then let it go. If she says, hey, that could be nice, then consider yourself in hot pursuit. Call her that day. Give her some more word play. Leave her a message. Write a note and put it o her mirror. There is nothing wrong with intentional foreplay. With letting her know that you want to be good to her. To calling out your intentions and starting the communication.

You are going to have to play this covertly as well. That’s essential to the pursuit. For example. Giving her a squeeze is for you. That’s very direct. Not subtle. That’s for you. That’s probably annoying for her much of the time. But holding her is subtle. Think of it this way- affection without expectation. Or seven seconds of non-sexual touch.

Incidentally, that seven seconds of non-sexual touch cannot happen in the bedroom. Trust me. I’ve tried it. Just the other night I jumped in bed held my wife and announced- I have no intention or expectation of having sex with you for the next seven seconds. Then after seven seconds I announced that my intentions had radically changed.

Again, she told me that had negated the previous seven seconds. Why does she keep changing the rules on me!

OK, there is a ton that we could still say about men, about women, about sex. But men, you want to make it good for your wife. If you are a man at all and if you are actually like most men, it is incredibly important to you to be good and pleasing to your wife. So you must embrace the hot pursuit. Read SOS and learn from God’s word. Learn that your woman doesn’t need you to pursue and rescue her. But she wants you to. She wants you to want her that much.

You have three tools in this pursuit, three pieces of equipment: Word play. How will you use your words to love her, care for her, inspire her, arouse her. Chore Play. Help out around the home. Be a man of God, step up and help out. Finally, Fore Play. You’ve laid a foundation with your words. You’ve removed the distractions with your chores. Don’t blow it now. You’re so close. Make it good for her by starting the foreplay. Hug her long and hard and with no expectations. A bit later, tell her your intentions. Give her time to warm up. If you do this, it’s almost impossible for it not to be good for her.

We are going to end this message with a song. It’s a song that has spoken to the hearts of millions of women. It is a song of their souls. But this morning, as this is about men understanding women, we singing this for the men. I want you to hear this as the song of your wife’s heart. She has a deep longing that only God can meet. But God can use you in meeting that need. Because your wife longs to be beautiful. What’s good for her? To know, to know deep down and believe, that she is beautiful…