When I was in high school, I formed the opinion that it is pretty hard for guys and girls to be "just friends." This was a hard lesson for me to learn, since, looking back, some of my best friends throughout jr. high and high school were male. What I discovered was, at some point, one of the friends would want more than just a friendship. In my case, for some reason, it seemed like I would have these amazing guy friends that I loved to be around, and then the guy would figure out I wasn't really interested in more than a friendship and magically our great friendship would fizzle. This happened several times to me, so I definitely formulated this opinion based on experience.
Some time later, maybe after I was married, I heard that Billy Graham NEVER spent time alone with any woman besides his wife. WOW! That's a pretty radical stance, but when it's dissected, it really makes sense to me especially when it's coupled with my opinion on guy/girl friendships. One of the main reasons Billy Graham was never alone with any other woman was because of appearances. Given his position of notoriety and seemingly amazing integrity, he had a lot to lose, even just from rumors. Most of us are not in that same position, but people are watching us, especially if we proclaim to be Christians.
Personally, I don't feel comfortable being alone in the same room with any guys besides Kirk unless it's family. The funny thing is, I love hanging out with other COUPLES, and I'm fine spending time with other men if Kirk is around. Nevertheless, I have made a decision to not be alone with other men (besides family). It's not really because I'm worried what others will think (although that is a part of it). I just don't want to give Satan any opportunity to get a foothold in my marriage,especially given my opinion on guy/girl friendships. If one of my best guy friends from growing up called me and asked to get together (which has never happened), I would talk to Kirk and most likely invite the guy to have dinner with our family. I would never meet one of these friends by myself.
What really made me think about this recently was Herman Cain. If you don't follow politics, (pleeeeeease don't feel bad about that) he was a Republican presidential candidate who became embroiled in scandal involving many accusations of sexual harassment. I obviously don't know this guy personally, and when the accusations started flowing in, I thought..."Oh, it's just the media attacking him." When the biggest accusation came in of him having a 13 year affair with a woman I thought that would be a little bit harder to either prove or disprove. The thing that I want to bring up regarding this topic is when Herman Cain decided to withdraw from the Presidential race, he didn't admit to the affair, but he DID say he had a 13 year friendship with this woman, he had had given her money, AND his wife never knew about it. I'm sorry, but if I found out something like this from Kirk, a lot of trust would be eroded instantly. I know most of you are not politicians (thankfully, most make me throw up in my mouth). You don't have to worry about skeletons coming out of your closet that will affect a campaign down the road, or like Billy Graham, you don't have to worry about naysayers who are waiting for a chance to trip you up and ruin your reputation, but you do have one VERY important person to keep your integrity for, your spouse.
I realized when I was thinking about this topic that some people would think I'm way over the top. It may be impossible for some of you to avoid private interactions with the opposite sex (I can't think of too many, but....) This relationship of marriage should absolutely be the most important human relationship in your life. If it's not guarded viciously (think of a snarling dog here), the enemy of our souls will jump on the chance to tear you apart.
I'm not directing this blog at YOUR spouse, although I would love it to be shared. I'm talking about taking some personal responsibility for your own integrity. If you're imposing these kind of standards on your spouse, and bring what I've made as my own standards as an attack on him or her, you may come across as a jealous, over-reacting person, but when he or she sees YOU taking a stand to only be with them in every sense, I think he or she will be more drawn to you.
God, I pray for marriages today. I pray that husbands and wives would love each other the way You love us. I pray for grace in couples to see each other as they did when they married. I pray for the integrity of Joseph who was willing to RUN when he was confronted with temptation. I pray we would all give 100% to make our marriages stronger. Amen.
For our jobs, we have to be around people of the other sex "alone" from time to time but we are never that way by choice and even when we are alone, we take pre-cautions--like letting each other know--like leaving doors and windows open so anyone could see us. But like you, we prefer NOT to take the stance that we will not be alone with someone else of the opposite sex. Does this mean that on some business trips we buy a ticket for me to go just so Matt won't be alone with a female? Yep :)
ReplyDeleteTo me, it's just smart :)