Flame

We had 4 in class today. One new student...a welcome addition. It is always helpful to have someone come who is willing to talk. It makes class much more interesting. Today's lesson was called Flame and was about relationships and sex. This is certainly not the easiest topic to address, but it is most assuredly a topic that they need to have a biblical understanding of in order to honor God in this area of their lives.

We talked about the three dimensions that a relationship is designed by God to have. The first is identified by the Hebrew word "raya". It pertains to being friends, soulmates; and we discussed how this is where a relationship needs to begin. The second Hebrew word is "ahava" and this word denotes a committment of the will in loving the other person. This is the "'til death do us part" part of the relationship. The third word is "dod" and identifies the sexual part of the marriage relationship. This is where many young people in our culture start their relationships and obviously this causes great problems.

We discussed how so many times we as humans mess this up by trying to get satisfaction from one of these areas(flames) without engaging the others. For example, adultery certainly involves "dod" but hardly ever includes "ahava" or "raya." But God intended for us to find in our marriage the great satisfaction of having the three flames combine into a beautiful fire that warms us and shines its light for others to follow.

Great thoughts on an important subject for these young people. They aren't going to hear these ideas in our culture if they don't hear them from us. The film ended with these words:

"May you honor the way God created you.
May you have a profound sense of respect for the fact that you are a deeply spiritual and mysterious being, and that love is ultimately a profoundly spiritual thing.
May you realize that the three flames are meant to burn together.
And may you discover the big flame."