Of bandwagons and the meaning of life

So, I posted on facebook that I was in a thoughtful mood today. My good friend Colin Mansfield left a comment suggesting that I take advantage of my current disposition and start a blog. Therefore, I wrapped my opinions in a sheet, tied them to a walking stick, and hopped on the bandwagon that is blogging.

A few opening discaimers: These are my opinions, not some sort of thesis paper. I use big words. I do not think in neat little categorical boxes, so my posts may not be as organized as you'd like. I can be very cynical. I'm far too lazy to post blogs on any semblance of a regular basis. I tend to ramble. And most importantly, I believe the Christian Bible to be true and have a relationship with the God thereof. If any of that bothers you, reserve the right to close this browser window at any time. But if you have an open mind, please read on.

Sex.

Whoops! Party foul! Did he just use the "s" word? Yes I did. But what if I said "cuddling." ...I didn't hear a reaction that time. I'd like to know where that line is. The line between harmless fun and sin. Is it holding hands? Is it making out? Is it feeling each other up on the couch? Different people will give you different answers, but if there's more than one answer they can't all be right, can they? Its a giant gray area as far as I'm concerned. Many try to justify living in this gray area by pointing out that's it's not black. It's not clear cut sin, so it's alright. The problem with this point of view is that the goal is to avoid sin. Now that's all well and good, except that it's completely impossible. Trying to avoid sin in a sinful world is like walking on the beach and trying not to get sand on your shoes. If you're quite careful, you'll have less sand than if you were running like mad down the beach, but there's no way you'll have spotless shoes.

But if we're going to get dirty anyways, why bother trying to stay clean? As one song goes "If we're all going to hell, we may as well go out in style." Makes sense to me. Unless one considers a different approach. Instead of making the goal to avoid sin, what if our goal was to love God? I propose that instead of running from darkness, we should be running towards the light! God created us for the purpose of having relationship with him. So if we fulfill our original purpose then we wouldn't need to try to find meaning in life through sex, drugs, money, et cetera.

So to tie this back to my opening example: If our goal is to love God, and he says no physical relations with the opposite sex outside of marriage, shouldn't we honor that? And not only because our goal is to love God. God loves us, and he wouldn't impose restrictions on us that didnt have our best interest in mind.

Anyways, I'm not entirely sure where I was going with that. Like I said, I tend to ramble.