Saving your Kiss – From a Guy's Perspective

I’m ecstatic to share why and how God led me to the conviction of saving my kiss. May my reflections on this decision be received as honest, authentic, and ultimately Christ honoring.

The decision to wait until my wedding day for the first kiss was not something that had been in my heart for a number of years prior to meeting my future wife. I didn’t grow up in a Christian home and was never instructed on any sort of standard of purity in relationships. I became a Christian at the age of 17.

Five months later I had my first kiss right before my 18th birthday during my senior year of High School. Ha--- I should clarify that waiting until then was definitely not by choice! I had spent most of my life up until that point as the epitome of “un-cool” and thus, had been completely ignored by the opposite sex. During the course of that initial relationship kissing was a regular thing and I never thought anything of it. Between the time that relationship ended and my next began I had grown radically in my walk with the Lord. I had read Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot and was really challenged to evaluate what it meant to be pure in a relationship and really strive for the best that God had to offer. Although at the time I was unsure if I wanted to hold out my next kiss until my wedding day, but I felt inspired enough to carry the standard into my next relationship.

By the time I met my future bride, I couldn’t shake the conviction to purity any longer. I was really starting to feel like I might be called to “save my next kiss” for my wedding day! At first, this standard of purity was pretty surprising to my girlfriend, but ultimately her heart for the Lord and respect of my leadership lead her to join me in this calling. I wanted the most amazing relationship that God had to offer and I wanted our relationship to be a symbol of complete purity and a reflection of all that God could do if two people fully surrendered themselves to Him. We waited until our wedding day for our first kiss intending for this to be a symbol of purity.

WARNING:
To be as authentic and honest as possible, however, I would be lying if I said that “symbol of purity” was truly lived out in our relationship. In the beginning stages we saw a lot of fruit from the commitment we made, but eventually as our relationship progressed Satan and our flesh began to look for ways to break through the armor we set up. We held so tightly to the act of “not kissing” that we never considered that we would still be tempted to things that went beyond that. It didn’t make sense that we could go to “step 5” without going through “step 1”, but sadly our fallen state caught up with us.

Although we never kissed throughout the course of our relationship, there were a few times when we messed up. With the exception of actually having sex during those times, there were few things we didn’t give away. When our wedding day arrived, I knew the Lord’s grace would be sufficient and that He would be glorified in awesome ways but I couldn’t help but feel that the value in saving the kiss had been lost in some ways.

LOOKING BACK:
I have no regrets on not kissing however, I do have a lot of regrets on what we did do. Not kissing was intended to be a symbol of complete purity and surrender to the Lord, but because of our sin nature and poor choices we made mistakes and didn't really live out that symbol. If we had been kissing throughout our relationship would those other mistakes been avoided? It’s impossible to say.
I have no regrets on the commitment to not kiss because I know in my heart that I truly and sincerely desired God and that’s what I felt him calling me to do. However I can't say for sure that I would make that decision again. What I mean is, the goal in relationships is to be pure before the Lord and honor him completely and I'm not entirely sure there is an "across the board" standard for what that looks like. Of course there are the obvious things to abstain from but there's other things, like kissing, that are grey areas that could be different for each couple. It's up to them to truly and sincerely seek the Lord and find out what His best is for their relationship.