I hope the following lesson can be of use to youth ministries, family counselors, teachers, family home evenings and family devotionals.

There has been a lot of conversations about how same-sex relationships can be part of the religious community. I recently watched a presentation by a media fellow from the church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. I liked how he acknowledged that people can have feelings of attraction for someone else for their own gender and can still participate in the religious community as long as those individuals abstain from acting upon those feelings. This would just be like, but acting upon feelings of adultery, cheating and stealing. All of which are God’s commandments.

If I’m a religious single female who believes that sex outside of marriage is considered ‘sin’, then, to prevent myself from performing such an act I need to employ abstinence. Those individuals with same-sex attraction would need to pursue a similar purpose.

Here is an object lesson to help teach abstinence. Put some water in a plugged sink. Fill the sink with water about halfway up. Put a couple of quarters in the paper cup. Place it in the sink of water. The cup remains buoyant in the water. The water does not come past the edges. The cup is surrounded by water/temptation, but because of the walls of abstinence/walls of the cup, temptation cannot enter. The quarters remain dry because of abstinence.

I know this is a very simplified object lesson, but I hope it expresses the point of abstinence. If you have another way to share this concept, please feel free to share it in the comment section this blog. Thanks.