Now let’s get to the part where God really showed up in a big way. This past Sunday they held the first class of a leadership university at the church. It’s basically a video school; the lectures/classes are on DVD. David is attending the classes but I’m not at this time. One of the lessons Sunday was “The Holy Spirit” by Dr. A.L. Gill. His lesson included teaching on the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and concluded with a chance to pray to receive the baptism. David prayed and received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and began speaking in an unknown tongue! He’s been a Christian since 1996 and he’s 45 years old. He prayed in the Spirit (in tongues) on the way home from church that night. I wish I had been there to see it.

In an earlier post, What shall I blog about? My Christian walk part 1, I mentioned that I got saved when I was 11, and I rededicated my life to the Lord when I was 13. Shortly after that I also received the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. That milestone revolutionized my walk with the Lord and all the rest of the way through school I was a Jesus freak. I deliberately avoided being “just like everyone else;” I did not want to be a part of the world’s system.

DC Talk – Jesus Freak

I never spoke in tongues around my husband, nor did I talk with him about being baptized in the Holy Spirit, basically because I didn’t know how to approach him with it. I got the idea he thought there was a big hype factor in it, and that the best way for him to come around was to have a spiritual epiphany and experience it for himself. And it happened, and I am in awe and can’t thank the Lord enough. Now I feel we can move forward hand-in-hand together in our Christian walk, as we are both filled with and led by the Spirit.

Can 365 Nights Of Sex Bolster A Marriage? When Their Marriages Fell Into The Doldrums, Two Long-Married Couples Took Action
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/05/health/webmd/main4421065.shtml

The two couples cited in the story published books about their experiences:

Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!)

365 Nights: A Memoir of Intimacy

I think the news story and two books are touching on something sorely lacking in marriages today. There are so many married people who somewhere along the line have trivialized this aspect of their relationship. As much as some people don’t want to admit it, what goes on in the bedroom *does* affect the entire relationship. Sexual intimacy is a baring and joining of bodies that should be a physical representation of the baring and joining of souls. In the Bible the mystery of Christ’s relationship with the Church (that universal body of all believers) is paralleled with the marriage relationship:

30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 31 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:30-32, NKJV)

The Bible also says that couples should not deny one another sex, and that prolonged abstinence leaves them vulnerable to attack from Satan, the enemy of our souls:

3 Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. (I Corinthians 7:3-5, NKJV)

Jess, on her Making Home blog, has posted extensively and thoughtfully on sex and marriage from a Biblical perspective. Just today she posted on “Sex & Spiritual Warfare,” speaking to the very thing I mentioned above about how Satan uses lack of sexual intimacy to come in and drive a wedge between husbands and wives. Another excellent post from 9/14 is “SEX: What If You Just Don’t Want To?” Her blog gets quite a bit of traffic and her posts receive lots of meaningful comments. Please be aware that this is a Christian blog that examines everything from a Biblical perspective.