My friend Jason recently brought up a point on the subject of kissing (per my last blog post) that got me thinking. He stated that most people decide to save their first kiss for the wedding because of pride; more or less so they could stand up in front of everyone and proudly declare their waiting (i.e., self-righteousness). I had heard this opinion before, but this comment struck a chord, and I thought it deserved a little attention.

Is that why we are waiting? Pride?

I thought it was a conviction.

So if it is prideful to save your kisses, does that mean its an act of humility to just kiss whenever? And if this is true, what about other things? Doesn’t this idea assume that other things we choose to do (or not do) are acts of pride…that we do things just to be able to tell other people?

For instance, when someone is uncomfortable with dancing, we say they have a personal or family conviction. We don’t say they are prideful. When someone doesn’t like rock music, we say they have a conviction or personal preference. It doesn’t have anything to do with pride.

A decision to do or not do something, when made in the proper, God-glorifying mindset, is not automatically a self-righteous “Hey, look at me, I’m better than you” thing. If it were then wouldn’t this idea mean that practicing abstinence before marriage be prideful? After all, the purpose is to be able to say we are sexually pure before the wedding…right?

If being convicted, feeling deeply, about something meant that we were inflicted with pride, then we’d all be in big trouble. If it is pride to say we are different and separate from the world’s common idea of things, then half the things we say and do are wrong…including saying we are Christians. What is our real motive anyways?

This is actually a very good reminder for us. We need to be so careful that what we do is because of conviction, because we feel so deeply about something, and not for any other reason. If a choice to do or not do something hangs only on how it boosts our standing in a church or certain group of people, then yes, it’s pride. The majority of what we do (homeschool, ministry, courtship, purity, music choices, etc.) could most certainly be labeled as prideful if we do it only because the rest of the crowd does. But I honestly don’t think that the people who choose to homeschool, go into ministry, practice courtship, remain sexually pure, only listen to Christian music, or save their kisses for marriage are doing it because the crowd does. These are things that go against the crowd. They are not easy things to choose. In fact, it is a humbling thing to choose something the world sees as downright weird. That being said, we still need to watch ourselves, because often we spend so much time with our “in-group” of homeschooled/courting/Christians that we forget what its like out in the world where we are looked on as creatures from another planet. This is when, yes, we can get prideful.

I feel very deeply about certain things. Saving my kisses is one of them. I have at least a dozen very good reasons to wait to kiss till my wedding day, and if I’m not going to wait, then I’d better have a dozen reasons just as good, if not better. I want something different. I want something special. I want to show my world how it is possible to wait to kiss one man and one man only. If this is pride, then so be it. But I don’t think so.