How Living a Life of Chastity Brought Me Closer to God

Written by Andy Aguirre

At the age of 21, I had one goal in life and that was to meet or “hook up” with as many girls as possible, with the sole purpose of trying to sleep with them. All the money that I made from my minimum wage job went towards weekend dates. I had a nice haircut, brand new clothes, and a credit card, all to impress the girls. I would lie to the girls and I would tell them “you are the only girl for me”, “I care about you a lot”, or even say “I love you” just to get what I wanted. At this point in my life I was not living a life of chastity, as a matter of fact, I didn’t know that word even existed.

“Love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” — 1 John 4:7-8

I didn’t know who God was, therefore I didn’t know what love was. I would use girls for my own benefit, my own pleasure. Not once did I think or care about their feelings or how their lives would be affected. I only cared about me.

“Love is willing and doing what is good for someone else.” The greatest expression of love is to lay down your life for the sake of another. Jesus showed us this love on the cross. It was the most profound act of love in human history. I was doing the opposite of love, which is lust. It is a sexual desire that deforms our vision making us see others as objects to be used rather than people to be loved.

I met my wife at a bar and when I first laid eyes on her I knew she was special. I wanted to make her my girl friend. We started dating and once I got to know her better I realize that she was the girl for me. She was smart, kind, respectful and beautiful. I started to have feelings for her. She was more than a conquest. I really liked her after a few months of dating we started to have a sexual relationship, again, for my own personal pleasure. Our lives changed when she got pregnant. We decided to get married that same year.

Getting married did not stop me from lusting after other women. I never cheated on my wife, but I did flirt with other women. In my heart I knew it was wrong, but I still did it anyway. My wife was always second. She did not deserve the way I treated her. And I wanted to change, but I didn’t know how.

One Sunday morning, I was flipping channels on my TV when I came across an evangelical preacher. I will never forget the Bible verse that he read.

“Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” — 1 Corinthians 6:18-20

The part that got to me was “You do not belong to yourself.” This was the first time that I realized that I was being selfish, not only was I far apart from my wife, I was far from Jesus. I wanted to grow closer to both of them. But I did not know how. So I bought a book called Catechism for Adults. I turned to the section that talks about the Sixth Commandment. “You shall not commit adultery”. I said to myself, “That’s easy, all I have to do is not cheat on my wife and I will honor that commandment.”

Then I read some of the sins against the Sixth Commandment which include: lust, fornication, masturbation, and pornography. My jaw dropped when I realized that what I was doing was, in fact, a sin. Nobody had ever told me what I was doing was wrong. I felt embarrassed and ashamed. I asked God for forgiveness. Our God is a merciful God and he forgave me.

Jesus loves me and wants me to grow closer to him, but I can’t if I continue to sin. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:

“All Christ’s faithful are called to lead a chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the moment of his Baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his affective life in chastity.” CCC, 2348

I am now living a life of chastity, no more lust. Because I changed my ways I have grown closer to God. It is not easy to live a chaste life, but if you ask Jesus for guidance He will make the journey a lot easier. He helps me defeat temptation and the more I talk to Jesus in prayer, the closer I get to him. Now he is my best friend. I also ask our Blessed Mother Mary and the saints to pray for me that I become a better father and a better husband. I have two daughters and I pray every day on my knees with all my heart that if they choose the vocation of marriage that there future husbands are practicing chastity right now.