What Are You Waiting For? The One Thing No One Ever Tells You About Sex
Dannah Gresh
WaterBrook Press, 2011, 178 pp., $10

From the first word to the last, author Dannah Gresh writes with an intensity and passion, sounding an alarm to this generation of young women: “My intention isn’t to shock you as I approach this topic (sexuality) more directly than I have before. I don’t think I will. It’s not as if you haven’t heard about oral sex or girls kissing girls. My intention is to be relevant and to bring some practical clarity to the sadly common temptations our culture presses at you.”

The author is refreshingly direct, taking on the hot topics of pornography, masturbation, friends with benefits, fondling and even sexuality in marriage. She writes: “A sexual debate is taking place today that is critical to the future of our society—and it’s been rattling on for quite a few years.” Gresh uses personal stories, solid research and an obvious love and respect for Scripture to write a very easily readable book.

Gresh’s organization, Pure Freedom, has been addressing and speaking publicly for years about sexual purity and marriage. By her own admission, the plea to young women to wait until marriage to be sexual was growing stale. The argument didn’t seem valid. In her own quest to find answers to the “Why wait?” question asked repeatedly by the Christian community, she believes she has discovered that “Aha” moment: “Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant” (Genesis 4:1). I’d read those words before without giving them a second thought. Not this time. I caught the scent of something being not quite as it seemed. For the first time, it occurred to me: He was so not just laying there.” Clearly this was not one of Adam’s more passive moments. Sometimes the Bible makes a lot more sense if you look at it from the perspective of the original writers. So I decided to take a look. There it was. The Hebrew word for sex—yada!

Gresh uses yada to build a better argument to the “Why wait?” debate. She weaves themes of sexuality, marriage and the relational intent of God to cast a vision, a future worth waiting for.

It’s clear that yada isn’t about a merely physical act. Rather, it’s a word of intimacy that transcends the physical. It describes the whole knowing of a person. It portrays an uncovering and an embrace of the nakedness of another. There are no secrets and nothing is held back.

So the debate rages on. Gresh is suggesting that yada, this knowing, can happen only in the context of marriage and in a meaningful, authentic relationship with God. It transcends the act of sex. She makes the case that this is what we deeply desire, and it is something He deeply desires for us. It is what we are waiting for.

This book will make a great study for the young women in your student ministry. It also has a section for discussion questions and research notes.