The addict's viewing of pornography fellowships perfectly with sacrificing children to idols.
Think that's a bit extreme? Well, as one views porn, they are partaking and celebrating in the destruction of at least one soul, and at least one relationship. In many cases, women do not have much of a choice in who they are with, or what they have to do. They are often in pain by the men's exploits, and some ex-porn actresses talk about how men would often purposefully inflict pain because they got off on it. These young women with perfect bodies, who were once a bouncing baby and a little girl with pigtails, are being steeped in their own sinful choices, along with whatever pain is being inflicted on them. Many ex-porn actresses tell of the suicidal feelings that they had for weeks on end after making sex movies. All for your moment of pleasure.
It's funny how many intellects can see the harm that TV has upon our next generation, because it slowly decays at the mind of our children. But that same decay can't be applied to the spiritual sexual funk that we engage in, and the celebration of destroying someone else's purity. So, just as the next generation is being sacrificed on the altar of mind-numbing peace, these young people's purity is being sacrificed on the altar of mind-numbing pleasure.
The bible astutely parallels rebellion with witchcraft. That's because witchcraft at its root is the worship of the created, bypassing the creator for whatever mechanisms we can derive to heal ourselves and find 'inner peace' on our own. Witchcraft taken to it's Nth degree involves temple prostitution and child sacrifice, and pornography (sexual perversion) segues nicely with these atrocities. It is along the same 'timeline' of perversion.
Don't believe me? Just ask Ted Bundy, who witnessed in an interview with Focus on the Family's James Dobson about how he as a young Christian grew in his distortion of sexuality through constant use of porn, until he finally obsessed for and carried out kidnappings and murders of young women for his own perverted lust.
The statistics prove that most porn addicts graduate to harder forms of imagery, eventually finding themselves in bondage, rape, and murder porn. Crime statistics are starting to show that sexual crimes are often embedded in porn use. Men doing hard time for harming women. All for their moment of pleasure.
Next time you log on to the internet, just think about the final resting place of sin: death. Death of relationships, death of your conscience, and if you take it as far as some others have, possibly the death of some poor soul that becomes the "temporary" object of your desire.
It doesn't have to be this way. Your degradation does not need to continue to spiral downward. Reach out. Get help. Live in faith. Live a real life filled with pain and glory. We're sinful and fallen, but together we can help each other out of these self-dug pits.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Brokenness
I don't think anyone is truly broken until they are faced with their own evil heart. Once you truly know your own sin, a sadness settles into you that is entirely difficult to shake. I'm not talking about seeing what everyone else says about you. No, I mean once you see through the eyes of God just how desperately wicked you are. When you want to crawl under a rock and never return to the living.
Yet, somehow I persevere. God yet loves me and needs me to learn this lesson.
One has two choices when faced with despair:
Yet, somehow I persevere. God yet loves me and needs me to learn this lesson.
One has two choices when faced with despair:
- Settle into it, like a man laying face down in the mud and just choosing to wallow in it. Allow it to pervade your being and then grow roots of bitterness into your soul, so that every time you are presented with the topic again, bitterness rises like a familiar old friend, and then anger overtakes you.
- Take the sadness to God. Allow yourself to be broken before Him, humble before His Lordship and majesty. He is your daddy and He cares about every tear you cry. He cares about the state of your heart and wants you to heal. And only He can help you heal from the harm you have done to yourself and others.
It has been too easy for me to prescribe actions and scriptures, when in fact my own heart has been too dedicated to bitterness. I am beginning a journey of trying to dig up these roots of bitterness and throwing them on the fire. With God's help, my heart will be rich soil worthy of planting his seed within and wonderful fruit can finally grow in my household.
Monday, January 25, 2016
What's My Motivation
As I continue to explore the issues at hand and ask God to reveal to me what I need to look for in my heart, my focus continues to stay on the foundational or root issues. And I've realized that my motivation for seeking healing has often been off base.
Like many addicts and habitual sinners, I continue with cyclical behavior until there is a painful consequence, and then I scramble for a time to change my behavior and make others happy. My focus is then on people and the pain, not on pleasing God, which should be my highest priority. Yes, there have been personal reasons for not having God as my highest priority (mainly, not understanding the character and love of God and therefore not trusting Him), and those are discussed in other articles.
But as I connect the links in this chain of healing and recovery and break the bonds of unhealthy behavior, I have to realize that I can't be a "man pleaser" as the bible puts it. My first desire should be to please God, and therefore my repentance from my habitual sin should be with a focus on doing so for my relationship with God, and not because I am living in fear about the lost relationships because of the continued sin. I can't focus on the pain that I'm in, because it is cyclical and fleeting, and I will always rationalize it away and fall back into the cycles of habitual sin.
But if my focus is on healing for myself and my relationship with God, then my attitude takes on more of a spirit of "against You and You alone have I sinned," coming before God to re-establish a right spirit and a real relationship. I look to God first for the answers and the healing power, rather than the old method of applying temporary patches so my wife is satiated while I continue to make God hang out in the outer courtyards of my life. I didn't understand that I was doing that, but I was. The new approach is to then learn to invite God into every room of my life as my Daddy, the one who loves me, and the one who I want to have purview over everything, because He knows what is best for me. When my attitude turns to one of priority over pain, I have experienced different levels of genuine repentance. I want to repent because I have a God who will never leave me and loves me, and I want to please Him. He is not fickle in His love, and He will never abandon nor forsake me. And that makes me want to repent.
That said, I need to turn my relationship with my wife and my entire sexuality over to God. I expect that God will do wonderful things, because He is in the business of doing so. I don't demand it. But He's my Daddy, and I can go to Him continually and ask Him for the change in my heart and in that of my family. Nonetheless, I have to fathom the possibility of divorce and continued pain as a possibility, and realize that I have to leave all of that in God's hands, let go of it, and proceed with my relationship with Him, fully and unabated by the motivation to fear or please others.
In other words, I have to focus on the priority, not the pain. God first, then all else.
God, please be my Father, my Daddy. Forgive me for harming my relationship with You time and again, and help me to seek you with all of my heart. I pray that our relationship would be healed, above all others. I also pray for my wife's heart to be healed, and for you to restore our marriage - it is dead and would need to be resurrected by your healing touch, your power. Please allow me to be the father and husband that I am meant to be, and may your name be glorified above all when everything is said and done.
The folks at Top Addiction Networks (formerly Transformed Hearts) have written a great article on what I'm talking about here:
http://topaddictionnetworks.com/winning-at-recovery-part-one/
Like many addicts and habitual sinners, I continue with cyclical behavior until there is a painful consequence, and then I scramble for a time to change my behavior and make others happy. My focus is then on people and the pain, not on pleasing God, which should be my highest priority. Yes, there have been personal reasons for not having God as my highest priority (mainly, not understanding the character and love of God and therefore not trusting Him), and those are discussed in other articles.
But as I connect the links in this chain of healing and recovery and break the bonds of unhealthy behavior, I have to realize that I can't be a "man pleaser" as the bible puts it. My first desire should be to please God, and therefore my repentance from my habitual sin should be with a focus on doing so for my relationship with God, and not because I am living in fear about the lost relationships because of the continued sin. I can't focus on the pain that I'm in, because it is cyclical and fleeting, and I will always rationalize it away and fall back into the cycles of habitual sin.
But if my focus is on healing for myself and my relationship with God, then my attitude takes on more of a spirit of "against You and You alone have I sinned," coming before God to re-establish a right spirit and a real relationship. I look to God first for the answers and the healing power, rather than the old method of applying temporary patches so my wife is satiated while I continue to make God hang out in the outer courtyards of my life. I didn't understand that I was doing that, but I was. The new approach is to then learn to invite God into every room of my life as my Daddy, the one who loves me, and the one who I want to have purview over everything, because He knows what is best for me. When my attitude turns to one of priority over pain, I have experienced different levels of genuine repentance. I want to repent because I have a God who will never leave me and loves me, and I want to please Him. He is not fickle in His love, and He will never abandon nor forsake me. And that makes me want to repent.
That said, I need to turn my relationship with my wife and my entire sexuality over to God. I expect that God will do wonderful things, because He is in the business of doing so. I don't demand it. But He's my Daddy, and I can go to Him continually and ask Him for the change in my heart and in that of my family. Nonetheless, I have to fathom the possibility of divorce and continued pain as a possibility, and realize that I have to leave all of that in God's hands, let go of it, and proceed with my relationship with Him, fully and unabated by the motivation to fear or please others.
In other words, I have to focus on the priority, not the pain. God first, then all else.
God, please be my Father, my Daddy. Forgive me for harming my relationship with You time and again, and help me to seek you with all of my heart. I pray that our relationship would be healed, above all others. I also pray for my wife's heart to be healed, and for you to restore our marriage - it is dead and would need to be resurrected by your healing touch, your power. Please allow me to be the father and husband that I am meant to be, and may your name be glorified above all when everything is said and done.
The folks at Top Addiction Networks (formerly Transformed Hearts) have written a great article on what I'm talking about here:
http://topaddictionnetworks.com/winning-at-recovery-part-one/
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
At the Heart of My Issues
I have continued to pray that God would show me the root causes of my habitual, addictive behavior. I think that He has shown me recently. And the bottom line is that I don't love God, I don't trust Him, and I don't believe that He loves me individually.
It takes a lot of faith to just believe that His word is actually His word. His ways have to be better than ours, otherwise we align ourselves with Satan by saying, "did God really say that?" If God didn't, then He isn't God, and we have nothing to trust. I recognize that there are manuscriptural discrepancies, but that is a mole hill made into a mountain if I've ever heard one. It's amazing how alike those disparate manuscripts are, compared to other ancient writings.
It takes a lot of faith to believe that God is in the mundane, and that He will bless us in the every day situations that we live. It also takes faith when those things we hold dearest are going to be torn from us, and the world starts to crash in. We wonder if God cares, and when life just plain sucks, we start distrusting that God has our best interests at heart.
Something that I am discovering is that God puts us on the paths that we're on for a reason, and it always fits into His larger plan, for those of us that are His children. We have to learn to trust that whatever happens, it is for the best for us, and He knows what we need more than we do.
Of course, that trust comes with great difficulty when you and God are distant from each other. You have to dwell with Him, continue asking for His guidance and loving presence to keep you sane. Our lives are filled with pain, and God helps us to cope with the difficult runs in life, and persevere in our faith and love toward Him.
So, to prescribe a course of action...
It takes a lot of faith to just believe that His word is actually His word. His ways have to be better than ours, otherwise we align ourselves with Satan by saying, "did God really say that?" If God didn't, then He isn't God, and we have nothing to trust. I recognize that there are manuscriptural discrepancies, but that is a mole hill made into a mountain if I've ever heard one. It's amazing how alike those disparate manuscripts are, compared to other ancient writings.
It takes a lot of faith to believe that God is in the mundane, and that He will bless us in the every day situations that we live. It also takes faith when those things we hold dearest are going to be torn from us, and the world starts to crash in. We wonder if God cares, and when life just plain sucks, we start distrusting that God has our best interests at heart.
Something that I am discovering is that God puts us on the paths that we're on for a reason, and it always fits into His larger plan, for those of us that are His children. We have to learn to trust that whatever happens, it is for the best for us, and He knows what we need more than we do.
Of course, that trust comes with great difficulty when you and God are distant from each other. You have to dwell with Him, continue asking for His guidance and loving presence to keep you sane. Our lives are filled with pain, and God helps us to cope with the difficult runs in life, and persevere in our faith and love toward Him.
So, to prescribe a course of action...
- Realize that God loves you. This is foundational to all love. If you can't realize His love for you specifically, then nothing else related to love will work out.
- You should trust God, in lieu of His benevolence.
- Realizing His love for you and your trust in Him, you need to let that evidence itself in your actions... chief among them is a love for Him, an all-consuming love (all your heart, mind, soul, strength) that causes you to live with abandon in His ways. In other words, you want to simply obey.
- Living in God's ways will allow you to realize love for others. Love for others flows from love from God. It is all interconnected.
It is so lonely without realizing God's love. Life is empty, and nothing seems possible or hopeful. With God's love, all things are possible through Him who strengthens us.
Friday, December 11, 2015
All Things Work for Good
Man, this takes a lot of faith. I have had the burden of circumstances weighing heavily upon me, and I've been drowning in my own pity and sorrow.
My wife seems bent on divorce during particular moments, and I don't feel that it matters what I'm trying to do to work my way out of my issues. I get this feeling around my household when I go to visit, that the Daddy age has ended, and the party age is just beginning. I've been asking my wife for advice on how to interact with the kids, and I am hoping that it is the beginning of many dialogues to come. In other words, I feel that it is working in a positive direction, but I can never be sure, because of the utter lack of consistency that I get from my wife day in, day out. She doesn't seem interested in our relationship very much, that's for sure. She is more interested in my relationship with my kids.
Brothers in Christ have been telling me all sorts of things, from "just prepare for divorce" to "serve you wife and kids as best you can, and hopefully she'll come around". The best advice that I've gotten is that I need to leave it in God's hands, that this is a God-sized issue that is beyond me. But that is a lot easier said than done.
I've had to analyze why I feel everything is leading toward doom, that even divorce itself is the ultimate doom. I think I'm realizing (yet again) that there is a relationship addiction present that I need to let go of, but also I am realizing that I don't trust God. Like the parable of the invested talents, I am like the one talent guy that views God as a horrible taskmaster, and as a result, God will not invest in that attitude.
Thankfully I have a brother, Steven, that has been kicking my butt a bit and telling me that no matter what happens, God knows what is best for me. And that I have to believe that, and anything else is a matter of me believing Satan's lies. So, as hard as it seems, I have to give my situation with my wife up to God. Even if she divorces me, I just have to keep believing that God has a plan, and not harden my heart or sulk for years on end. Our Lord is good, no matter what. And that is what I need to believe. As much as I love my wife, and still hope all goes well and we both repent of our sins completely, I need to COMPLETELY give it over to God and not dwell on it any more, except to lay my petitions before Him in prayer and trust the outcome.
Lord, please give me the strength to persevere, looking to you for all the answers and outcomes for my life, because I have to believe that you will make everything right in your own timing. I surrender ALL.
My wife seems bent on divorce during particular moments, and I don't feel that it matters what I'm trying to do to work my way out of my issues. I get this feeling around my household when I go to visit, that the Daddy age has ended, and the party age is just beginning. I've been asking my wife for advice on how to interact with the kids, and I am hoping that it is the beginning of many dialogues to come. In other words, I feel that it is working in a positive direction, but I can never be sure, because of the utter lack of consistency that I get from my wife day in, day out. She doesn't seem interested in our relationship very much, that's for sure. She is more interested in my relationship with my kids.
Brothers in Christ have been telling me all sorts of things, from "just prepare for divorce" to "serve you wife and kids as best you can, and hopefully she'll come around". The best advice that I've gotten is that I need to leave it in God's hands, that this is a God-sized issue that is beyond me. But that is a lot easier said than done.
I've had to analyze why I feel everything is leading toward doom, that even divorce itself is the ultimate doom. I think I'm realizing (yet again) that there is a relationship addiction present that I need to let go of, but also I am realizing that I don't trust God. Like the parable of the invested talents, I am like the one talent guy that views God as a horrible taskmaster, and as a result, God will not invest in that attitude.
Thankfully I have a brother, Steven, that has been kicking my butt a bit and telling me that no matter what happens, God knows what is best for me. And that I have to believe that, and anything else is a matter of me believing Satan's lies. So, as hard as it seems, I have to give my situation with my wife up to God. Even if she divorces me, I just have to keep believing that God has a plan, and not harden my heart or sulk for years on end. Our Lord is good, no matter what. And that is what I need to believe. As much as I love my wife, and still hope all goes well and we both repent of our sins completely, I need to COMPLETELY give it over to God and not dwell on it any more, except to lay my petitions before Him in prayer and trust the outcome.
Lord, please give me the strength to persevere, looking to you for all the answers and outcomes for my life, because I have to believe that you will make everything right in your own timing. I surrender ALL.
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Stop the Victim Mentality
I came out of a fugue today, a fog caused by my own self-pity and a lack of seeking God. I'm not even sure when it began, or how long I've allowed it to beset my mind. God just showed me that I should never grow weary of doing good (Galatians 6:9).
The more we focus on our issues, the problems, the "waves", the more we sink into the water and start drowning. We swim and fight against the waves through constant spiritual activity, and God is with us when we ask Him for help, under-girding us with his guiding touch. In fact, we can walk on top of those waves the more we focus on Him, like Peter with Jesus - walking on water through faith.
The more we focus on our issues, the problems, the "waves", the more we sink into the water and start drowning. We swim and fight against the waves through constant spiritual activity, and God is with us when we ask Him for help, under-girding us with his guiding touch. In fact, we can walk on top of those waves the more we focus on Him, like Peter with Jesus - walking on water through faith.
How does that evidence itself in real life? I'm not exactly sure. But simple obedience and simply walking with Him are a good start. Just a child-like faith that everything is going to be OK because daddy (Abba) is present and He's not going to let us down. Sometimes He reassures us, but sometimes we just need to keep fighting, reaching out to God and asking for His help and continuing to worship Him and shout from the rooftops about His Lordship. Even when our minds are darkened and all seems fruitless and hopeless. Our hearts can never grow dark or weary, and we need to keep going, keep giving our lives over to Him.
And at the right time, in His own time, He will lift us up and bring us to exactly where we are meant to be.
Lord, thank you for being my rock, my strength, my salvation, my fortress, my shield. You are my everything. I pray that I would learn what it means to love you with everything I am, everything I have. Please continue to strengthen me, that I might glorify you, and please wrap me and my family in your warm embrace, protect us all so that we can serve each other and others in your name. Set the captives free, Lord, and we will worship in your throne room forever!
Monday, November 23, 2015
I think I'm Ready, But I Need to be Patient
For those of you who are separated from your spouse and family and want desperately to go home, this one's for you...
Boy, am I ready to go home and be with my wife. I may even fool myself into thinking I'm ready to do so. But I am glad that she has drawn a line to ensure that I am fully recovered from my addiction. I am not certain that I will ever be fully 'healed', but I am certain that I am going to have a great relationship with God, and that I'll have some great tools to combat my issues so that I won't slip back into habitual sin. I also want to make sure that I don't objectify my family members, and that I love them to a greater extent and in a Godly way.
I'm not ready.
I realize that there are some foundational issues that I have to meet head-on in my psyche, baggage that I just don't want to carry back into my marriage again. Although I have been clean of porn for a long time, and I am taking the sensuality and lust part of it very seriously now, I realize that I still stare at my wife's body like it was a ribeye steak. And I realize that I would hop in the sack with her in an instant if she needed a 'fix'. The problem with all of this obsessing with sex, even with my wife, is that it lacks intent, purpose, and discipline, things that I desperately need if my marriage and family are going to go well moving forward. I need to learn to never objectify my wife, to not treat her like a thing, to cherish and respect her as a co-equal heir of the kingdom of God. She is my sister in Christ and the mother of my children and the caretaker of our home and my friend before she is my scrumping partner.
Weird as that may sound to some guys, it has to be true. We have to be willing to submit ourselves "one to another" and "consider others as greater than ourselves" before all of the other relationship things can work. I have to desire her heart and her intimate thoughts before I desire her body. It has to be important to me to listen to her because I value what she has to say, not because I think it's going to earn me her respect or time in bed.
I'm working on it. I'm glad for this time, and I pray that God will continue to change my perspective so that I can come back home a more complete man, ready to serve and lead at the same time.
Thank you, Lord for the opportunities to spend time with my family and to serve them. Thank you for the ability to talk with my wife about what is important to her. Help me to value that talk more than sex. Help me to value my wife more for the whole person she is, not the fact that I find her body pleasing. I pray that I would be able to go home before too much longer, but that I would have embedded in my spirit the desire to respect, honor, and cherish my wife. Help me to value playing with my kids and helping prepare them for life in your kingdom above any other form of entertainment. Amen.
Boy, am I ready to go home and be with my wife. I may even fool myself into thinking I'm ready to do so. But I am glad that she has drawn a line to ensure that I am fully recovered from my addiction. I am not certain that I will ever be fully 'healed', but I am certain that I am going to have a great relationship with God, and that I'll have some great tools to combat my issues so that I won't slip back into habitual sin. I also want to make sure that I don't objectify my family members, and that I love them to a greater extent and in a Godly way.
I'm not ready.
I realize that there are some foundational issues that I have to meet head-on in my psyche, baggage that I just don't want to carry back into my marriage again. Although I have been clean of porn for a long time, and I am taking the sensuality and lust part of it very seriously now, I realize that I still stare at my wife's body like it was a ribeye steak. And I realize that I would hop in the sack with her in an instant if she needed a 'fix'. The problem with all of this obsessing with sex, even with my wife, is that it lacks intent, purpose, and discipline, things that I desperately need if my marriage and family are going to go well moving forward. I need to learn to never objectify my wife, to not treat her like a thing, to cherish and respect her as a co-equal heir of the kingdom of God. She is my sister in Christ and the mother of my children and the caretaker of our home and my friend before she is my scrumping partner.
Weird as that may sound to some guys, it has to be true. We have to be willing to submit ourselves "one to another" and "consider others as greater than ourselves" before all of the other relationship things can work. I have to desire her heart and her intimate thoughts before I desire her body. It has to be important to me to listen to her because I value what she has to say, not because I think it's going to earn me her respect or time in bed.
I'm working on it. I'm glad for this time, and I pray that God will continue to change my perspective so that I can come back home a more complete man, ready to serve and lead at the same time.
Thank you, Lord for the opportunities to spend time with my family and to serve them. Thank you for the ability to talk with my wife about what is important to her. Help me to value that talk more than sex. Help me to value my wife more for the whole person she is, not the fact that I find her body pleasing. I pray that I would be able to go home before too much longer, but that I would have embedded in my spirit the desire to respect, honor, and cherish my wife. Help me to value playing with my kids and helping prepare them for life in your kingdom above any other form of entertainment. Amen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)