He Has Delivered Me

I find it difficult to believe anything that can't be quantified - doesn't have evidence that I can touch, feel, or experience for myself. Like Thomas, who demanded to touch the wounds in Jesus' hands and side, I am somewhat of an objectivist. But God just laughs at that.

He has wanted my heart to be His, completely. And I have resisted most of my life, somewhat foolishly, because I am concerned about the God that I see that crushes the vain. I haven't trusted God and viewed him as a hard taskmaster, similar to the man with one talent that received nothing for failing to invest in God's kingdom. But I have learned, in my own vanity, that for those that He loves and for those that reach out to Him (if even infrequently and in the midst of their own consequences), He will make Himself known.

How do I know this? Because no matter how hard I have tried to leave the faith and give up on Him over the years, He has continued to reveal Himself to me in very profound manners, and has continued to draw me to Himself. Like an un-weaned babe, I have thrashed and screamed, desiring my own ways. And sometimes He has serviced me, allowing me to have the desires of my own heart even as He feeds me blessings. He has allowed me to meet the eventual consequences of my sin, even though He has always been there for me.

There is this consistent presence, this consistent "still small voice" that rings in the deep recesses of my head, sometimes stopping me in my tracks. There are the "leadings" that other believers have that meet me and challenge me where my needs are, where they are convicted that the Holy Spirit is telling them something about my hidden thoughts. Yet, for months and even years at a time, it seemed that God was not with me, as I begged to be released from addiction and shame.

And now, now when I am faced with deep depression and sorrow and wanting to end it all, now when I am ready to just give up again, He is there, corralling me into His embrace. God's presence washes over me in my deepest darkness, and He not only places a vision in my mind that I don't think I fully understand, but then seemingly pulls that glob of dark matter out of the gears of my heart so that they can move again.

Yeah, that's right. Somehow I feel that He has set me free. And the vision that accompanied it was that setting where I was exposed to porn as a small child, where Jesus comes into my memory and takes me by my small hand and leads me away. What does that even mean??? I think I've found that it doesn't quite matter, and that I am glad that Jesus is working in my heart, drawing me toward Him. Satan has attacked me harder than ever before lately, and I've dwelt upon plans of suicide and all sorts of darkness, and yet I think God has gently pulled me away from it and placed me on solid ground. I've heard about the solid rock of God, and experienced some of the spiritual stability thereof, but this is the first time that I don't feel like a boxer against the ropes, and like God is in my corner - no, in the ring with me - giving me strength to battle on. Maybe I'll continue to have depressing days and think that I just can't win, but there will be this underlying understanding, I think, that I have been set free.

Wow. I guess I'll just never understand how He does things. Or why. But it's awesome.

It's All Porn

I presented a definition of the word "porn" to my wife when I recently informed her of my fight to fully avoid pornography. This was mainly because as an addict, the power of the addiction often times causes us to be deceptive with ourselves and our loved ones, and in the past I had often deceived her with a tangle of word-woven lies. It is this deception that I'm hoping to unravel even now, for myself and for all of you.

My definition of porn to her was "the nude image of a woman other than my wife". Although that is a good start, I think that I am realizing that the porneia spoken about in the bible doesn't just stop there. Porneia is sexual immorality, and while the word usage normally centered upon the prostitution associated with the temples during that age in Greek society, there is ample evidence from other Greek literature that the use of the Koine Greek (the language of the New Testament) word porneia ventures into all forms of sexual immorality.

If a man masturbates while watching porn, the hormones and neuro-chemicals that he releases are actually causing his mind to be mapped to the images in front of him; so much so that addicts are continually drawn to the undulating images and are patternistically drawn to particular genres of sites, porn actresses, etc; maybe particular hair colors, maybe particular activities. The point being, a man will continue to find affinity with the characters represented in the pixels, and his soul will be bound to the "prostitutes" on the computer screen equally as much as if he had fornicated with a real prostitute at the local temple of some deity.

The bible is pretty strong about avoiding adultery and fornication, as a believer joins the Holy Spirit with the prostitute, which is an evil act. You are actually subjecting the "new creation", the eternal being at the core of your soul that is inexorably connected with God via the Holy Spirit, with sin. Since this is clearly an abominable sin according to scripture, and other parts of scripture make it clear that we should be "making a covenant" with our eyes to not look at women (Job 31:1) and that it is adultery to look at a woman with lust (Matthew 5:28), I'd say it's clear that anything that you set your eyes upon with lust is sinful adultery, and somewhat synonymous with fornication (in fact, the same Greek word for sexual immorality, porneia, is also used for fornication).

It's easy to see that the nude form of women is porn. But what about all of the other readily available images of women in our society? Each man needs to answer that question for themselves - HONESTLY.

Watching or surfing for things that are deeply sensual is likely going to get those same hormones running, and I doubt that any man looking at cadres of swimsuits or lingerie or other states of skinful undress is not going to lust. Certainly if your desire is to masturbate or get the exciting pop that you might when surfing porn, you've gone too far. The "looking after another woman in lust" certainly doesn't mention any manner of undress of the ladies you are looking at. You need to avoid any situation that would cause you to lust after women.

If you look at a fully clothed woman and allow yourself to undress her with your imagination, whether out in society or on TV, you need to do something about what you are viewing. Not watching TV would be a good start, if it constantly leads you to lust. Avoiding places filled with scantily clad women when you are out and about is a must. Window shopping at the mall is probably a bad idea, for example. Limiting your exposure to people in general might be wise, especially as you begin to build your strength against temptation.

I myself continue to struggle with masturbation and the occasional viewing of sensual material. I am realizing that these things are a part of the same spiritual bondage that I want to escape from, the pornographic demon that I want off my back, permanently. I am realizing that I need to pray specifically about these things and practice the continued exit strategies that will help me to "flee sexual immorality". Every stolen thought or look is a chip away from my manhood, as well as a nail in the coffin of my relationship with my wife. I need to be removing those nails and building back up my confidence in who I am, not constantly trading the real life interactions (as difficult as they may be) for false control structures.

I hope this helps you to realize the compromise that you may have been making as well, and I pray that you will learn to fight against every modicum of lust in your heart.

My Story of Addiction

I am writing this to other Christian addicts (habitual sinners that have been enslaved to their flesh, but desire to be free) in the hopes that they understand first of all that they are not alone, and that there is hope for the future.

My earliest exposure to porn was when I was four years old. I remember waking up to strange noises and walking out of my bedroom and down the hall toward my mom and boyfriend's bedroom. I knew that I wasn't allowed in their room, and had caught them in various forms of undress and activities to know that I would get a spanking if I bothered them when they wanted privacy. I could hear them making loud noises, though I didn't fully understand what they were doing. There was a projector running on a big screen, so I sat down in the hallway outside of their room to watch. I remember being bored after a while, and the things going on throughout the movie were just weird, reminded me of the things that I knew my mom did with her boyfriend. And the noises kept weirding me out. So I went back to bed. 

Little did I know that I had just watched my first hardcore porno movie, without even knowing what I was looking at. This was a year before Star Wars first came out, which I was infinitely more interested in at the time, I can assure you. Nonetheless, the images are still there today. And the spiritual bondage was only just beginning to take shape.

At the age of 5 and 6, I was allowed free access to the Playboy magazines that were around the house, and I was curious about the women's bodies that men seemed to ogle so much. I was more interested in the cartoons and made lame attempts to joke with my mom about them. My mom had yet another boyfriend, and they did many of the same things that she did with other boyfriends, sometimes while I was in the same room. I remember one early morning that they were making loud noises; I really wanted to get up and go in another room, so I tried to make noises that indicated I was waking up, but they kept going at it in a manner that indicated that they hadn't heard me, and I had to patiently wait until they were done so I could act like I didn't wake up earlier.

When I was 6, I was molested by an older boy at a babysitters. I just figured that it was normal, and allowed him to strip me down and attempt to penetrate me. I told him that it hurt and to stop. The situation went unreported.

When I was 7 years old, a friend of mine was a Playboy fiend, and was drastically interested in looking at them. I remember sitting with this friend at one of my dad's parties (I moved back and forth between divorced parents much of my life) with stacks of Playboys around us. Some of the women tried to stop us, to which the men present told them to leave us alone. That same friend cornered one of the drunk adult women in the bathroom and attempted to molest her while I stood by, shocked.

Also at the age of 7, I lay with a friend and his sister, as she wanted us to simulate sexual acts with her. I had no idea what I was doing. When the older sister came home, she asked me to come into the other room so she could see my uncircumcised penis because she was a nurse. She stared at me for a while and then let me go.

At the age of 8, I was simulating sexual acts with everything in sight. I had regular dreams about being a super hero and having sex with the heroines of the movies I watched. I still remember some of those dreams vividly.

At the age of 12, I was looking at porn in books and reading the stories. I had access to a pornographic book with hardcore images that my mom had "hidden" in a cabinet that she knew I had regular access to. By this time, my definition of sex was completely distorted to the visions of pornographers. The size of my penis was made fun of when I was in the Boy Scouts during a skinny dipping outing, so I began to have a negative body image of myself, thinking that I'd never measure up to the men that had access to women.

I was circumcised at the age of 13, thinking that I had to be "normal" to be able to have a relationship with a woman. Dating was constantly on my mind. I began relationships with girls, and I was good at the making out part. As soon as they tried to go in my pants, though, I got scared and felt intimidated and shrank away. This fear lasted well into the college years, to the point that I was still a virgin though I had a handful of chances to consummate my pornographic fantasies. 

I met my wife in college and we had unhealthy sexual activities from the very start. She made it clear that she hated the Playboys and pornography, so I hid my activities from her. My activities became fewer and lesser, but were still latent in my blackened heart.

We got married under less than dedicated terms, both of us not even sure we wanted to be married. Six months after getting married, I went to New Orleans, got rip-roaring drunk, and fornicated with a strange woman. This tore my wife apart. In the midst of it, we became Christians, but our relationship was never the same. We decided to become dedicated to God - we threw away our television, all of our secular music, and anything that even seemed worldly. We were dedicated to seeking out God and reading His word. For two years, I was clean from pornography. Then the internet hit us full force.

With my wife pregnant with our first child, I had hooked up our first computer to the internet and on the very first night that I had access, I looked at porn. And my wife caught me. And it killed her. That was 1997. We began an 18-year long swan song where she would try to dedicate herself to me, and I would let her down time and again. She began to hate me, and then she just went numb.

I lost one great job because of porn, my children were exposed to it accidentally, and it continued to wound my sweet wife until she was sweet no longer. And yet I still couldn't walk away from the porn. I wouldn't put into affect all of the drastic measures to completely remove it from my life.

That brings me to our current situation. I am separated from my wife and 8 kids. I am free from porn since June 24, 2015; that's 123 days as of today. It took the threat of divorce to finally realize what I was losing. Have already lost, really. My wife has little hope for our marriage. I find myself hoping beyond what faith I have that things will get better. I'm willing to upend everything to become porn free permanently. I attend Celebrate Recovery and I am counseling at my church, and I hope that my wife will join into the marriage counseling eventually. I think that she's trying. I still struggle with masturbation, but I try to focus on my wife even as I do that stuff. I know that masturbation is sin and I want to get it out of my life as well. I'm trying to formulate escape routines to get out of the house and try to stop the cycle of lust. But I need to just kill every last vestige of this beast that has ruled my life. I realize that now. And I'm willing to do anything, whatever it takes to conquer it.

That's my walk with addiction, in a nutshell. I am a new creation in Christ now. And I realize that I need to run TO Him and run WITH Him and believers now, and that this is a lifestyle of continued combat that I just need to diligently continue working at. I once thought I just wanted to be "normal". Now I realize that I don't want anything to do with the world's idea of "normal", and I want what God wants for my life, wherever that takes me.