Shameless

Hi.  My name is Jonathan, and I struggle with pornography.  I have been struggling for over 25 years.

I am like the recovering alcoholic. I will always be recovering from pornography.  Just like a single drink will totally mess over the sobriety record of a recovering alcoholic, so too will a glimpse of a girlie magazine or website.  I have to be careful what I watch on TV.  I have to be careful what I search for on the Internet or what websites I go to.  I even have to be careful on Amazon.com.  My flesh is easily enticed.  My lust stays hidden just beyond my awareness, ready to inflame at the slightest provocation, at the slightest hint of weakness.

I used to flatter myself that I wasn't that bad.  After all, I only liked soft porn.  The hardcore stuff turned my stomach and made me physically ill.  No thank you.  But, give me the other stuff, and . . . . I'll just leave it at that.  You get the picture.  Ha!  Unintended pun.

There is a popular saying which goes something like this: "The Devil made me do it." This is called blame-shifting.  The Bible says in James 1:14-15 that "each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death." (ESV).  I do not know how to be clearer.  My temptations come from within my own self.

If I give in to lust and look at something that I should not look at, I have no business blaming the Devil or his minions.  I have only myself to blame.  If my wife says something to make me mad, and I respond to her in an unkind way, I have only myself to blame.  I chose to respond that way.  If I keep a defeatist attitude and never find victory, I have only myself to blame.  God's Grace is there for the taking.  If I allow my past to consistently defeat me, I have only myself to blame.  I do not diminish the pain.  I do not diminish the heartache.  I do not diminish the gravity of what happened.  But once I have been exposed to God's Grace, and I choose to wallow in self pity instead of allowing God to work healing in my life, I have only myself to blame.  The Devil and his angels are not to blame. 

The Devil doesn't tempt me.  I tempt me.  He is not attacking me.  I am.  My corrupted conscience is.  My negative tapes are.  If I leave myself to my own devices, I will only destroy myself further.  It is in my nature to do so.  The Devil didn't make me do it.  No hellish angel tempted me.  I made me do it.  I tempted me.  I am weak.  My flesh is weak.  I tempted me because I have a nature which delights in sin.  I tempted me because I have an insatiable hunger for things which appease my flesh.

So, here's what happens.  I drove 18 wheels for 6 years.  I've been all over.  I don't keep anything in my truck because I know I have a weakness for porn.  So, nothing can tempt me.  Sounds good, right?  Well, I pull into a customer's plant to drop and hook (drop my empty trailer and hook to a pre-loaded trailer).  I drive up to the guard shack and sign my bill of lading (BOL - papers saying how much of what cargo I have and where it's going and where it came from).  I'm doing pretty good in my thought life at the moment.  I suddenly get an urgent need to find a restroom, and the only one that I am allowed to use is a port-a-potty outside the guard shack.  I go in, and sitting right there next to the seat is a Play Boy.  Needless to say I failed that test.

Another scenario.  I pull into a truck stop to fuel, then find a place to park for the night. While I am parking a lot lizard (hooker) comes up to see if I want company.  I politely tell her to get lost.  I go into the truck stop to shower, and discover that I am number 6 on the waiting list.  It's January, and places that never sell Sports Illustrated have racks and racks loaded with the Swim Suit issue.  I walk away without buying and go sit down in Wendy's while I wait.  I won that battle.

I've lost a lot of battles, and I've won a lot of battles.  A lot of factors have gone into my victories and my defeats, such as my spiritual life, my level of exhaustion, and my relationship with my wife, among others.  She reads my blog so this will come as a surprise to her, not that I haven't tried to tell her before.  I have tried on several occasions.  I probably didn't do a very good job of trying to tell her.

The amount of time I spend in the Word helps me.  The Spirit within me has more ammunition at His disposal, and I am able to think more of my Savior and His sacrifice for my sins, and of honoring my wife than when I am not spending time in the Word of God.  I am reminded of an old illustration, related to me many times removed and attributed to an old and wise American Indian chief, now probably long since deceased.  He spoke of there being two dogs in each person, fighting each other, a white dog and a black dog.  The white one is good and the black one bad.  If we do good things, we feed the white dog and he gets stronger, and he is able to beat the black dog, but if we do bad things we feed the black dog and he will get stronger and win.  In a similar way if we maintain habits which cater to our flesh, then our flesh will get stronger and we will remain in bondage.  If we replace those habits with habits which feed our soul, then we feed that redeemed part of us which wants to do right and please God, and that part of us becomes stronger and is better able to resist the powerful onslaught of desires from the flesh. 

If my relationship with my wife is not well, then I have that much more temptation I have to face.  The majority of times I have lost my battles since being married were after we had some kind of falling out.  She got upset at me over something I considered to be trivial.  Continual frustration over continual interruption after repeated requests to be left alone for a certain amount of time so I could concentrate on whatever it was I was doing (which has not happened in very long time, by the way). At times she would seem distant or aloof, unapproachable, for long periods of time (not saying that she was, just that to me she seemed it - my interpretive filter was wrong).  Though I am to blame for most of the problems, she also has a sin nature, and when two sin natures collide, there are going to be issues, ugly ones complete with hairy worts and crooked yellow teeth.  Whoever was to blame, which probably in the vast majority of cases was me, my feeling in the matter was that I was in some way rejected.  Thus, I would be tempted to find comfort or revenge in looking at things I shouldn't.  You see, she can forget very quickly why there was a fight or argument.  That's something I really respect in her.  Unfortunately I can't.  I internalize it, and it takes me a lot longer to get over it.  I think God is working on this.

That is why I need to be in the Word.  That is why I need to be embracing Grace.  That is why I need to be looking to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of my faith, for my strength. I cannot win this battle on my own.  Though God governs the entire Universe, He does not force Himself onto us.  He does not shout to be heard.  He does not punch to be felt.  He invites us to follow Him.  He leads by example.  He speaks in a soft voice.  He nudges our shoulders with a gentle breeze.

For years I did not realize that there was hope.  Having become an adult in a theological movement which states that "these things are bad" but not giving any way out other than "wash these verses down with a tall glass of prayer, and call me if you don't feel better," I was without hope.  I struggled and struggled and struggled over the years.  I did everything I could.  I went to the altar and knelt.  I confessed my sins over and over and over, and I implored God's forgiveness over and over and over.  I read my Bible.  I memorized Scripture.  I prayed.  I went to church.  I did everything they told me that I am supposed to do in order to get victory. Guess what? THEY LIED!!!  All I did was beat myself up over and over and over because I continually fell.  I could never get victory.  I would never kick this.  I despised myself for my weakness to porn, and I could do nothing about it.  The movement payed lip-service to the part of the Bible which states that "Christ died once for all," but in practice I was preached that God was continually angry with me over my sin, and I would be placed on shelf or "taken out of the way" should I fail to get my life right. 

Yeah.  I was threatened that God would strike me dead if *I* didn't get a handle on this.  How's that for hope?  *I* must accomplish this, or I might die.  Oh, there was a brief nod of acknowledgment to "God will help you if you only ask Him," but I only heard doom, doom, doom.  How many times had I implored God for help?  How many times had I begged Him for deliverance?  And I was still bound. Grace came up during salvation messages.  That was it.  For all intents and purposes, Grace no longer existed for me after salvation.  That is the essence of what I heard proclaimed from the pulpit.

And then I learned about Grace from a five point Calvinist in California.  My eyes began to open, and I began to see what Grace really was.  Grace only started at salvation!  Grace continues on and on and on until either I die, or my Beloved comes to claim me for His very own.  God was going to come back and claim ME. Yeah, trust your eyes.  You read it right. Jesus is coming back for me, ME, THE sinner.  How's that for love?  How's that for hope? 

What I did not realize was that when I was asking God for deliverance, He was answering my prayer by allowing me to fall.  Now, put your stones down.  There will be time enough for stoning me when I am done.  No, God was not tempting me to do evil.  He allowed a situation which resulted in my choosing to fail of my own volition, which then would teach me that I cannot do this on my own, that I need to rely on Him more. Only because of the conditioning I had received at the words of preachers who probably meant well, I could not see that my problem was beyond me.  Because I was indoctrinated to believe that *I* was responsible to clean this mess up, I could never see past my own failure.  Grace opened my eyes to let me see that I never could clean this mess up, that even my failure had a point.  My life is a God sized mess, and only God can clean it up.  Only Tide with God Power can take care of these stains.

And I have freedom. Freedom from chains which held me for years.  Freedom to love my Beloved.  Freedom to know Him and the power of His resurrection.  Freedom to fail, to fall and know that He knew that I was going to fail Him, and He took me in and loved me anyway.  Freedom to let God handle my mess.  Freedom to let Him help me get back up on my feet and love on me.  Freedom to take a few more steps and fall, knowing that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.  My conscience is pricked.  That is punishment enough.  Freedom to repeat the cycle of fall, get up, walk, fall, get up, walk.  Eventually I'll take more than a few steps toward my Beloved.  I will walk many steps before I trip.  Then I will run, and trip, and get up, and run some more.  My eyes are on my Beloved, and He is coaxing me on, cheering me on, and putting superhero band-aids on my boo-boos when I fall and get scraped up.

This is not to say that I can deliberately let myself go and read and watch anything I want to. GOD FORBID! No, my Beloved's Grace is not for the abusing.  I am not deliberately to sin more so that He can shower me with more Grace.  That is wrong.  That would be to abuse God's goodness.  No, sir (or mam).  Absolutely not. 

Think of things this way.  If you are trying to do right, and you fall, and get back up and keep trying to do right, you are not abusing God's Grace. If you choose to habitually indulge in that which you know you should not, then you are abusing God's Grace.  See the difference?  Falling into a muck hole because you slipped and fell in does not constitute abuse.  Seeking out a muck hole to jump into and wallow in does.  Temptations will come, and you will fail.  Not all the time, but you will fail.  This is not abuse.  Seeking out temptation on a regular basis, this is abuse.

I have had to make some changes in my life.  There are some websites I do not go to because they will lead me where I do not wish to go.  There are stores I do not go into because they will sow seeds which will rapidly grow into trip-vines and snare-vines.  There are TV shows and channels I don't watch at certain times of the day because there is stuff on them that I have no business seeing.

If any of you, my dear readers, struggle with the same struggle that I struggle with, and some of you do, then depending on your circumstances you may need to make some drastic changes to your life.  You may have to avoid a friend's house.  You may have to get rid of your TV for a period of time, or cancel your cable/satellite subscriptions.  You may have to destroy hundreds, even thousands of dollars worth of DVDs.  You may have to burn a lot of magazines.  You may have to cancel some credit cards.  You may need to have a friend restore your computer to factory defaults - effectively wiping everything out on the hard drive because of the thousands of porno images you downloaded, then have him install a password protected filter program and not tell you the password.  If your struggle is bad enough, you may have to get rid of your computer all together. If you're route to work takes you by an adult bookstore or strip club, find another route.

Balking at any of this?  Good.  Ask yourself this question.  How desperately do I want to go clean?  Ask God for wisdom.  Ask Him if there is anything you need to get rid of.

I'm not saying that these will cure you. They will not.  They simply help remove the major avenues by which you satisfy your flesh. 

THEN, you have to replace whatever you got rid of.  If you got rid of your TV, then listen to radio programs, or read books by reputable authors, or listen to books by reputable authors.  I'm not going to tell you to replace bad material with strictly godly material.  Fiction is OK, but it must be wholesome.  If you want to read some godly material, by all means.  Take up a hobby, such as painting, or making things out of wood or metal, or even take up needlepoint.  You must occupy that time previously spent doing evil by doing something completely different, even if it is not totally constructive.  And, do not neglect studying your Bible, whatever form that may take, and praying for strength, praising God, and looking for ways to serve Him and others instead of yourself.  If you formerly went to a strip club or an X rated movie theatre on certain days of the week, find a Bible study to join on those nights, or visit with a godly friend over Starbucks.  If you do not replace your evil with good, you will fall right back into the same trap, and you will end up being worse off than what you were before.

Finding  a godly someone you can trust and give that person permission to ask very invasive questions about your life, anytime of day or night, can be helpful. Accountability certainly will not hurt.

Remember that God loves you unconditionally.  If you are married, remember that porn does not honor your spouse.  If you are unmarried, remember that porn will create baggage in any future relationship that you have or are having.  Remember that you are human, and you will fall.  You will stumble.  But remember that God has already forgiven you, and that His love for you has not diminished at all. 

Go in God, my friends.  You are unconditionally loved in our Beloved.