Of the hundreds of articles and posts I have written this is beyond a doubt the most difficult and probably one of the most important. I’m going to share openly with full transparency something about my life only my wife knew. It is not something I want to do, but something the Holy Spirit is very strongly prompting me to do.
I was eleven years old when I accepted Christ as my Savior. At that same time I was beginning to become curious about sex. Satan convinced me that pornography was a way I could satisfy my curiosity without actually sinning. Then he used it to make me feel guilty and ashamed. I believe each of us have a “favorite sin”. Satan can’t separate us from God, but he uses that hot button to get in through the back door of our mind to cause shame and self-doubt so that our Christian testimony is negatively affected. The chains of that addiction were broken for me when I was presented with a perfect opportunity to act out my fantasies and I ran from there like Joseph running from Potiphar’s wife. The Holy Spirit would not let me go through with it and I finally realized then how dangerous pornography is. All of that has been buried in the past for years and forgotten.
I get a joke of the day in my email. Most of them have been cute and funny. I like to share them with my friends. On the morning of Christmas Eve, the joke was sexually explicit and although it was funny, it was not something I would be comfortable sharing with anyone. Laughing at that joke seemed to trigger something in the back of my mind and before I realized what was happening I found myself on a porn website. The images no longer triggered fantasies, but I quickly closed down my laptop and prayed. Have you ever been in a super market and heard a voice on the loud speaker say, “Clean up in aisle seven”? They don’t look for someone to blame; they just clean up the mess and restock the shelf. I basically asked God for a cleanup in an aisle of my mind. I asked Him to remove the mess and restock the shelves with wholesome thoughts of Him and my Christian brothers and sisters along with precious memories of my wife. He immediately answered my prayer, but then the Holy Spirit strongly prompted me to immediately begin work on this blog post.
Christians are ashamed to share these kinds of embarrassing battles taking place in our lives. That is sad and unfortunate. Our secrecy causes other Christians to feel isolated and alone in their battle with the guilt and shame of their own “favorite sin”. We are reborn into a new spiritual creation as a child of God, but we still inhabit a natural body in a natural world. As a result, God continues to work on us and in us. I recently heard a handicapped gentleman say, “If you don’t like the way I am now, just hold on! I’m still in the oven and God is still in the kitchen. One day soon He will open the oven door, pull me out and say, ‘Well done!’”
Don’t ever feel alone or allow Satan to make you feel so guilty and ashamed that you try to hide from God like Adam and Eve. Once you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are an eternal child of God and His Spirit within you will help you overcome all obstacles the enemy tries to put in your way. You will be victorious! You have the promise and the unconditional love of your heavenly Father!