My history with God has been the most beautiful story ever written in my life. Growing up, I didn’t come from a religious or faith-filled family, but I did come from a very loving family. There was no question that I felt loved and accepted within the home I was raised in.
I remember as a child taking an interest in faith. My parents and I visited some churches, many of which were actually very strange and not biblical at all. In hindsight, I think these experiences gave us a bad taste of the Church and the kind of people who went to church.
Fast forward to the age of 16 where I took my first steps in a church in years. I was invited to a local youth group that had been growing and had seen hundreds of teenagers saved in recent months. I was invited to come from some friends of mine and had a powerful encounter with the Lord where I surrendered my life. I had never known a love like this before, even from my parents. It was like everything in my world had changed. Except one thing…
My porn addiction.
As I’ve often explained to people, I thought I had given God my entire house, when in reality there were some rooms that I had sealed off and refused Him access. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be free. Every time I looked at porn, masturbated, and fantasized I felt shame. I knew what I was doing was wrong. But I didn’t know how to find freedom. I didn’t know how to be healed.
Looking back on my addiction, I never got the sense that God was angry with me over looking at porn. It was even worse than that. I knew I was breaking His heart. It was as if I was living a diminished life. I was active in ministry during the day and actively searching for harder and harder kinds of porn at night online. I was truly the dictionary definition of what it meant to live a double life.
While all of that was going on, I knew that I wanted to be married. I wanted to commit my life to one person forever. I wanted to be a dad one day. I had dreams of helping lost people and preaching the Word. And yet I was probably as lost as they come. My character and integrity were thinner than a sheet of paper. How could I escape this day in day out reality?
I really do believe to this day the Lord has orchestrated the events in my life for my good and for His glory. Even the painful ones.
I knew practically from birth that decisions have consequences. My parents did a good job of teaching me that lesson. And throughout the course of my 13 year wilderness through pornography, I could see the way in which my decisions were destroying my life. I believe it all culminated when my wife (then my fiancée) took off her engagement ring, slid it across the table, and told me she couldn’t marry me.
Ultimately, I believe the Lord used this event to offer me a choice: What path would I take in life? Now that my choices had led me to this place, what would the rest of the story look like? After years of making unhealthy, harmful decisions, I was again presented with another choice.
I decided that I was going to do whatever it took to become free.
Sadly, at that time, the Church was ill equipped to be able to walk with someone dealing with a sexual addiction. Thankfully, it’s a different story today. But there really was no true understanding of how addiction works and how to help those with some kind of compulsive behavior. I’m grateful that I was able to sit with a CSAT (certified sexual addiction therapist) for a season and become apart of a local support group, which was incredibly helpful. There was so much help I received. Unfortunately, virtually all of it was found outside of the Church. I’m thankful for the Christian counseling ministry that walked with me through the earliest stages of my recovery journey.
One final thought: My addiction to pornography and my ensuing recovery (which continues today) actually taught me more about myself than I could ever realize. I never viewed God as the almighty Bob Newhart yelling, “Just stop it!” Quite the opposite. As I learned about the pain that had gone unresolved in my life and the emotions I had long tried to avoid, I felt His presence in ways I never had before! When I learned WHY I was so dependent on porn, it made all the difference in my healing. I was able to understand what my triggers were and how to respond in healthy ways and not harmful ones.
If you haven’t seen, therapist and author Steven Luff has released an incredible new book called “Faith and Sex”. Not only does Luff share practical steps on how to walk in recovery from sexually compulsive behavior, but he also maps out a beautiful path on how you and I can relate to God in the midst of our struggles. You can purchase it here on Amazon.