Well I’m going to move on from the Peter Cook story. I think we’ve pretty much covered that. There were some great comments and insights. Thanks to “Survivor” for sharing your story!
Like many young couples my wife and I lived in a small apartment for the first several years of our marriage. But it was that first year that became quite an ordeal because we decided that we needed a pet (since we weren’t ready to start a family). Sure enough we picked up a little black lab mix for free from a guy giving puppies away at a Wal-Mart parking lot. We brought the little guy home and introduced him to his new place.
We quickly found out that labs love to chew things. In this case this puppy chewed anything in sight! The chewing got worse especially since my wife and I were both gone all day and we learned that pets suffer from SEPERATION ANXIETY. Since the little guy was lonely we got the great idea that he needed a friend so we went out and bought another lab puppy thinking that would help! Things quickly went from bad to worse. We would come home to our little apartment and find shoes, carpet, sofa cushions, and even pieces of mini blinds all over the place. They even chewed the door jams and the kitchen linoleum!
Apparently both pets suffered from separation anxiety!
I share that story with you because I realized recently that we “CHEW” on porn because of our own separation anxiety! In other words the separation from our heavenly father has left us with anxiousness that we attempt to cure by chewing on anything in site. Porn is the perfect “chew toy” for broken humanity because it is always available to gnaw on and at least for a few brief moments it satisfies. I’m convinced that all the “chewing” reveals a deep longing for connection, intimacy, and community. Until we can learn to turn away from (through the Holy Spirit) our decadent diversions things far more important than shoes, sofas, and linoleum floors are going to be destroyed – mainly marriages, families, friendships, and ministries.
Scripture points out that Jesus came to “reconcile” or bring us back into right relationship with the father. That is an ongoing work that won’t be fully completed until we are in the kingdom but along the way we’ll often settle for the ever-present chew toy of porn. Read Romans 5:9-11, 2 Corinthians 5:17-19, Col.1:21-23