Questions

Hi everyone, my name is Jason and I am 23 years old. I would like to talk about (confess) to you all about my battle with porn and the losing desire of staying pure for Christ. Though I know you guys are real people, I can properly share this easier with you then with the men at my church.

I am a born again Christian for about 3 1/2 years now. Before I got saved I was a goth who really was close to satanism as you could get without being one. My family and most of the people in my life are non Christian and those who and are of my age live quiet a fair distance.

Now this is where it gets hard for me…… I remember the days when porn and masturbation was the norm, a thing that teenagers just do. It would of been a shocking thing to be caught in the act but there was no hard hitting convition when I was and after doing it. I am a virgin and hold that as special for it feel I dodge something there.

Now though I am a proud to be Christian man, who has serious illness within me. A consist battle of which I win over for a couple of days at a time but then I fall back into sin and go to the porn. I HATE it so much but I seem to do it anyway. WHY?? why do I do this thing I hate so much, why do I degrade these women to mere objects to fulfill my lustfull desires? I do not know.

Everytime I give in to the temptation, I find it somewhat plessurable while in the act but thats sin for you, if it didnt have bait then we wouldnt bite would we. As soon as its over anger and hatered falls on me. I find it near impossible to face God knowing He just witness me doing it.

I pray, I read His word daily and I know it is wrong for me to do so I ask why do I do it? I am finding that it is a losing battle though I have Christ within :/

Please pray for me 🙂 I really need it.

Waffle House & Ditches…

Around lunch today I was sitting in my car, in the rain, in the parking lot of a Waffle House with a box of Bojangles Chicken on my lap and a Sony Blu-Ray Player in the back seat.

And it struck me that had I not met Jesus, I never would have been there.

Because my life has been more or less shaped by the story of Jesus and the church, it’s sometimes hard for me to give a testimony about how much different my life is now that I know Jesus.

I had a youth leader in high school who had an incredible testimony of waking up in a drainage ditch in the rain after a night strung out on drugs. And God spoke to him and told him to turn his life around. He did. And it was night and day different. I thought that was cool.

I never woke up in a drainage ditch.

I’ve been stumbling around after Christ since I can remember. I’ve got the “traditional” story of officially asking Jesus into my heart when I was around six in Vacation Bible School. And that was an important day…but the truth is, I can’t remember a time when Jesus wasn’t “in my heart.”

God’s grace has tended to work in my life ahead of the “ditch” experiences.

That doesn’t mean it’s always been roses. There have been times in my life when I’ve hurt that relationship and times when I’ve fostered it…but by God’s grace it’s always been in the context of the relationship. So sometimes it’s hard to imagine how my life is different with Jesus because it’s most all I’ve ever known.

But today I was reminded just how different my life is…because of him.

And I was really thankful.

See, I was sitting in that Waffle House parking lot selling a blu-ray player that I just bought off of ebay a week ago. It was a great blu-ray player. And I got it for a steal.

But it connected to the internet, streamed video…and didn’t have any parental locks or ability to add accountability software. And if you’re a guy…you probably know that’s a bad combination.

For a lot of people in our culture, this would be the perfect player…for multiple reasons. But for a guy who’s trying to protect the purity of the mind that God is transforming in me…and remain faithful to my wife in the things I let into my mind…and because I know areas where I’ve struggled in the past… this was a problem.

If it wasn’t for Jesus, there’s no way I sell that player. And if it wasn’t for him I probably struggle with using it to view stuff I shouldn’t watch. And it begins to tear away at my soul. And it fragments me into a public person and a person with secrets I don’t want to share. And God’s gift of sexuality that is given for marriage gets distorted in my mind. And after awhile, the intimacy I experience with my wife suffers on every level. And then it drives a wedge between us. And then maybe we split up because of all the damage that’s been caused by a little piece of plastic connected to a lethal internet full of content that can

wreck

your

life.

How many times have we seen that story written?

I did everything I could to figure out a way to add parental locks, accountability controls, I even called customer service (which is embarassing). But in the end, there wasn’t a way to ensure that I couldn’t use it to stray off path…or that if I did, someone would know about it.

So, by God’s grace, and a healthy sense of fear of what I might become otherwise, I sold it a week after I bought it.*

So, yeah, life is different because of Jesus. I wouldn’t have sold the blu-ray player without him in my life…and probably would have landed in the drainage ditch instead.

And as stupid and simple as that is, I think that’s one of the ways that God’s grace works in the life of a Christian.

I just thought that I’d write that down…because sometimes our experience of God’s saving grace happens when we respond in faith in the seemingly little things, miles before the ditch.

And sometimes it even happens in the parking lot of a Waffle House.

*And I bought another blu-ray player off ebay that doesn’t connect to the internet (and for years we either have accountability software installed on everything…or it’s password protected – by my wife – at my request).

I am 5 days clean and want to stay going forward. Are there any free workbooks or websites to go through a recovery program?