I get a call from a friend of mine that he is going to be in town over night and was wondering if he could swing in and see us. The thing is he is going to be here in about an hour and our house was a mess! After telling him that it was no problem and that we’d love to see him, I started to panic.
With the house looking like a tornado had gone through, I started to pick things up and try to get the house clean & spotless. Realizing that I did not have long there was no way to clean it all up. So being the quick thinker I am (people who know me can stop laughing now) I started to grab things and chuck them into one of our children’s rooms. Clothing, school backpacks, books, work, toys, and so much more so that my friend would not see it. This gave me time to dust things down and clean what was open and visible. When he walks in there is no way that I intended on letting him into that room.
I know that I am not the only one who has done this; hide things in a room or closet so that people would not see our mess when someone comes to visit. We do it so that people think that we have it all together, we are clean, organized, and have everything under control.
We do this exact same thing with God hoping that somehow He will not notice our habits with porn and the junk in our lives that is not perfect. Sometimes we can be so stupid and ignorant like children when we think that our Father does not know what is going on. He is the one that knows the number of hairs on our head but, yet we try to hide our junk in a room with the intention of not letting Him know about it.
If you want to defeat this sin and cut it at the knees you have to allow God to know about it. You need to be humbled and give him the keys to your house and allow Him to open every door and see what is inside. Let Him see the dirt, filth, grim, and the brokenness that resides in you. We all have it to some extend and if we allow God to see this and know about it He will help and provide you with the tools to clean up this mess.
For many years of my addiction I would tell myself that today is the day I quit, now is when it stops, and I will never turn to porn again. All of that to turn right back around and return to the very thing I wanted to get away from. Once I allowed God into this with me things changed and the pieces started to slowly fall together.
I allowed for him to have access to everything in my life and let Him be a part of it like He wanted so badly.
The next part was the toughest of all of them. I had allowed God in to see everything but, now I had to let other people in to it as well. I was so scared of what they would say about the stuff that I had been storing up in my hidden rooms. What would I do or what would they do when they knew the truth about my addiction to porn? I did not want to do it but, this is what God wanted and what I needed to do.
It was not easy doing this but, in the 20 some years that I had been addicted I felt freedom. Someone else knew and I knew that I was not in this alone anymore. Satan no longer was able to use his tools of guilt or shame any longer.
This does not just apply to the person with the addiction. If you are a couple who are dealing with this sin together you need to open up to others as well and allow them to walk beside you and help. The support and love of people willing to step in and help clean this up is amazing and needed. This is much too heavy of a burden for you to carry by yourself.
It is our prayer for you that if you are throwing things into rooms and locking the door that you open them up once and for all and let God into your life completely and allow others as well to come in and help you. God is an amazing God and he loves us so much. There is nothing that you can do or have done that would take his love away from you. He is waiting for you to call Him in. Will you? Will you allow Him in?
As for my friend that came to visit, he ended up staying with us that night. Guess where he slept? That’s right in the room that I had thrown all of the stuff in. He saw it and looked at us and said “looks like you have been cleaning”! He knew us; he knew that we were not perfect. He also understands that we are busy, but we were not too busy to have him stop by so we could talk and fellowship with each other. God too understands that we are busy, but he might just stop by some night and would you be willing to open the door?
Brian & Darcy