porn plague

If you’ve read Waging War, you’ll know our marriage has battled pornography.  Even from the beginning, I never felt at fault for my husband’s decision to view porn.  It was his choice.

However, the very first porn revelation led me to pursue the ‘what’s’ of porn.

What makes porn fantasy so alluring?

Youthful taut bodies, unlimited sexual availability, unlimited sexual variety, and unending sexual enthusiasm.

My role as wife could either insulate him from or expose him to the temptation.  I wanted to insulate him.

I started working on my response to the ‘what’s’ of porn within the framework of reality because this real woman doesn’t have unending anything.

Working on the “what’s.”

I began to regularly exercise to at least be toned (taut youth is history).

We discussed and came to an agreement on sexual frequency (availability/variety).

I searched ways to improve my libido (enthusiasm).

(Continuing to do these things, I’ve found there are just as many benefits for my health as for his insulation.)

He tried harder to avoid temptation with the help of porn filtering software.  He plunged into God’s word and learning new habits.

We came to see porn as our marriage’s S.O.S. because addressing porn pointed us to several other holes sinking our ship.  I was responsible for just as many holes as he was.

God led us to resources to patch our leaks.  Patched and with a new management of porn we sailed into a much brighter day.

Until, we found porn lurking again and drug it by the collar back into the light.

Porn’s first discovery left me deflated, punctured by betrayal.  Finding other leaks in our marriage due to my flaws were humbling.

Porn’s second discovery left me raw, but mostly confused.

Are there more ‘what’s’ I could improve?

No, there aren’t more what’s.  Porn’s second visit revealed the core issues that Satan hopes you’ll never uncover.  pornography’s allure isn’t about the wife (or the ‘what’s.’)  It’s about the why’s.

Our marriage leaped toward healing when we quit looking at the “what’s” of porn and started focusing on the “why’s.”

Why is porn addicting?

In an uncertain, high stress life, porn is predictable and soothing.

Porn is a comfortable old friend that cures isolation for lonely souls.

Porn carries you away from anxiety.

Porn is an escape from inadequacy and shame.

If anyone knew how out of control he feels, or how inadequate he feels, or how fearful and dirty he feels, he’d be ridiculed for his weakness.  He wonders how God could even love him.  He’s so thoroughly useless and disgusting.

The true battle of pornography is spiritual and rests in the “why’s.”  The why’s are a shame factory.

Porn addiction is often times just the bobber floating on the surface.  There’s a private shame anchored deeper.  Molested, seduced, or maybe even the pursuer, his core is marked.

There’s a difference between guilt and shame.  Guilt is what you do, your actions.  Shame melds into who you are, an ache of being wrong/bad at your very core. Shame leads to despair and hopelessness.

Shame is Satan’s trap.  Shame casts a shadow on our relationship with God, with others and with ourselves.  Even after we confess and turn from our temptation shame often continues to imprison us in a dark place.

Satan would have us forget the gospel’s full meaning.

Jesus didn’t only come to take the blame for our guilt but also to recreate our cores.  Jesus doesn’t just reset who we are to a time before shame.  According to 2 Corinthians 5:17, our cores are brand new, renewed daily, completely unashamed.

I think we can learn even more about the gospel’s redemption of sexual shame by looking at Jesus’ interaction with sexual sinners.

He revealed his divinity to a Samaritan outcast who had 5 husbands and was currently living with a man who wasn’t her husband.  (John 4:1-26)

He accepted anointing from a sinning woman (traditionally thought to be a prostitute) who loved him much.  (Luke 7:36-50)

He saved an adulterous woman from being stoned by challenging the throng with a profound statement, ‘He who is without sin, may cast the first stone.’ (John 8:1-11)

In each of these instances, he forgave the sexual sin and told them to sin no more.  That was it.  He didn’t hang a big “A” for adultery sign on them, shave their heads, and post it on facebook.  He didn’t heap shame and recrimination on them.  Jesus doesn’t use shame because he knows all about it.

“Keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne,” Hebrews 12:2.

John Michael Cusick says in Surfing for God, “Following Jesus is not about not sinning; it’s about releasing his life from within.  Like turning on the faucet.  The goal is not to turn off the faucet of lust (by self-control and behavior modification), but to turn on the faucet of trust to overcome the lust.  Trusting that God has restored my heart and that my heart is good…….The pipes in my soul were getting unclogged, and something was starting to flow that I didn’t know was there.  I began experiencing what Jesus described as “a spring of water welling up to eternal life,” (John 4:14).

How to find an unashamed reality

Working on the ‘what’s’ of porn are an important part of the healing journey.  It’s in the ‘what’s’ where love is a verb and insulation from temptation is created.

Working on the ‘why’s of porn is a more intimate journey.  It’s where the spiritual consequences of sexual choices and sexual victimization are reconciled with Christ.

It’s where you learn that the Holy Spirit makes you whole and holy (Romans 15:16).  You were made right with God through the name of Jesus and the Spirit of God. (1 Cor. 6:11)

God gave you the keys to your prison cell of shame when you became a follower of Christ.  It’s up to you to give yourself permission to unlock the door and walk away from shame.

When you leave shame behind, you are trusting Jesus, listening and believing that you are not an outcast, but have been given the flowing river of life.

When you leave shame behind, you are leaving fear behind and anointing Jesus with your trust.

When you leave shame behind, you are loving yourself and fulfilling a command.

Porn plagued us until we understood long term protection against temptation comes from asking, “How are we going to leave shame behind and live out our trust in Jesus?”

How does this look in everyday life?  I’ll be discussing that very soon.

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