This piece is from the Young Writer’s Cohort. They were asked to write about a season of suffering or a really difficult trial and share what they learned through it.
Unlike the piece I last wrote, I am a little nervous about my parents reading this one.
I wrestled with God and asked him many times, Do you really want me to write about this? But I could not shake the prompting of the Holy Spirit to be vulnerable and real about this part of my life that has been marked with great suffering. My hope is that I will echo Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 as I write: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”
Oftentimes, suffering is thought of as a result of a sin that is done to us. But rarely do we talk about suffering as a result of a sin that we commit and choose to cling close to. Perhaps, it’s because the carnage sin leaves behind is disguised by the momentary pleasure and control that it brings. Or because it is hard to admit as Christians, that sin continues to cling so closely in our lives.
Many people, including me, struggle with sexual sin (please note the present tense). Sexual sin promised much and left a devastating wreckage in my life. And I want to talk about it. Why? Because if this is a common suffering as I know it to be, then I want to make it a common confession as well.
So let’s start.
The Story
I was first introduced to pornography, online images, and masturbation in middle school. Can I be honest here for a second? It was awesome. I had access to the pleasure of a lifetime in my own hands and the control to bring that pleasure whenever I wanted.
I did notice one thing, however. I started hiding. I would make sure that no one knew about what I was doing. My parents didn’t know, nor my brothers, or even my friends. I didn’t know this at the time, but I was feeling this thing called ‘shame’. Although I felt like I had the world in my hands, I could no longer look another person in the eyes in the same way.
I would even go to church and do all of the right things, but internally I could not look at God without curling up into a little spiritual ball and hiding my face.
But how great! Turns out, whenever I feel like this, I can just go back to the pleasure of sexual sin and all of the world will be right-side up again.
Then the same wave of shame that hit the day before consumes me again. But how great! Turns out whenever I feel like th….. Then the same wave of shame that hit the day before consumes me again.
I lived this endless cycle, day in and day out.
My dependency on the sin kept growing, but the hunger or thirst never satisfied.
But with that, I had to go deeper and deeper into hiding, as well. God, I know you see me, but just please pretend that you don’t for a second. Please turn your face away from me.
Somedays I would puff my chest out and try to make up for my shame with pride. On other days, I would hide and stay quiet, slowly rotting on the inside.
Maybe this is your story too.
But then, something really big happened.
The Solution… well, kind of
Meeting Jesus is not the end of addiction, but the beginning of change.
In the last semester of high school, I went to a retreat with my fellow youth group leaders. It was there that I, the kid who grew up in church since the age of seven and had gone to retreats and mission trips every year, met Jesus for the first time in my life.
Jesus called me by name and said “Michael, I KNOW you, and I love you, and I forgive you.” I didn’t hear an audible voice, but the resounding heaviness of the Holy Spirit was unmistakably personal and true.
I confessed my sins to Jesus and received his forgiveness. I no longer had to hide from God and didn’t have to ask him to turn his gaze away from me.
That’s right. I never, ever struggled again with sexual sin. Just pray that Jesus meets you personally and you should be good to go. Thanks for reading!…
That is, to my surprise, not what happened at all.
The temptation to indulge in sexual sin still looms large and I still give in from time to time. Now a new kind of shame comes over me. How could I, a redeemed child of God who claims a personal relationship with Jesus, turn back to my old ways? Do you ever ask the same question?
I absolutely believe in instantaneous healing, the kind we see when Jesus meets blind and lame people and commands them to see and walk. But I also know now that the battle for our soul doesn’t end until we die. Jesus himself promises us that we will have trouble in this world (John 16:33). The enemy who hates us will lie to us, and our weak flesh will want to give in. And in many of our cases, our weak flesh will give in.
But this is what I have seen in my life: In Pastor Ben Stuart’s words, Jesus has freed us for the fight, not from the fight.
Friends, addiction and its suffering doesn’t end when Jesus comes into our lives. But they surely start to end. 2 Corinthians 3:18 mentions that we are being transformed into Jesus’s image from one degree of glory to another.
We must do the hard work of training ourselves in godliness as mentioned in 1 Timothy 4:7-8. We might give into the flesh and start the shame cycle all over again. But, turning to Jesus, let’s stay the course and keep fighting.
Do It Together and Talk
Even after I understood that this was going to be a fight, I thought I could fight on my own.
These thoughts filled my head: No one will understand, Just get over it on your own, How embarrassing is it to talk about that?, and You’re going to ruin your reputation.
But the fight became miserable. I was losing badly and wanted to give up.
The Bible is very clear: you don’t deal with sin by yourself. James 5:16 tells us to confess our sins, not only to God but also to brothers and sisters within the church.
Yet the world tells us to keep our mouths shut. It tempts us to stay on the surface level and not address the deep longings, pains, and sufferings that our souls fight through on a daily basis. We must go against the current of this world as described in Romans 12:2 and begin to confess.
I started seeing progress in this battle when I got into an accountability group with men who were all desperate to flee the suffering and torment this sin has brought in our lives.
Every week we would come together and confess our sins. Sometimes we would feel more sorrow for our sins, while other times we would confess feeling apathy or pleasure regarding it.
That just sums up our faithfulness. We are fickle people with fickle tendencies.
But when we come and share honestly about where we are to fellow brothers or sisters, we find encouragement, healing, gentle rebuke, and even examples to follow. It reminds us that we are not lost but are still on the road to where we first wanted to go.
Together, we are also empowered to take radical measures against our sins. In Matthew 18:9, Jesus says to gouge your eyes if it causes you to sin. If only one man gouges out his eye, he is a strange man. But if two people gouge out their eyes together, that is a culture. Radicality against sin is infinitely easier when done together.
This is a common struggle. It is statistically likely that the person sitting to your left and right struggles with sexual sin. Find the people you want to fight with and start fighting together.
The Invitation
I want to end by sharing this dream that I had a few years back while I was preparing to share my testimony to a group of youth students at the same leaders’ retreat that I first met Jesus.
I saw myself as a young boy running around in the playground in front of my grandfather’s house on a rainy day. My shoes, which were old no-brand sneakers, got very muddy.
I looked all around for something to clean off my shoes. A water hose, or a brush, but to no avail. All I could do was try to scrape off my mess on the concrete sidewalk, which helped little. I was anxious and scared about how my grandfather would react to me bringing back my dirty shoes into the house.
I reluctantly walked into the house but was met with a pleasant surprise. My grandfather was waiting for me with a brand new pair of shoes: the Sean Wotherspoon Air Max 1/97’s (for non-sneaker enthusiasts, these are just my personal holy grail pair of shoes). He said to me “Son, hurry inside, put on these new shoes that I bought for you.” He cleaned my legs with a towel, took off my old shoes, and helped me put on my new ones.
I was startled, confused, but so happy. I ran back outside with my new shoes, despite the still rainy conditions, and showed them off to all my friends.
We’ve gotten ourselves in a mess with sexual sin, haven’t we? We’ve had our fair share of running around in the mud and tainting ourselves with a mess that we don’t know how to clean up.
Here is the invitation from the father: RUN BACK HOME.
You’ve tried and tried and disappointed yourself, and maybe your only option is to reluctantly and anxiously make the journey back home. But maybe you’d be surprised to know that the father is not eager to condemn you for the life that you’ve lived nor angry at the mess that you’ve brought into his house.
Rather, you’ll find that he is a gentle and lowly kind of God who desires you to find rest in him. As you find that rest in him, he has a brand new life prepared for you, a completely paid-for life that’s better than anything you have ever experienced.
We might go off in our old shoes again, maybe it’s well-molded to our feet and comfortable for the time being. But I have experienced time and time again, his invitation is an unwavering pursuit after every child that he so loves.
To all who suffer with sexual sin – let’s run back. We’ve got a battle to fight, and the fight is better at home.
Photo Credit: Kelly Sikkema