I enjoy nature. Exploring the forgotten areas of a forest draws from me a spirit of adventure that I have retained from my childhood. I could be a pirate searching for treasure or an elf tracking a foe that dares trespass my realm. That said, I tend to wander past the paved preset path. Not too long ago (I believe I was 20 years old), I did this near a river. Music was playing in my ears and my phone was neatly tucked in my shirt pocket. Leaving the solid concrete, I pressed beyond the trees. I could make out the river, about 10 to 15 feet below. Where I stood was a bit of a precipice, almost a cliff, but with a more shallow degree of incline. The dirt beneath my feet seemed somewhat muddy, but I wanted a closer look at the river that I spied through the branches before me.
I took one step.
My foot made contact with the mud, which was a lot muddier than I had thought. Within three seconds, I found myself at the edge of the water, one arm desperately clinging to a small tree. I no longer had my phone. It was lost forever to a watery grave, but I remained dry, albeit dirty. After I had calmed from the initial shock of having my feet thrown out from under me, frustration began to set in.
Every step I tried to take was useless.
The mud was so slippery that the only thing keeping me above the unknown depth of water below was a single trunk no thicker than my forearm. Again, again and again, I tried to gain footing to no avail. Without my phone, I could call no one to my aid. Having fallen off the main trail, no one would hear my shouts. After almost tearful prayers of, “Lord, please save me somehow,” a strength came into my arms. I lifted myself up to a point where I could place my legs on the tree that I had been clinging to. Using that as a springboard, I crawled with my belly to the mud from branch to branch until I reached dry dirt again.
I know that story was long, but it is important.
When I was 12 years old, I spied a river through some branches, and I left the solid concrete to take just one step.
On an internet forum, a man posted a picture on a discussion board that was not meant to be there. It was removed, but not until after it had been seared into my brain.
It was the first pornographic image that I had ever seen.
I wanted to see it again, or something similar at least, so I let my foot fall on the mud. The following weeks found me quickly at the bottom of the cliff, struggling to hold myself up. My innocence was gone. I know I could never regain it. There was no way to call out for help.
I couldn’t face the fear, shame, embarrassment and loss of trust that would bombard me if I did.
In no way are my parents to blame. They have loved me and still love me as only parents can. It was my own fear, my own insecurities and my own shame that kept me dangling above the depths. I could have let go, fallen in and seen where the river might have taken me. I knew how to swim.
I clung to Jesus instead, knowing that if I were to let go, Lord only knows where I would end up.
It was certainly frustrating as the weeks turned into years. Each step I tried to take was utterly useless. Porn consumed me. It was my waking thought and my daily hobby. I hated myself. I despised who I was in secret. Everyone saw me as all these great things, but if only they had known. “If only they knew,” I told myself. “If only they knew how horrible of a Christian I am. If only they knew how disgusting I am. If only they knew how worthless of a person I am.” These thoughts ate away at my self-esteem, year after year.
Still, I held on to Jesus.
I would pray and plead with God to take away the desires that had planted themselves so deeply into my mind. I would beg God to take away the lust that consumed my mind. I cried out again and again that this was not the person that I wanted to be.
He heard my prayers.
Through sermons, through pastors who prayed for me and through the comforting whispers of the Holy Spirit, God told me that I was free. He told me that by His strength and by the blood of Jesus, my sin was overcome, forgiven and washed away. He told me that I was a new creation, and that I was set free and loved by Him no matter what I had done. From this springboard, I used God’s Word and His Spirit over several years to crawl from the edge of the cliff that I had been at the bottom of for so many years prior.
After my incident, I still love to explore the woods. A sense of adventure is still a part of who I am, who I was made to be. When I do leave the concrete trail to forge my own, I always check my footing. I avoid going near rivers after rainy days. I may step a foot or two in mud still on occasion, but never before first wrapping both arms around the nearest tree.
I know that if I don’t take active steps to avoid the situation, in seconds I could find myself once again at the edge of the river, where there may or may not be a tree that time to catch my fall.
You might be hanging over the river.
You might feel worthless. You might be scared, alone, frightened, ashamed and disgusted at your own mind, but that is not who God created you to be. You were not designed to walk in the twisted perversion that is lust, but in the love that God has for you and all mankind.
It is okay to appreciate beauty and desire sexual intimacy and expression.
However, true love is an act of selfless giving. Quite frankly, pornography is and can only be about me. If lust has consumed your mind, your heart or your thoughts, no 12-step program or behavioral conditioning can change that. The Lord, Jesus Christ, can restore your soul to a healthy relationship with the one who can change that.
You weren’t created to be worthless, disgusting or consumed by selfish lust.
The best part is, if you have believed in Jesus and asked His forgiveness, then you are forgiven. You are a new creation. You are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
You might be crawling up the muddy hill.
You’re going to get dirty. Yes, you might slip here and there, but do not ever give up.
The Holy Spirit will lend you His strength if you ask. Bring what is done in the darkness out into the light. In the darkness, sin, filth and death fester and consume but expose sin for what it is, and watch as the light burns it up until nothing is left but a scorch mark or two.
Darkness will stop at nothing to keep you from reaching the top of the hill.
If the enemy can keep you dangling at the bottom, then you’ll never reach the destination that God has for your life further down the trail. Guilt will remind you, consequences will chase you, and the voice of the enemy will try to pull you back down to believing that you still are who you thought you once were. There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.
The old has passed away, you are a new creation.
If you made it back up, then head straight down the path God has set before you.
Don’t turn aside. Don’t even walk on the same side of the road anymore. Take active steps to avoid the possibility of relapse. Be accountable to someone. Download apps that monitor (not block) your internet usage. Fill your time with something else: read, draw, worship, build, take a walk or exercise.
Don’t stay up late on your phone or tablet.
Don’t watch overtly risqué movies. Don’t listen to music that promotes behavior that you don’t agree with. You are a new creation, whether you act like it or not, but there is a peace and a blessing that comes from walking under the covering of the Spirit of God.
When you focus on what you can’t do, you’ll want to do it even more.
Express yourself instead in every other way that God has given you that you can do, and over time, you’ll forget you even could do what you don’t do anymore.
I have been set free.
I have been given a new mind. Rather, the mind I was designed and born with has been washed and set free from the filth that I poured into it. For years, the Lord has been renewing my mind through His Word, through His Spirit and through every willing voice He can find to speak into my life.
There is hope. There is always at least one branch to cling to: Jesus Christ. He set me free.
He can set you free too.
