12/25/2022 0 Comments Dont sleep out of self hatred![]() ![]() I wanted to avail myself of the fullness of the means of salvation and grace that our Lord imbued in His Church.Īlong the way, I discovered, as a hidden treasure in a field, Pope St. So I dove into the depths of Catholicism: the lives of the saints, Eucharistic adoration, daily Mass, volunteering and service, frequent Confession, regular novenas, confraternities and sacramentals–the whole gamut. And somewhere I read that “the sacraments are not magic.”īut I also read that, unlike what I was taught in Protestantism, I could truly cooperate with God’s grace. When I became Catholic, I was hopeful that pornography would be eradicated from my life instantly by Mass and Confession, a sacramental one-two punch.Īlas, that didn’t happen. They led me to Catholicism, and a new chapter in my fight for purity. I was still a relatively new Christian, and I began to read about Catholicism, the Church Fathers, and listen to Scott Hahn talks. I realized that what took years to develop into a deeply rooted vice, would take years to uproot. The desire to do it felt so incredibly strong. Yet I still fell to the temptation to lust and look at pornography regularly. In this way and in others, I slowly grew in self-mastery. I woke up early in the morning to pray and go to Bible studies with my fellow Protestant roommates. That helped as well, especially since,as a Protestant, I did not have sacramental Confession. So we began to be accountability partners with each other. To my surprise, when speaking in confidence to one of my Baptist friends about my struggle, he confided in me that he, too, struggled with it. A little progress was made as the months passed. ![]() I had access to God via prayer, so I started praying for God’s grace to help me conquer porn compulsion. I wanted to be set free to love by the Son, and Jesus promised that He would help. So began the long, incredibly difficult odyssey in my own life to conquer this vice. I didn’t want to be a slave, but a free man. And in John 8:34, Jesus spoke clearly about what that meant: “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” Earlier in the same chapter, in the Beatitudes, Jesus said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” I couldn’t claim to be pure in heart while lusting after women. I wanted there to be a way that His words could be interpreted to mean something different from what they seemed to be saying, but I couldn’t convince myself out of what I knew He must mean. You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. I was a newly minted Christian and didn’t want to believe that looking at pornography was wrong. Jesus Pulled No PunchesĪ year or so later, God drew me out of atheism, and I became an Evangelical Protestant like my friends. I told them that “every man does this and anyone who denies it is a liar.” While blunt, and not completely true, my words weren’t too far off the mark, even among Christians. I laughed because the thought of any man being able to overcome the desire for lust and pornography seemed ludicrous to me. ![]() While still an atheist, I remember sitting in an apartment with three Evangelical Protestant friends of mine, and they told me that looking at pornography was a sin. I reached out to God for help, and over the course of many months He came into my life. Years passed, and I was in college, suffering from an anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and depression. I knew I couldn’t resist the desire to look and lust on a frequent basis, so her words confirmed for me that what I was doing wasn’t something wrong. I recall listening to a popular late night radio show during these years, where the female host–allegedly a psychologist with a Ph.D.–counseled callers that looking at pornography and masturbating were good, healthy things for a young man to do. Vice, Firmly Entrenchedīy the time I was in high school, the habit of lusting after women via pornography was firmly entrenched in my soul. It’s awkward, I know, to say it so candidly, but the only way to defeat pornography in our lives is to admit that we have a widespread problem with it. They confess to looking at pornography and masturbating. ![]()
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