I remember my first run-in with pornography as if it were yesterday.
I was so curious. I just wanted to know what the other guys at the lunch table were talking about. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to make the jokes. I wanted to be in on the conversation, not sitting there trying not to embarrass myself. I knew that I shouldn’t. I knew that it was wrong. I knew that if I got caught it would be bad news.
I was a really good kid. I was also a really curious kid. I wanted to know. I had to know. I had heard that there was videos of people having sex on the internet, and I knew it couldn’t be that hard to find. Everyone else seemed to have found it. So one night, curiosity killed the cat. Finally having a device of my own to search the depths of the internet, it was a no-brainer.
I should have known better.
As I searched the internet, I became physically ill. Ill almost to the point of vomiting. I was shaking. I was sweating. In that moment, I felt consumed. Consumed with the lust that had slowly but surely taken me to the point of searching to find the perverted version of one of God’s greatest creations. And then, I found it. I found it and so much more that I never should have found.
For a few brief moments, I thought that I had accomplished what I had come for.
Then, it hit me.
I became overcome by guilt and shame. The guilt and shame that I thought no one could ever understand. In that moment, I knew Satan to be a liar. I was never going to do that again.
A couple weeks later, I went looking for it again. Then again. Then again. But it was ok, I could quit any time. Porn was just a habit that I had. One that I would be easily able to quit when I went to college. When I got a girlfriend. When I became a minister.
Soon enough, those milestones came and past, but porn didn’t go anywhere. Somehow, though I know it is coming, I still have bought into Satan’s lies time and time again.
Because of porn, I now know:
We are constantly drawn to return to that which Christ has called us out of.
Every morning when we wake up, Jesus is offering more, and Satan is offering us less.
The LORD has all the power to redeem and refine us.
“Father, I need you. Keep my eyes ever on You.”
Written from the midst of the struggle.
themidstofthestruggle 