I must admit that this blog has fallen into a bit of neglect.  The reason for that is two-fold.  1) It has been a busy time of year what with school finals, job searching, moving home, and general travels and 2) there really hasn’t been all that much to report.

After being clean for the longest time yet I only had one relapse to speak of.  As terrible and hurtful as that relapse was, though, it doesn’t quite feel like the set back it used to.  I’ll tell you why.

This relapse happened at a time where I was generally very tired and my resistance to the temptation was lowered.  In essence, I let my guard down. That is no excuse, though, for what I did and I still greatly regret my decision.  However, when I did fall I was reminded of something.  I was reminded that this pornography that used to have such a deadly choke hold on me is now something that I find utterly repulsive and just not fun.  I realized that, while I am still on the path of recovery, porn’s hold has been weakened.  The false exotic illusions and romantizations of porn are being striped away from my mind and I am seeing more and more clearly the ugliness of pornography as it really is.

I may still be on the path to recovery but I know for sure that great progress is being made.  I would just ask that all of you would continue praying for me.

It is now just after Easter weekend. This has been the time when Christians gather in community and celebrate the great sacrifice Christ made. We remember when He died and rose once again so that all of humanity may be redeemed from their own sin and earned wrath.

It is also on this weekend that the temptation towards my own old sin has returned. I knew it would come, though, and I am ready to resist and flee from it. God has not forsaken be nor will He ever. Though I am hard and stubborn He is forming me, ever so slowly and skillfully, into what He has planned for me to be.

He is truly worthy of praise.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

- "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" by Robert Robinson

The uber popular photo sharing site flickr.com now has a SafeSearch option for its members and anyone visiting the site.  It is on by default if you are not logged in or if you have not changed it.  Now I love flickr even more.

I’m sorry I haven’t updated in a while. I’ve been a bit under the weather lately (I still have no idea where that phrase came from) and that coupled with the typical school business has left me with little motivation to write. But now I’m feeling the urge to update so here we go.

I’ve been going pretty strong so far on keeping clean. I really believe, now, that that is because of one reason primarily. That reason is that I made a promise. I made the promise to my girlfriend that I would not intentionally look at porn again (I say intentionally because there is away the chance that I may be in the wrong place at the wrong time and get exposed to something vulgar and I wouldn’t want my promise broken by something I cannot control). Now anyone who knows me well knows that a promise is something I rarely if ever make. That is because it is something so utterly serious for me that if there is much of any chance that I cannot keep my word I won’t make the promise in the first place.

So the commitment to kick this addiction is now very serious because if I fail to keep my promise my word is no longer worthwhile and trust in me may be shattered. Thus I am committed to my promise. Please pray, though, that I will have the strength to persist. As always, I will need God’s help with this.

It is late at night now and I am at home nearing the end of my spring break.  It has been a decently eventful break but even amongst all of the catching up with loved ones I still managed to learn a couple things about this addiction of mine.

One small lesson that I learned (the hard way) is that I did not far enough extend the preventative rule that I had established earlier.  I made the rule that I would not use the computers at school which provided me with no protection or accountability.  Unfortunately, I did not extend that decree to parents home computer.  The temptation proved too great.

Thus I am now extending that rule to include any unprotected computer unless there is someone nearby to keep my on my toes.

The other thing that I learned this week is that my struggles with sexual sin are not only limited to what I do.  Over this spring break I was granted the privilege to see much of my lovely girlfriend (something that has become a rare treat with the distance between home and school).  I had a wonderful time with her but I must admit something.   I struggle with maintaining the line between what is and is not an appropriate way to touch her and I know that I have crossed that line more than once.

We are not yet married so this is a big deal.  Honoring her and maintaining her purity is a very important matter and a goal I want to achieve.   Thus I have asked her to keep me more accountable in those matters and even be hard on me about it if necessary.  I know I will need help with that and I am so thankful for her grace and willingness to stand by me and support me.  I truly do love her.

It is amazing what you can learn when not even at school.  I should take breaks more often.

Lord, I have sinned. I have offended your honor and I have shown myself truly unworthy of your love. Father, I am guilty of committing lust and adultery in my heart. I have done evil and I know that it pains You. And, frankly Father, knowing this makes me feel like a wrenched human being.
Father, I desperately pray that you would be merciful to me. I know that I am a sinful man deserving of no less than Hell. Please Father forgive me. Pour upon me your ever sufficient grace and make me whole again. Please forgive my sin and make me pure once again in Your sight.
Help me also to truly repent of this failing so that I will not again pain you like I have done.
Thank you so much Father. Praise and honor and glory be unto you.
I pray this in Jesus holy name.
Amen

Well, it has been round abouts two weeks that I have been clean and all I can say is so far so good.  I can’t say that the temptation has left just yet but it seems the longer I go the weaker it gets.  Indeed, God has been gracious to me.

I am still not letting my guard down, though, because I know that the moment I do that old temptation may strike again full force.  For right now, though, it is going well and maybe, just maybe, it will stick this time.

I truly believe that while I was in the midst of my sin it caused for me a great barrier to intimacy with God.  I think that is a lot of the reason why I felt so dry and empty for so long.  Now, though, the wounds of sin are beginning to heal and with that I am once again beginning to feel the presence of God.

I don’t believe that God ever left me, even in the midst of my sin.  No, He is the One who is perfectly faithful.  Instead it was simply my sin that was causing me to because numb and non responsive to His voice.  Now I feel like His child and His servant again.  I feel peace again.

The temptation towards sin has not totally fled from me yet but God has been gracious enough to cause it to be weakened the past few days.  I am not naive enough to think that it will remain this easy forever but I do believe that God will not allow me to face any temptation that He Himself will not give me the grace to overcome.

Last night I spent quite a while in the shower thinking (that is where I typically think best). I was thinking during that time of further steps I could take to prevent this addiction of mine from dragging me down anymore. I thought of two that I would like to implement right away:

1. Taking myself out of a tempting situations. I have mentioned before that I have an accountability software on my personal computer called x3watch. This works great for me because I know that if I look at anything even remotely suspicious on my computer someone close to me is going to know about it. The problem, though, is that this is not the only computer I have access to. I live in a college dorm and that means I readily have access to the public lab computers (even late at night) and these computers are, of course, unprotected. This is how I have stumbled before. So, in light of that I have decided to ban myself from using those computers. My own personal (and protected) computer should be able to serve most all my Internet needs so I really have no excuse for placing myself in a dangerous situation.

2. Making a self-imposed consequence. I have decided that, should I slip up again, I will donate $5 to the ministry of xxxchurch.com every time I view pornography. Five dollars may not seem like much but you have to remember that I am a college student on a very tight budget. Though I love supporting such a great ministry, something like this would run me broke very quickly should I continued falling. I have already taken the first step in this plan by making a donation for the last time I slipped up.

I am hoping and praying that these new preventative measures will be an additional and practical step in overcoming these temptations that so often beset me. Also, to all of you who read this page, feel free to ask me from time to time how my commitment is going. Am I am still keeping to it? Accountability is a huge part of every measure I take to overcome this.

So I was at a campus worship gathering tonight and, though it wasn’t really the theme of the night images from this video kept coming to mind.

The reason these images came into my mind was just as a reminder of what God does.  I know that my sin has caused my heart to become tarnished and scared.  I also know, though, that God can do a heart transplant of sorts.  He specializes in making new that which has become broken and dark.

I know that I have been forgiven and I know that each day he is making me new once again.  It is simply amazing that God’s grace extends even to cronic, pitiful sinners like me.