I remember very well the first time I ever put my car in the ditch. I was 19 and I was driving to class one morning in junior college when I hit a patch of black ice going almost 60 mph on the highway. The next thing I knew the back end of my car came sliding around and I did a complete 360 degree spin in the middle of that two lane highway and then shot into the ditch. I will never forget that horrible feeling of spinning and knowing that no matter how I turned the wheel nothing was going to help. I had absolutely no control over where my car was going to end up, yet here I was in the driver’s seat, supposedly in control of the situation. This gut wrenching feeling was the same one that porn had made me feel so many times before.
Out of control is a very accurate way to describe my relationship with pornography largely between ages 12 and 22. It’s not how I ever meant for it to be but it was definitely the way it was. When first introduced, porn will give you the idea that it can be a casual part of your life. It will present itself as an activity to participate in only when you’re feeling lonely and need some satisfaction, but it will never stay casual.
Sin is never satisfied. No matter how much you feed it or how much attention you give it, it always wants more. This is where control of the situation simply becomes an illusion that helps us sleep at night. We start to cut off relationships and social interaction just so we can spend more time in an empty room with our computer screen. And each time we exit the page and begin to clear out the search history we promise ourselves that this was the last time and we will get control of this beast tomorrow. Yet that control never comes. No matter how hard we try and pray and beg God to take it away still here it is right back in our face when we wake up in the morning. So what’s the solution? How do we regain control of this area of our life again? This is where rubber meets road and you will see a stark contrast between Christianity and the rest of the world.
The world will tell you it’s time to buck up, get tough and deal with it. Be stronger, God is testing you. The Bible however, takes a very different approach. The Bible says our strength comes from God alone and He desires for us to cast all of our cares on Him. It also says that His power is perfected in our weakness, so we boast in that weakness knowing that that is the place where Christ’s power is truly shown in us. This means that control really comes when we surrender everything completely to Jesus.
We control our eyes and our thoughts, they don’t control us. My life truly changed and freedom from pornography came when I resolved to give God honor and glory in ALL of these aspects of my life. I exchanged my purposes for His, my identity in me for my identity in Him and 5 minutes of satisfaction for a lifetime of fulfillment.
Bad things happen in our lives when we try to control areas of sin in our life without God’s help. But He promised us that if we acknowledged Him in all we did, and leaned on Him for answers and not ourselves then He would take care of us and make our paths straight. This means that true control is really a false feeling and the more in control we feel, the less we really are. Control and freedom really come when we surrender it all to the only one who was ever designed to carry it all. My name is Abram Blobaum, and I gained control of my life when I gave control to Jesus.