Driving down the road today I thought about the patterns of my struggle with lust and my addiction to pornography. It seems to me that the springtime of the year is a season where the struggle intensifies. More temptation. More relapse. More failures. Reflecting on the rhythms of my years in recovery, it occurred to me that these seasons of increased struggle coincide with two major events in my early life as my manhood awakened.
The first major event was a dramatic call to ministry when I was 12 years old. That is another story for another time, but suffice to say that this event happened in late March 1974. The second major event was shortly thereafter (I don’t remember the exact time, but I know the exact place and feeling associated) when I was first exposed to pornography.
Both of these events happened in the spring of my twelfth year and started a tug-of-war between my spirit and my flesh that has plagued me ever since. Every year as I reflect on the season of Easter, contemplating Jesus’ sacrificial death, his suffering, and his victory, I am struck by how there seems to be a connection between the spiritual summit of Christ’s resurrection and the bondage of my addiction to sin, specifically lust and pornography.
Another significant event in my life happened more recently, but also in the springtime. The Wednesday after Easter, seven years ago my wife confronted me, and reluctantly I confessed to this ongoing struggle with lust and porn in my life. That “D-Day” (disclosure day) sealed the tragic fate of our marriage. But it also launched me on a journey of recovery.
I find it interesting how the rhythms of Easter each year accentuate the war in my heart. You see, I have an enemy hell-bent on stealing my peace and joy, killing my influence by using my own story to mock me and to destroy any and every good thing in my life. He hates me.
But I also have a lover of my soul who has shed his own blood to redeem me from every temptation, addiction or set back that Satan’s curse has leveled against me. Every year as Easter approaches I am reminded of how the finished work on the cross was for me. I look at my “D-Day” the Wednesday after Easter 2015 and think about how Jesus, the day he hung on a cross, bleeding out to forgive my sins, had in mind that some 2000 years later I would be having that painful, awkward conversation with my wife which destroyed her trust in me and ultimately led to the failure of our marriage.
But for the joy of knowing where I would be 7 years later, he endured the cross, despising its shame–for my sake–and now enjoys the presence of his father, seated at his right hand. These seven years have been hard. There have been victories and relapses, stretches of sobriety, and I’ve had to be helped out of the ditch a few times. The journey has been two steps forward, one step back most of the time. There was guilt, shame and the disappointment of divorce. But I wouldn’t trade this stretch of the road for anything!
Now I know I am a beloved, restored son of the sovereign Lord who bled for me, felt shame for me, thought of me with joy in his heart, died for me, and rose again to give me a new life that will last forever! Why? Because he loves me. I wouldn’t trade that for anything!
As Nate Larkin says, “What I thought was my worst day has turned out to be my best day” because it propelled me on this journey to wholeness with Him. I am fully known, truly loved, completely forgiven, unconditionally accepted and whole-heartedly approved of. What can I say, He loves me. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
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