Naked and Not Ashamed

Things are starting to get heavy again at work. Won’t be long before all I’ll have time to do during the week is eat, sleep, and go the bathr...

...no, wait. I won’t even have time to do those things. I won’t have time to do anything but work, sweat and groan.

Anyway, a few small developments...

In terms of the purity struggle I’m doing a lot better than I was a year ago, in spite of a bad day now and then. I was telling Jessica awhile back that I might have several days in a month where I’m really tempted or can’t seem to stop thinking about Inscrutable Girl. But several days a month is better than every single day.

God can restore innocence and peace to a person’s mind. Not to say I’m naive or think I’ve arrived or anything, but I can often look at a pretty girl these days and not think something obscene. That's an improvement.

I’ve had some failures, some fits and starts in the process, but that’s normal. Even after we got SafeEyes and I knew Jessica could see all the websites I visit, I still found a few outlets (one being Journalspace) where I could feast my eyes. And it was only two weekends ago when I was alone in the house and thought, “If I could, I’d look at porn right now.”

But I’ve had victories, too. I have an opportunity nearly every day to go back to the old ways, to flirt with a girl who thinks I’m sexy, to pick up a porn magazine (most of which come with free DVDs now), or to call Inscrutable Girl. No one else would have a clue. But I would know, and God would know, and that’s just enough to make me miserable. I don’t want to go back to the agony I was in for so long. If I’m going to suffer, I want it to be for the right reasons. Not just because I’m an idiot.

A positive effect of the men’s meetings on Wednesday nights is that I have to lead them, and I know I couldn’t do that if I was toying around with all that glitters. I have to keep it real in God’s eyes, and in the eyes of those guys. We’ve been having some pretty productive discussions, though a couple of the guys are still “hiding.”

I had some email exchanges with Jonathan Daugherty, the guy from San Antonio who led the Every Man’s Battle conference I attended in Sterling, Virginia, last May. My pastor approached me one day and asked about what I thought of our having a “purity weekend”–-something we could invite guys from our church and other churches in the area to participate in. He showed me some material from some ministry, but I said, “I know someone who’d be great leading this thing,” and I told him about Jonathan. I emailed Jonathan and he said he’d love to be a part of it. I sent him the pastor’s contact info and he said he’d call this week. It’s still in the planning stages; I hope schedules work out. The Lord’s work through Jonathan’s message and ministry affected me quite powerfully–-changed my life, even. We’re talking about conducting this purity conference sometime in late September or October.

Us: from fig-leaved and ashamed, to naked and ashamed, to naked and NOT ashamed. That’s the journey. Transparency feels excellent.