Thursday Septemeber 1, 2011

Something I have struggled with since I was a boy is a great appreciation for the opposite sex. I find women very attractive, pretty, beautiful, sexy and just plain desirable . I believe God made them this way purposely. If He hadn't we would not still be here as we must keep repopulating or the human race would end. None of my attraction to women as I described is even a sin.

The challenge is I have looked at women with a great lust in my eyes since I was a boy. I remember as a little boy taking showers with the high school aged babysitters. I loved the female body ever since. Even before I knew what sex was, I already desired the naked female body. I am not writing this to share with the world how twisted and perverted I have been but at how the enemy will start working on us at a very young age and how that foundation the Devil lays can hurt and destroy many people but worst of all it can tear down the Kingdom of God.

This young lust grew as I grew older. I began experimenting with a female friend in the 5th grade. This led to a life long quest for sexual relations. I began working in a resort at age 16 and discovered through deception I could sleep with grown women and I took advantage of that time and time again. As I grew into my early twenties it became even easier to get what I wanted out of women. By this time in my life women were merely a conquest. It got so bad around the age of 21 I only wanted to sleep with married women. I had lots of excuses for this but it came down to only 2 reasons in my mind. Married women were more of a challenge. The 2nd reason was that they were already in an emotional relationship and so I could have as many as I could handle at a time and they couldn't get jealous (or at least they shouldn't).

Now in defense of my own wickedness I will say that at this point in my life I had no relationship with Christ. I really didn't even believe in Jesus during this time. Now looking back I see why that is. Satan had blinded my heart from Christ with a sexual perversion towards women. An unhealthy lust for companionship, a shallow and hollow desire for companionship, a sick and perverse expectation of companionship.

Then in my late 20's as a result of a relationship that was doomed for failure. My girlfriend at the time, a lady I had lusted after for several years and finally I wore her down. She convinced me to join her at church one Sunday. A long story short it was through this sinful and broken relationship that finally led me to admit that there was a God. How great I felt, I now believe in God so I am saved. I believe in God, therefore I'm a Christian.

Well guess what. Me believing that God was real made me a Christian like sleeping in the garage makes me a car. I didn't do things that would honor God. I didn't do things that would bring honor to myself or the countless women I was still sleeping with. I continued to live a sin filled life in the fast lane.

On Christmas Eve 1999 I prayed to God at church that I was tired of living a shallow life of one bed to another. I prayed that I was ready to settle down and have a family. I prayed that I was ready to be the man He desired me to be. Three days later I met my soon to be wife. I knew within minutes I was going to marry Barbara. Five months later we were married and 5 months after our wedding we had my wonderful daughter. I already had Danny (11) and Melissa (9) as my step kids when Alexandria was born. I already broke my promise to God about these kids as I was already emotionally abusive to not only the kids but my wife.

By the time we celebrated our 2nd anniversary I had been unfaithful to my wife. Not once but several times.

So lets recap. I grow up with no knowledge or admittance that God existed. I was living a life that was destroying the hearts and souls of many women and being rewarded by Satan with more women, money and toys. I then was finally convinced that God existed, followed with me asking God to change my life and give me a family. God answered that prayer in 3 days, YES 3 DAYS!!! How did I pay God for that gift of a family? I was mentally and emotionally abusive to my wife and kids and started committing adultery too. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.

I'm sure it's no big surprise that my marriage ended in divorce. The amazing and sad thing is my wife whom loved and trusted me was still willing to work on saving our marriage and I was finally the one that left. I carried that guilt and shame around for a very long time.

About a year and a half after I left my wife I was in a pretty serious relationship with a woman that I adored. We started attending church together. We decided to join the church together even though we were both legally still married to our spouses yet we lived together. A week later I was baptized along with my beautiful daughter Alexandria. That was the day I truly gave my life to Christ, Sunday June 8, 2008. I took that commitment to Jesus that day in front of my church family very seriously. Three weeks later while away on a business trip my girlfriend moved out and broke my heart as I had so many before her. I was devastated! How could God allow this to happen? I was finally in love and had just devoted my heart to Jesus and He allowed her to leave me. You bet He did, because He loved me so much.

The past three years have been a roller coaster of a journey where through Christ so many positive changes have happened in my life. I now knew what real love felt like to receive. I have a peace in my heart that I never got from living for the enemy. I finally got a grip on my temper. I still had one major hang up. I couldn't quit the women though. I slowed way down, probably cutting it down to 15-20 women a year for the last 3 years. After all I was calling myself a Christian and I needed to stop being a man whore.

Then about a year ago God really started to convict me of my actions. I found a new no nonsense Bible based church with a young Pastor that told me, "what are you telling me that God can raise Jesus from the dead after 3 days and you can't abstain from sex until you are married again?" Wow, that really put it all in perspective for me. Since that conversation I have grown even more. That was ten months ago. I have only messed around with about 6-8 women since then and felt more strongly convicted each and every time.

The last few months God has been calling me to some sort of Ministry and I am still unsure what or why. My excuse was, I can't answer this call as I can't behave myself. I WILL NOT be a hypocrite. Well I have been a hypocrite every since I was baptized and yet God continued to forgive me each and every time I slipped up.

I told my Pastor what I was going through and why I could not commit what God was asking and then after prayer it all came to me. The only way for me to remain celibate was to answer the calling God is making of me. I will not make that commitment and fall down again. I will not be a hypocritical Christian no longer, at least not in the sins of the flesh. I will not fool around in anyway until I am once again married and in a marriage that puts Christ first and at the center of our lives. This I have promised to my Lord and I will not fail him again in this aspect. I can not and will not let Him down.

Please pray for me. Pray that God gives me the strength to honor His command and law. Pray that the Devil stops chasing after me every night when I close my eyes. Pray that I will be able to bring other men with these same struggles of the flesh to our loving and forgiving Lord so they too may be honored to humbly serve God in a way that is pleasing to Him. Pray that I stop lusting for women and can learn to treat them with the dignity and respect as God wishes. Please pray for me in all these things in the name of Jesus Christ.

Job 31:1-12
¹ “I made a covenant with my eyes
      not to look with lust at a young woman.
 ² For what has God above chosen for us?
      What is our inheritance from the Almighty on high?
 ³ Isn’t it calamity for the wicked
      and misfortune for those who do evil?
 ⁴ Doesn’t he see everything I do
      and every step I take?
 ⁵ “Have I lied to anyone
      or deceived anyone?
 ⁶ Let God weigh me on the scales of justice,
      for he knows my integrity.
 ⁷ If I have strayed from his pathway,
      or if my heart has lusted for what my eyes have seen,
      or if I am guilty of any other sin,
 ⁸ then let someone else eat the crops I have planted.
      Let all that I have planted be uprooted.
 ⁹ “If my heart has been seduced by a woman,
      or if I have lusted for my neighbor’s wife,
 ¹⁰ then let my wife belong to^[a] another man;
      let other men sleep with her.
 ¹¹ For lust is a shameful sin,
      a crime that should be punished.
 ¹² It is a fire that burns all the way to hell.^[b]
      It would wipe out everything I own.