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| by Jerry Meyers Quail Lakes Baptist Church Stockton, CA
Part of this came from the culture at that time. We lived in Santa Cruz, CA from 1971 to 1974 (I was between the ages of 9 and 12). Hippies and free love ruled the times. I was taught that God’s rules on sexuality did not apply to us in this age. Nudity was everywhere. Children were exposed constantly to nudity so they would learn not to have any inhibitions about their bodies. Sexual experimentation by children was expected and often strongly encouraged. My first sexual experience was arranged by the mother of a friend of my sister. Soon after, my stepfather started sexually abusing me by forcing me into sexual relations with his 15-year-old niece living with us and with my two sisters. The abuse only stopped with my stepfather’s death when I was 13. By this time, I was in a very deep depression over the pains of my deep emotional wounds. It did not take me long to learn that pornography and other sexual sins could make the pain go away for a brief moment. Eventually this ceased to medicate the pain and actually became just another source of pain. No matter how hard I tried to resist, the temptation of pornography and other sexual sins would become so strong that I felt as if I would explode if I did not give in to them. I had accepted God as my Savior when I was 11, but I viewed Him as an impersonal God who would not accept me unless I first became perfect. It was hopeless for me, for I could never resist these temptations so I could present myself to God. This continued for over 20 years. Eventually, this and many other problems in my life brought me to an emotional crisis and breakdown. My life was in a free fall that I could not stop. I had to decide if I believed that God existed. If not, my life was plain vanity. The problem was I knew beyond doubt that God existed and was real. So my next step was to seek Him out to see if He was willing to repair my life. I had little hope that He even cared about me, but it was all the hope I had left. I went back to the church I grew up in. Here I found an extensive counseling ministry and I took full advantage of that. God used this to show me that He always has and always will deeply love me. Nothing could keep me from His love. Even when I was running away from Him, He loved me so much He found a way to bring me to Him. He met me where I was at and started to heal my wounds while teaching me about Himself and myself. During this time, I discovered I had been chronically depressed since my earliest memories of childhood. I thought that with medical help and God’s healing I would soon beat the depression. It has become clear that I will likely deal with depression throughout my life on earth. I have learned that He is always with me and He will never abandon me. This has become the source of the deep joy and peace I have even during days where the dark clouds of depression hang over me. I can and do talk to Him about this, but I know He is bigger than my depression and that each cycle of depression will run its course and end. As long as I keep focused on Him, depression cannot rule my life. For several months after I handed control of my life over to God I found that He protected me from all desires and temptations to sin sexually. At first I thought He just destroyed this part of my life so I would never suffer such temptations again. After some time though, desires and temptations presented themselves to me. At first these were small temptations, and as soon as they presented themselves I would immediately turn to God for fear that I would give in to them. I was amazed that after bringing this in prayer to God something often came up that needed my attention. A little while later I was astonished that the desire had left. Over time, the desires and temptations increased in strength. I viewed this as a weakness on my part, for I was sure I was supposed to reach a point where I would extinguish the desires completely. This weakness kept me coming back to God in prayer, confessing my weakness and asking His help to get through without falling. Then I would try to focus my thoughts on God and try to busy myself with what He wanted me to do. One day, a major temptation came across my computer as an invitation to visit a pornographic web site. I succumbed to the temptation. After several minutes I felt an extreme revulsion and sickness over what I was seeing. I realized I was looking at this through God’s eyes. I saw it for the garbage it was. I confessed this to God and asked for forgiveness. For several days the desire to go back kept coming up, but each time I took it to God and busied myself with something else. After awhile the desire just disappeared. I learned that God hates pornography because it debases and profanes people who are created in the image of God. I also learned that I can go to God in prayer and wait out the desire; it will run its course and eventually go away. During a class session in the series The Theology of Emotions, David Eckman remarked that appetites and desires eventually dissipate and disappear with time if they are not fed. I finally understood what God had been teaching me. If I quit feeding the desires when they come up and instead look to God, trust that He is bigger than my temptation, then busy myself with what He wants me to do, the desires will eventually dissipate and disappear. God had done something far better than protecting me from all future desires and temptations; He taught me to manage them. As the good teacher He is, He never permitted me to face a temptation that I could not overcome, but He did allow me to face temptations that were strong enough that I would have to come to Him for His help to overcome. As long as I looked to God, I could overcome any temptation that came my way. Small things that used to trigger desires and temptations no longer do so. Larger triggers, though seemingly very strong, are never bigger than God. If I do ever fall though, God still loves me and will never reject me. It just shows that I am still an imperfect human and still need God’s help. I pray that I will never forget that I need to constantly look to Him and rely on Him and not myself. I praise God that He taught me a very simple
lesson that is of exceedingly great value: Reactive emotions,
sinful desires and temptations will all eventually dissipate and
disappear without having to be acted upon. This process is
made so much easier if we do not feed them and if we bring them to
God our Father. He will give us the strength and the ability
to wait them out. While we are waiting them out, we need to
focus our attention onto those things that God says are good and
pure. By occupying our time with other things, the wait for
these things to run their course and go away will seem trivial. Read for yourself! Visit our online Christian bookstore! Now available on-line!
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life through our powerful and unique eLearning online Bible study course
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Testimonies home page for more stories! |
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During the first 13 years of my life, I had a physically abusive
father followed by a physically and sexually abusive stepfather.
This was to taint my view of God and strongly influence my behavior
for years to come. It was not long after my stepfather died
that I fell into sexual sins of many types.
