A few months ago, one of the dashboard lights lit up in my Volvo indicating an engine malfunction. I searched Google to figure out exactly what the light meant, but everything I read indicated it could mean anything from a car fire waiting to happen to a loose gas cover or computer glitch.
Actually taking my car into the garage and getting it checked out, risking the possibility of not having it for a few days and owing a large mechanic bill, felt like too big of a hassle. I decided to hope for the best and kept going.
And guess what? My car ran perfectly well for the next four and half weeks.
Then one day I turned on the ignition and the whole vehicle shook ferociously. That light was now blinking, and I literally felt as if I was jumping puddles as I hopped down the street.
I finally took the car into my mechanic. Sure enough, there was an engine malfunction.
At least one piston had blown, and the radiator was cracked. There was a bunch of other things wrong, some of which I had known but opted not to fix because I only used the car for work around town. But to get the car able run well and trust it wouldn’t leave me sit would have cost well over two thousand dollars—and I had bought the car for only twelve hundred.
Thinking of my vehicle issues as merely an “engine malfunction,” which could possibly mean the gas cover was loose or the computer system had glitched, not only cost me a mechanic bill and time without the function of my car—it cost me a whole new vehicle.
Whenever we talk about sexual struggles, there are a hundred and one things we could be talking about. One person may have looked at porn. The next may be wrestling with lustful thoughts. Meanwhile, two people on the other side of the circle may be sexually involved with someone who’s not their spouse. One of them could be sexually assaulting children of parents right there in that circle.
And because we want to create spaces for everyone to share openly about their struggles—no matter what temptations they are facing—we use generic terms that encompass all the possible problems represented in a circle of people seeking sexual wholeness. One of the most common terms we use is this phrase, “moral failure.”
It’s sort of like an engine malfunction.
If you saw an immodestly dressed person and it led you to wrestle with lustful thoughts—and you sat in those thoughts for a moment—you committed moral failure, didn’t you?
Secretly having an extramarital affair is also moral failure.
The problem is, just as I assumed the best possible problem of an “engine malfunction,” we typically assume the best possible problem of “moral failure.”
An active addiction to pornography can be painted as facing temptations with lustful thoughts, if I use the term “moral failure” to describe it. But everyone faces temptations with lustful thoughts. That’s an ongoing battle for humans, and we want to continuously encourage each other in it.
An addiction to pornography is a serious emergency. It will lead to relational and personal disaster if left unaddressed. Drastic measures need to be taken immediately.
Even more, if someone has sexually assaulted another human being, we now have two drastic emergencies: the one assaulting and the one assaulted.
We can’t afford personal emergencies like this to be glazed over with palatable platitudes such as “moral failure.”
You can’t afford it.
There is nothing more crippling in one’s journey toward sexually freedom and wholeness than the deep sense of shame he or she carries with them. I know for a fact that most of us opt for the nicer sounding ways of describing our failures because we don’t want to be shamed.
No one wants to be shamed.
But have you found freedom from porn?
Have you gained victory over your masturbation?
When you repent and share what you’ve done, do you walk away and sin no more?
If not, if you continue facing the same struggles over and over again, could it be that simply saying it as it is would help you move in the right direction?
Part of restoring anything—an old vehicle or house, a flopped piece of pottery, a failed work of knitting—is tearing apart, unraveling, and breaking things down so you can remove the specific thing causing the problem.
This is true of human well-being too.
As a carpenter cuts into the drywall to figure out where the leak is coming from and what exactly might be causing it, so we need to cut into the hidden secrets of our sexual uses to expose what specifically is leading us to into this repeated sin.
Naming things specifically is a part of that “cutting process.”
“I looked at two porn sites this afternoon,” tells the story straight forwardly about what we’re giving in to.
Being honest with someone about specifically what you are doing or feeling tempted to do exposes the horribleness of your sexual struggles. And that risks being shamed.
But smoothing things over with vague terminology only leads to cover-up, not freedom.
The message Jesus has for you and I today is not that we don’t have to feel ashamed. The message is that in the middle of our shame, Jesus draws us into himself. He doesn’t push us away.
After Adam and Eve saw their nakedness and felt a need to cover up, God comes calling for them. Only, they went and hid. Instead of jumping out and walking unashamedly with God as they had up until that point, they found themselves afraid.
And it’s that fear—because they were naked, Genesis 3:10 says—that clues God in that something has happened. Someone has poisoned their soul.
Because Adam and Eve ignored God and trusted the serpent, an exile had to take place. A wondering around in bondage and pain had to happen. But as God tells of the consequential exile to come, he promises to destroy the very one who took his people into bondage (Gen. 3:15).
Many generations later, when the people he delivered from Egyptian oppression are now looking to Egypt instead of him for protection, when the pride and joy and his chosen people who he has watched over as a mother watches over her children are worshipping idols in the very sanctuary where he abides, and when he brings judgment upon them because of their rebellion towards him, he doesn’t kick them out and leave them to their consequences on their own. Instead, his presence rises out of the temple, out of Jerusalem, and goes to Babylon with them (Ez. 10-11).
While you and I were dead in our sin, while we were in exile living as children of disobedience, God in his mercy makes us alive and seats us with Christ (Eph. 2:1-6).
I think seeing our deadness, sensing our shame is what keeps us from saying it like it is. It’s what causes to downplay our bondage and maintain self-image. And as Christians we have quite a self-image to maintain, don’t we?
But if that’s how we feel, it exposes that we’ve not quite known the Gospel message in its entirety.
Being a Christian isn’t about maintaining our self-image.
Being a Christian—a disciple of Jesus—is about embracing his image.
We are fools to think we have anything to maintain. We are blinded by our flesh.
All of who we are is rebellious and broken, entirely self-serving.
But as that person, Jesus comes and says, “follow me.”
He invites into his community. He shares his Spirit with us. He bestows his identity onto us.
We need to stop calling it “moral failure” because sexual sins are more than that. Most times, they’ve taken from somebody else, whether that’s using another person’s body or enjoying intimacy with ourselves that was intended to be enjoyed with our spouse.
But we also need to stop calling it “moral failure” because that phrase is a cover, not confession. And it is confession that brings healing (Js. 5:16).
Once we have acknowledged the depths of our failure and brokenness, Jesus can enter it all and begin restoring us back to his original design.
Question: Why do we tend to speak in generic terms about our sexual struggles? What has been most helpful for you to hear from other people’s stories so far in your journey? You can share your thoughts in the comments below.
You can now access the Live Free Course for just $17/month.
Discover freedom from porn addiction and other unwanted sexual behavior that goes beyond trying harder to control your desires.
View the first lesson for free!
Already a member? Login
