I remember sitting in a group of guys during a youth rally some of the local churches put on each year where I grew up in Northern Minnesota.
The speaker for the weekend had talked with us young men that night about moral purity, and we were going around sharing our stories. None of the other guys mentioned ever looking at pornography. Some said they faced “a lot of temptations,” and have failed “at times.” And I wondered if they meant Googling “naked women” as I had done, or if they were talking about something else, something less direct and abhorrent.
The way they talked about it made me feel their failures were not quite as bad as mine. There were about twenty of us sitting in a circle, and I came away from the night with a deep dread inside of me that maybe I had done things no else had done. Maybe I had messed up my life in a way others never would.
And while, at the time, I brushed it off as irrelevant, it also made me feel a slight sense of hopelessness. So, when it came my turn to share, I hid my deepest secrets behind similar platitudes and generalities. I protected myself from being exposed by boiling down my “struggles” to “a lot of temptations” as well.
A Game of Sardines and Sexual Sin
Growing up, my family owned a senior home for elderly people who were too disabled to live on their own, but not at the point of needing a nursing home.
We lived in a single-story house with a fully furnished basement, so we stayed downstairs while the residents had rooms on the main floor. Many of our residents had Alzheimer’s and would sometimes get quite violent, so we children tended to hang out downstairs (at least until we got old enough they no longer scared us).
The great thing about hanging out downstairs was it gave us plenty of opportunities to play sardines in the basement with all the lights out.
It was pitch black! One person would be “it” and go hide while everyone else counted to fifty before setting out in search for him. As different ones found whoever was “it,” they would stay with him, packed together like sardines in a can. The last man searching became the next “it” person.
We had fun playing, but it did get a little spooky at times. When everyone else had found the “it” person, the basement would be so dark and quiet you began wondering if they had all left, if you were the only one groping around in the dark.
Alone groping around in the dark is how I felt after that night at the youth rally.
I think it’s what Satan wants us to feel when we are compromising morally. He wants to make us feel as if we are the only ones facing this issue. The hopelessness, guilt, shame, and fear of being found out all compound together for one powerful force of captivity if we are convinced our struggle is unique to us.
Your story is probably quite a bit different from mine It’s probably different from other people’s. Each of us has a story of compromise, a story that haunts us with guilt—one we would rather forget. It feels so unique and bad that we are convinced no one else has failed in the same way. We wonder if we are the only ones.
And you know what makes us feel even worse? Many of us know what the Bible says about lust and immorality. We know how God wants us to live—how He designed us to live. Not only do we feel with guilt from giving in to pornography or whatever form of compromise we struggle with, but we know that as Christians we should be able to live differently.
We should be able to live free. Yet, we can’t.
Or at least we don’t know how. Feeling alone in this battle only makes it worse.
Pornography Survey of Christian Men
In 2014, Proven Men Ministries commissioned a pornography survey conducted by the Barna Group. Out of 388 self-identified Christian men who partook in the survey, they discovered that 97% said they viewed pornography at one point in their life.
Of those between the ages of eighteen and thirty, 77% admitted to viewing porn at least monthly. Even among the men who considered themselves “born-again Christians,” 54% confessed they view pornography about once a month.
Fifty-four percent of born-again, Gospel-believing men view pornography monthly. That astounds me! And if you are like me, you’re tempted to look at that number and think, “Surely not in my church! It can’t be that bad among my friends.” But from what I can tell in my growing experience, I am afraid it is.
I’ve sat down and talked to or emailed with about thirty different men ranging from eighteen to sixty-five. Everyone under thirty years old said they had struggled with pornography at one point in their life. And everyone, even those older than sixty, confessed to compromising morally to some degree at some point during their lifetime, even if it did not have directly to do with pornography.
You and I are not the only ones.
We are not strange or weird because we struggle to find moral victory. The reality is, it’s almost impossible not to struggle morally these days.
Immorality runs rampant around us, whether on billboards, at magazine racks, or in movies. The invention of the internet and social media amplifies the whole issue. Not only are we tempted hundreds of times a day, but if we wanted to, with one click of a button we could access all the porn we desired.
And yes, we could do it behind the backs of internet filters.
Maybe even some of our friends are okay with immorality. For those of us in college, perhaps we have classmates who move in together and talk about their sex when we hang out. Teammates pass around Sports Illustrated magazines or guys in our youth group enjoy watching Benedict Cumberbatch and his Sherlock seasons, even though there is always sex involved.
In fact, now that I mention it, we like watching them as well.
No matter who you are or where you live, today, you are bombarded with all kinds of opportunities to compromise morally. And almost all of us do.
Learning to Talk with Others
One year at youth rally, a few years after the time we sat in a large circle and shared platitudes about the struggles we face, my friend Hudson and I stayed up late and talked about lust. For the first time in my life, I shared with someone outside of my family about what I struggled with, and I discovered I was not alone. In fact, I found the more friends I could share the journey with, the more I began experiencing victory.
It’s like another time I remember playing a game of sardines. Only, this time we played in a church basement much bigger than the one in our house.
Again, it was pitch black, and as different ones found the “it” person, the place got quieter and quieter until I was convinced I was the only one left.
But I wasn’t.
As I groped around the halls with my hands in front of me I bumped into someone else. Soon we bumped into another person. We began talking, not chaotically, just communicating with each other about where we were and which rooms we had already checked out.
It gave us peace to know we were not the only ones left in the hunt—actually a number of us were still searching. We were just all being silent, struggling around on our own. As we started talking, together we found our way through the darkness and discovered where everyone else was hiding.
You may wonder if you are the only one struggling to find victory over sexual sin. I certainly did.
Maybe you feel as if you are groping around in a dark basement all by yourself. If so, you need to start talking. You must tell your story to others, how you first compromised and what your weak areas are today. I am not suggesting telling it to the whole world, just find someone you trust and talk with them about it.
You are not alone, but you don’t know you are not alone if you stay silent.
As you talk with other men, you begin taking the journey together with them. And together you can find the place of freedom in Christ we all are searching for.
Have you found someone you can talk to about moral struggles? Tell us about your experience in the comments below.
