I am giving up hope on my purity, my dad, the Holy Spirit guiding me, trusting Jesus. I feel lower, spiritually than maybe I ever have. I do not know how. I need Jesus. I feel lost and broken.
This whole thing is very hard. God knows how difficult it is. We may give up from time to time, but he never gives up on us. Love always hopes and always perseveres. When we are low, he can lift us up. I do not know how he does it either. Every situation is different. But I have learned to trust him. He has never let me down. https://www.lifestream.org/he-is-always-there/
I'm slowly coming to the conclusion, that this is EXACTLY the place that Jesus wants us. On our knees, crying out to Him, depending on Him wholly. No matter how bad things feel, there is no better place than to be in communion with Jesus. I don't like it anymore than you, Andy... If it was up to me, this would be easy. However... "My thoughts, saith the Lord, are not your thoughts... Neither are your ways My ways... As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9)
Man suffers on earth because of original sin. Were it not for the sins of Adam and Eve, we might still be in the garden of Eden. Your father's suffering is not a consequence of your sins, it is a consequence of original sin and we will all suffer, while on earth, in one way or another as a consequence of that and the decisions we make of our own free will. I don't think we can say if our prayers are more or less likely to be answered as a function of our state of grace. God's plans are not our plans and given the flawed nature of the human mind we should be very thankful for that. However, I do think that you will find more comfort for your own suffering over the decline of your father, the closer you come to God through prayer, greater purity and adherence to His will. Pray to God as if He is standing right next to you, for in fact He is.
I was wrong about the Holy Spirit leading me here to become pure because I did not, I was wrong about the Holy Spirit telling me that my father was going to be healed and survive because he's dead. How do I trust my ability to hear what God is telling me now? How do I even find the desire to listen anymore?
I lost a daughter in her mid 20s to cancer several years ago. While she was ill, I prayed for her and marshaled an army of people around the world to pray for her with real passion and unwavering intensity. During the six month course of her illness, she came back to the church after a long absence and that is the grace she and those of us who loved her received. I am confident in the knowledge she is now in heaven, free from pain and suffering and living an eternal life of true joy (indeed she has helped us when we ask for her assistance). She would not have found that on earth had she lived. I dearly miss her and think of her most days but I would much rather she be forever happy and free from pain than to be here on earth for my sake. Death comes to all of us and to the faithful it is only the death of the body. Our souls live on and live in true happiness. God is infinitely smarter than humans and thus His plan and His will are infinitely better than what we can even conceive. I fully understand your sorrow but be comforted that your Father is headed to heaven. Pray for him now because prayer transcends time. Pray his soul is welcomed into heaven and granted eternal rest and complete peace and joy. PS If you regularly talk with a friend and listen to any good advice they may give, the friendship grows. Talk with Our Precious Lord about your loss and about your desire for purity and I assure you that you will find comfort. Perhaps not immediately because your time of grief is necessary but I assure you that with patience and dedication to God it will come. I am praying for you and for your father. Stay close to the Lord, you need Him now more than ever.
I offer you my condolences on the passing of your father. I grieve with you, my friend. Stumbling around in the dark is all part of the journey. How do you regain trust in your own ability? That's just it -- you let that misplaced trust wither and die, and instead learn to place it in God alone. He is speaking continually, and he will teach us to really listen, if we want to. What desire drives us to the Father, then? For me, I found PMO to be an empty shell that drove me hard and never fulfilled any of its promises. What I realized I wanted even more than the cheap plastic thrill of PMO was a deep and abiding peace that could not be disturbed by any bent or broken passion within me or any circumstance the world might throw across my path. Through long experience of his goodness, I came to believe that this peace was available in Christ. You are at a fork in the road, and there are only two paths ahead of you: discipline or destruction. The latter path you walk alone. It seems easy at first, but you have traveled that way before, and you know that this is a lie. You will find no rest that way. Its end is inevitably and only one thing. But the former path you walk in community (like this one!). It seems hard at first (impossible, actually, in our own strength), but the Way gets easier as you go, learning to walk more fully in his power. Even as your pace quickens, you will find yourself more deeply at rest as you go. The end of this path is unknown and unknowable (and perhaps never ends at all?), but we have his promise that the journey will be Good! Things look dark now, I know. Grief does that, and rightly so. Death is an abomination and was never in God's best plans for us. We have brought it on ourselves through our selfish disobedience. But there is light just ahead. And even now, in the dark, Christ is at your side. He will never leave you. Now, the next step is up to you.
Brother I am sorry you lost your Dad. You are grieving. God grieves with you. You will need to go through this process with other people in the body of Christ. People who can help you through the grieving process. PMO will not help you it will only make things worse after.
Exactly, it is impossible with my own strength so that until God provides that strength I will rest in his grace. I do not have the strength to fight it right now. I understand this contradicts the belief system of this website, that it is up to us to accept God's strength, or whatever, but it is not there and no amount of guilt inducing talk is going to change that. I am not there. Sorry to be a disappontment. Whatever we do, we do for Jesus, "and whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him." (Colossians 3:7), so I will do it will use it in the name of Jesus with gratitude for his grace and mercy. As well, "and whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him" (Romans 8:28). So, I can move forward with or without the support of this group. But I have to move forward from where I am in Jesus, and this is where I am right now. I do not have the strength to fight against it right now. Please accept that and understand this, in Jesus Name. Pray for me and when God is ready to move me forward in this I will be ready.
I have been in this same place and will likely be there again some day (although never again with PMO, I hope). You words sound like the heart cry of a disciple to me. Stay close to Christ. Follow his leading. He will never disappoint. You are not a disappointment to me. This fight is so incredibly hard. Our Father knows this. He is for us, not against us! may he bless you, my friend.
Extreme grief made me question what was important in my life and at the time my answer was "nothing feels important". In those dark days, no one and no thing could make it feel better. Still, grief has a purpose and perhaps one of its purposes is to bring clarity but it takes time. You will never cease missing your father but in time the wound will be less raw and painful than it is today and perhaps the answer to what is important in life will become clearer. God has perfect timing. He will choose exactly the right situation and exactly the right moment to inspire you. In the mean time, He will wait patiently. I certainly don't feel any judgment towards you, I only wish you God's love and peace. May God bless you with these things.
'Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.' Isaiah 40:28-31 https://my.bible.com/bible/116/ISA.40.28-31
What a struggle I am going through? Trying to obstain is low on my list of priorities because ... I guess I really have no excuse. I can't say why really. Maybe I just like it! Can someone explain to me why I do not stop when I know that I would feel better if I did. Do not try to convince me that it is up to me because I have tried my whole life by my own strength. Can I find the strength among those here who have succeeded? Nope. That has not worked either. Just keep trying? Nope, that has not worked ether. Stay focused on Jesus and pray to him for release? Nope. That has not worked either. I am sure that I have missed some piece of advice that someone will be convinced that I need. Maybe I am. What am I missing? I forget how long it was since my last time, something under a week I guess. Well, I have about fifteen minutes now since my last O, so let's start counting again.....................sixteen....................seventeen...............
Admitting I loved P more than I loved my idea of what God had for me was part of the road to recovery. (Of course, my idea of what he had in store for me was completely flimsy and wrong headed, but I did not know that then.) Focusing on and getting absolutely rock solid inwardly on who I am in God's eyes -- my identity in him -- as opposed to my own view of myself (which is, admittedly, quite low) was also part of the journey. When my focus was on myself and my problems, I didn't expect much from myself because I knew what a louse I was. When my perspective shifted to see myself as God sees me, I felt encouraged and inspired to live up to it -- and felt as if I could not fail as long as I kept moving forward, because his love for me would never fail, and his forgiveness and mercy would never dry up. You say that staying focused on Jesus has not worked, but I can tell you that this is a lie. Your focus is often on P and lust. It must be! If it were not, you would not be drawn to it and give in to its lies about what it offers you. Peter only began to sink into the waves because he took his eyes off Christ. You know the Scripture as well as I do: We cannot serve two masters. It is impossible to be fully committed to Christ and fully committed to lust. We strive and strive and strive and keep falling back into the same pattern of sin-confess-sin. What will break us out of this? Christ and him alone. His great love for us holds the key. Do you believe it? Do you turn to his love and the rest he offers you in every moment of the day, esp. the stressful, difficult ones? If not, why not? He offers himself freely to you. There are no strings attached. (See Romans 6-8.) John 6 28 They replied, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?” 29 Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.” I'll link it here again, because it remains the most concise, practical encapsulation of what it means and looks like to be a disciple of Christ. I highly recommend the full book if you have not taken the opportunity to read it yet. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zqVL11JjWICOHCRUDmqXr9TNC_gpb6yhRF1hKp-fxcc/edit If you'd like to discuss any of this in more depth, please feel welcome to reach out to me directly at any time. May God bless us both as we pursue the Son!
Yeah, That's the one I forgot to mention. Feeling guilty about not being good enough or not hving enough faith hasn't worked either. But I guess it works for you to be able to talk down to those who haven't accomplished what you have been able to. I find that strategy a lot in alcohol and drug recovery groups. People find their identity and value in being able to preach to those are not where they are in recovery. They repress their own desire to use project it into other people and feel satisfaction when someone fails because it just reinforces how great they are in their own eyes. Fuck this! you are right. No one can focus on Jesus 100% of the time, except you I guess. Guess what, I'm not impressed because if all you have is a lecture about how I am not good enough then you you are not any better off than I am. You have no clue what I have been through for Jesus and what he expects from me. Just never mind I will leave you to your little kingdom here and find another way maybe. Maybe I need to be shamed but, like I said that has not worked either. So, if that is all you've got I'll have to look elsewhere for answers.
I tried essential oil of lemon last night in an attempt to purify my genitals after PMO. It started to burn so bad but I couldn't get it to stop. It was bad, but maybe ... it will help. I think if I had the guts to do this every time I PMO, or it was done to me, It would probably reprogram my brain, but it was too much pain to voluntarily repeat. I am thinking that maybe I can use a less painful punishment for operant conditioning.
Tao, I really attacked in in my next post, but I started thinking about operant conditioning and I realized that when I endulge the best thing for me is to receive a response that makes me uncomfortable. This will reduce the reward for the act and help to reinforce the opposite behavior I hope. I am going to leave the other post though anyway. I am going to look further into operant conditioning regarding PMO. There must be people out ther who have developed some techniques that might be useful.
Your words cut deep. I ask for your forgiveness. I have no desire to shame you. I am sorry if I came across as holier-than-thou in my reply to you. That was not my intent. I was trapped in PMO for 30 years -- what moral platform could I possibly have to stand on? I am nothing more than a beggar who has found a steady source of food and is anxious to share the good news with other beggars who are also looking for sustenance. My experience is this: I realized I was trapped in PMO and could not escape, no matter how hard I tried. At Christ's prompting, I realized I needed to make serious changes to my lifestyle in order to get free. I quit an IT career and became a plumber so I could get away from computers. I ditched PCs and smart phones for nearly two full years. I took a 60% pay cut while supporting a family of four. It was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. It took years for our family budget to recover and, barring a miracle, it is unlikely I will ever amass enough wealth now to think of retiring. I sacrificed these things with my eyes wide open. I knew if I did not take drastic measures, I would never be free. I simply came to the point where I desired freedom and peace in Christ above all else and I became willing to what whatever it took to find and hold onto these things. This is why my message sometimes sounds hard. I believe that Jesus meant what he said regarding lust in Matthew 5. I believe that discipleship, done rightly, will cost us everything, but that we will get far more in exchange if we are willing to lay down our lives for his sake. I believe the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life and that every step on that way is a good one, even though they might sometimes be very hard. As Chesterton wrote, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried." I do not know what the specifics of this will look like for you. The Spirit will guide you into all truth. I do know what Christ expects of you, though. It is the same for all disciples: He requires everything we've got. We must hand it all over to him, denying ourselves and taking up our crosses daily. For I also know what he intends for you, because it is also the same for each of us who sincerely call him "Lord": He has prepared in advance good work for us to do, and he has provided everything we need to be equipped to serve with joy and enter his Kingdom more fully each day. He came to bring us an abundant life and he has provided his Spirit to help us enter into it each moment of each day. I did not invent the instructions to "pray without ceasing" or "abide in me [Christ]," but I am learning the truth of what these practices look like as a lived reality. My most fervent wish and prayer is that all here would come to know Christ as I have -- and even more so! There is no end to his goodness and no lack in his provision.
