PRAYING ABOUT TRIGGERS

Are we missing out on things if we don't sin? The correct answer is we are not, but it is complicated.

There is only a finite amount of joy we can have. A fixed maximum amount. A finite amount of fun, excitement, and pleasure (FEP). When we do everything God's way, we are close to the max amount on all 3 almost all the time. But when we only do a few things God's way, we experience a below-average amount of fun, excitement, and pleasure (FEP) from normal activities.

So we fight to do things God's way and our FEP steadily increases. But if we fall we get short-term fun then disaster. With satan's way, our FEP for the month and year are always lower. With God's way, our month and year are always higher. Plus once we start overcoming, our today starts to be higher and better as well.

If you want your FEP level high all the time, live like Mikey in the 30 days 1 falls and 2 make it story. If you want a maximum pleasure month, start aggressively doing things God's way.

PRAYER

Prayer should be the most joyful time of our day. Once you learn how to do it, and make it a habit, it should be something you want to do and look forward to doing. So take a block of time out of your day and just talk honestly to God. Just start with the Lord's pray and then move on.

If you are lonely pray, “Father, take away this spirit of lust, this loneliness, and prepare me to help others.” If you are bored, pray, “Father, take away this spirit of lust, and show me what you want me to do.” If you are sad, pray, “Father, take away this spirit of lust, this sadness, and fill me with Your joy.” If you are covetous of other women, pray, “Father, take away this spirit of covetousness and help me to be content.” If you are depressed, pray, “Father, take away this spirit of lust, this depression, and fill me with Your fire.

Key point: If you are willing to do something for God someday; your prayers will increase in power.

Write your own 2-way prayer. A 2-way prayer is saying what God wants and saying what you want. If you want your depression gone that is one half. And God really wants your lust gone, that is the other half.

I have probably prayed, “Father, take away my spirit of lust, and help me to care about souls,” ten thousand times. Every time I prayed it I was totally sincere. For a long time, I was just another train wreck person trying to quit porn. But over time I started to change. And now that prayer is really being answered for me. And for the first time in my life this verse is true: Psalms 16 :In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

 

Boredom is a trigger. We get bored then we flippantly decide what to do to pass our time. We choose an activity and then realize that it is not exactly pure. Stop. If you want to find joy it is wise to learn the habit of stopping and finding a better “pure” activity to do. Gray area activities usually start you down a slippery slope.

Loneliness: Fight the temptation to allow hyper-sexual actresses or game characters or anything else sexual online or on TV to be your friend. Form clean habits with your TV and computer and try to get out more. Jesus is willing to be your everything. Pursue Him and allow Him to solve the loneliness.

Frustration: Preachitteachit noted the following: “When frustration is our trigger to sexual sin, then sin becomes our source of peace. Sin is treated as an “oasis.” When this happens we label sin as our “safe place” as compared to the parts of life that are upsetting. This makes sin our friend and anyone or anything that opposes or interferes with our sin our enemy.”

Pray: “Father, show me how You want me to deal with this frustration.”

The article continues: “Hurt: When hurt is our trigger for sexual sin, then sin becomes our refuge. In our moments of sinful escape, we feel protected from life and a growing allegiance develops towards our sin. In actuality, our sexual sin provides as much protection as a child pulling the covers over his/her head.”

Look at how David prayed in the Psalms when he was hurt. Pray and meditate on his prayers.

Betrayal: The wife is not interested so I have an excuse to sin. They promised me a good future at this job. They lied.

Instead of seeking revenge pray: “Father, help me to be content. You are a great and mighty God.”

The article continues with “Bitterness.” “When bitterness is our trigger for sexual sin, then sin becomes our justice. If sin as revenge is fast and hot, then sin as justice is slow and cold. No longer are we seeking to hurt another by our actions; now we are merely nursing our wound. If we tried to explain our sin in words, we would have to say we believed our sin had some healing power. But because that seems foolish, we are more prone to just excuse our sin by the sin done to us.

List and rank the top five motives/triggers for your sexual sin.

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   When you see these triggers, stop. Panic, and go to war with all your might.

 

The Trigger of Failure

Brad Hambrick at Livingbyfaith noted the following: “When failure is our trigger for sexual sin, then sin becomes our success. In the fantasy world of sexual sin (porn, romance media, or adultery), you always win. You get the girl. You are the beauty who is rescued. No part of real-life can compete with the early success rate of sin. Sin pays upfront and costs in the back. Real success costs upfront and pays in the back. In healthy marriages, sacrifice is a primary part of the joy. As you give into sexual sin as a form of success, it will drive you to desire the kinds of successes that destroy a family.”

Pray: “Father, following Your ways will make me a success. Help me to despise short-term sinful pleasure and to focus on long-term joy.

He continues with “Negative Self-thoughts.” “When negative self-thoughts are our trigger for sin, then sin becomes our silencer. In sexual fantasy (porn, romance media, or adultery partner), we are always desired and see ourselves through the eyes of the one desiring us. We give ourselves to them not just physically but also imaginatively. Because we know the relationship is short-lived we are willing to do this.

Read Psalm 103: Sin (or even a healthy human relationship) will never do what only God can do. The ultimate “Peace, be still” to our negative self-thoughts is Christ’s death on the cross–affirming we were as bad as we thought, but replacing our deficiency with His righteousness.”

When we go to war with sin we start to understand and like ourselves more. God changes us and He changes our negative self-image.

He continues with Public, Sin as My Carnival:

“When public is our trigger to sexual sin, then sin becomes our carnival. We walk through life like a kid at an amusement park; gawking at every person we see like a new ride or romantic adventure, making a clownish sexual innuendo out of every comment, or treating everything present as if it existed to entertain us and stimulate us sexually. Our private thoughts of fantasy become fueled by a hyper-sexualized interpretation of our surroundings.

The act of looking at porn is itself part of the succor it purports to offer. I can search for women who are available to me. I can choose between them like some sovereign being. It offers a sense of control. –Tim Chester in Closing the Window (p. 50)

Read Romans 1:24-25: Can you hear in the description of sex as my carnival what it means to have “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator (v. 25)”? God will give us over to this kind of lustful heart (v. 24). This is why a radical amputation of sin is a necessary and wise response to prevent sexual sin from becoming our carnival (Matt 5:27-30).”

Wow. I need to check if this passage in Romans is in the verses for quitting. It should be. I should try to memorize it.

Brad continues with Weakness (Sin as My Power).

“When weakness is our trigger to sexual sin, then sin becomes our power. The stimulation (both the physical and chemical changes associated with arousal) of sexual sin gives a façade of strength. Having another person delight in you also provides a veneer of significance. As with most of these motives/triggers, sex becomes a means to an end. Sex is no longer an expression of love but an attempt to gain something. That is always a recipe for dysfunctional, unsatisfying sex.

My pastor has preached that the primary issue in adultery is that you want someone else to worship you and serve you, to be at your beck and call. That resonated with me. I could see that theme in my fantasies. –Anonymous testimony in David Powlison’s Pornography: Slaying the Dragon (p. 15)”

Satan gives a rush of power to people who partake of his displays of witchcraft, openly demonic music, and porn, which is demonic by nature. This rush of power should give us a rush of fear. It is evidence that we are stuck in the middle of his web.

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   When you see these triggers, stop. Panic, and go to war with all your might.
   

For the full article click here.

 

It is wise to keep learning what triggers you. Devote a ton of prayer time, study and thought to what causes the trigger. Analyse how your thinking in the moment of temptation is not the same as what scripture says about how we should think in that situation. Is how I was thinking, living, or reacting, the same as how the Bible says I should think?

Write down how the Bible says you should be thinking in the situations that trigger you, because they will likely happen again. Then pray: "Father, help me to think in ways that honor You."

Lastly, know exactly what triggers you and be ready in those situations with prayers and Bible verses.

 

Even if we know our triggers... we can fall. Why. Because we often are not prepared. Background: My daughter practices spiking at home more than anyone on her volleyball team. When the big game happens the other girls want to hit the big spike to win the point. But many are not prepared. She is. She hits the big spike.

To prepare for triggers, pray: "Father, help me to turn aggressively from sin," before the trigger starts to happen. Maybe your trigger is problem relationships. Prepare for the problems before they even start happening. Plan to instantly go to the verses for quitting (I added a new verse today: Romans 1:24-25) when they start happening (If you are triggered).

Today, write out your pretrigger plan. It could look something like this example:
"She will be mad at me again. As I walk in the door I will pray twice: "Father, help me to run from lust." I will try to calm her/him down, but after I fail I will focus on praising the Lord this hour. Focus on finding my purpose. I will think about living the way the scriptures say to live. I will run to the scriptures if I am overwhelmed. I will find a positive activity to do."

If you do the exact right thing today - living God's way, will you get a miracle from God today? Maybe. But what if you live God's way again tomorrow, and again next week? Miracle help? Maybe. But what if you just keep living God's way? Will you someday come home, and she is happy?

At some point (a year passes quickly), a miracle could actually happen. Maybe he/she changes towards you. Maybe you have changed. Maybe Jesus' Light is shining on you so brightly that you can easily ignore what she/he says.

Finally, your trigger probably is nothing like this. But you can use the above example to write out a pretrigger plan that fits your biggest triggers.

Pray - Prepare - Win.

 

Today you might be triggered by a swim meet, TV show, walking at the mall, etc. If we wait to pray after we start to be triggered we have already started to have trouble. Today I will use the example of trying out some new TV show that we think is clean.

The second we put it on we should consider praying, “Father, help me to turn from lust.” Even if it starts out clean within two minutes we should quote something like: Psalm 106:3 ESV Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times!

Two minutes later we should consider praying, “Father, help me to turn aggressively from sin.”

Two minutes later we should consider praying, “Father, help me to run from lust.”

So... am I recommending praying something every two minutes? Nope, if you need to pray something every 30 seconds, do that. Whatever it takes to be prepared – do that. The point is to make sure your mind is focused on what you want before the temptation starts.

Second, always watch TV with the remote in your hand and always pray another prayer when temptation starts. The point is, we need a clear head when something risky starts. Yes, we can and must fast-forward it while we cover our eyes, but we must also have a clear head about making a good decision.

The Decision

Is it a short scene that does not show much at all? In that case, we can choose to fast forward and move on.

But what if they show too much? Or, if they keep on showing the wrong things. Stop and consider praying: “Father, should I stop watching this?”

Sometimes you will get a clear answer of “stop” if you pray that. But, sometimes satan has just fooled us again. We hit play, then four minutes later we “know,” the show is pure trash. Then we say, “If I don't stop, my life will be pure trash.” We stop.

Why go to all this effort? The Bible says in Matthew 6:

22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

Consider praying: “Father, help me to not give up my “light” for a stupid TV show, or for a few wrong looks when I am out.”

First, be ready for temptation. Second, be ready to review the consequences at that moment. Third, keep praying and fight to make the right decisions. Forth, highly value living in the light. Fifth, there are plenty of clean TV shows.

 

When a trigger hits it is wise to stop and think. What is happening and why is it happening. #2 Write down your thoughts and emotions in that situation. #3 Have a plan for fighting triggers. First, have a couple of prayers and start praying them fervently. Next, say repeatedly, “I can always stop temptation with the verses for quitting if it starts to overwhelm me.”

Second, it is vital to get active in some way once you are triggered. Think of 3 physical activities. Pick the best one. But, what if you don't feel like doing that activity? Remember, you are doing it so that you can quit and have a great life, not because you want a spectacular experience that minute. Consider saying every few minutes during your new activity:

“This plan will really help me learn how to deal with triggers.”

Finally, start giving thanks for the good things you have, and start to praise the Lord. You can overcome triggers and someday you will be able to help others overcome as well. That's the purpose-driven life.