The Church / Porn Connection Pt 4

RESPONSIBILITY - LIVING FROM THE INSIDE OUT

The first three articles in this series provided insight, tools, and strategies to begin the journey out of pornography addiction. This article will look at what to expect when it comes to dealing with the emotions, beliefs, and inner attitudes that begin to surface, and offer strategies to begin the inner journey of getting the ‘inside out’.

The good and bad news is that surrendering lust and the acting out is only the beginning. God does not just want a person free from lust, He wants the whole person. However people often want to be free from lust and pornography, while remaining independent from God, by holding onto the attitudes, fears, and beliefs that help set up the addictive cycle.

The recovery process seeks to identify those other dependencies that get in the way of living in this new sober reality, as it creates pressure on the deeper heart dependencies allowing an opportunity to surrender. By God’s grace, He reveals the underlying issues progressively rather than all at once.

People find they are just as dependant and powerless over these inner liabilities as they were with lust. A fundamental and pivotal attitude in this journey of living from the inside out is taking responsibility for the issues as they arise and dealing with them.

The first liability to surface is often resentment. Invisible in the addiction, in recovery it seems to burst through like a geyser. The nature of resentment is that it feels justifiable and based on truth. The person re-experiences the event in their mind, convinces himself or herself of the wrong caused to them, and re-feels the anger associated with it. This traps the person in a destructive mental and emotional spiral, which often leads to a relapse.

Resentment can be experienced as a general emotion with no ‘obvious’ causes, however brought to the light and shared with another person, the source of the resentment becomes clear. The process of writing the problem down first can help to externalise the issue and discover a healthy solution.

Often underlying resentment is fear. This emotion is usually the next to surface in the recovering person’s life. The fear can feel irrational at first; however, sobriety brings clarity, helping connect the fear with the causes.

Underlying fear and resentment is often selfishness and self-centeredness, another liability to recovery. When self-will rather than God is in control, insecurity develops. Self-will is often a sign of a deeper problem connected with how the person sees God, themselves or others.

A faulty image of God is often caused by unhelpful beliefs and attitudes developed in childhood, as a result of subtle or overt experiences of shame, rejection, abandonment, neglect and abuse. These experiences lead to a rejection of self.

Self-rejection can lead to a need to perform for acceptance. Performance can lead to many problems including burnout, depression, approval seeking, disillusionment and relationship problems. Feelings rather than a ‘knowing’ of who they are in Christ can become the barometer for assessing self-worth and relationship with God. In a sense, the person takes the place of God in his or her own life.

While it is the heart beliefs set up in childhood that become the ultimate driver in the relationship with God, as life goes on an intellectual view of God is developed. This intellectual view is ‘confessed’, however, until the negative heart beliefs are uncovered and removed, there will always be a disconnection between what is confessed and what is experienced.

A person can assess their beliefs and attitudes about God, by observing their past actions when they were tempted or when they made a mistake. People often discover the god they believe in is disappointed, angry, unavailable, and requiring perfection before relationship with him is possible.

When it comes to the journey of change, people often place too much responsibility on themselves or too much responsibility on God. When people believe God requires perfection first, then a person isolates him or herself and tries to change on their own. Alternatively, a relationship with God that does not include a sense of personal responsibility fails to produce any lasting change. Both images of the God relationship are fantasy images (idols) that sabotages any chance of recovery.

A strategy to begin turning away from these unhelpful images of God is to write down the faulty heart image of God. Then write down on another piece of paper an image of God that is worth surrendering to and building relationship. It is important that the image reflect the God of scripture, however it is essential that the image is personal to the writer. After throwing the old image of God away, the key is to practise turning to this new image of God and trusting Him especially when difficulties and temptation comes.

Dying to the old self-centred nature with its unhelpful attitudes and beliefs, by uncovering and surrendering them in sobriety, allows people to become more who they really are in Christ. The road of recovery is indeed narrow; paradoxically the narrower the road becomes the more freedom and liberty that is available, and therefore the greater the landscape in which to truly live.

This new landscape is where a person can progressively engage with God and His call for their lives. This journey is a lifelong one that requires patience and persistence rather than perfection. Not giving up is the key.

By taking responsibility and co-operating with the Spirit to live from the inside out, a person begins to attain peace of mind, as their behaviour, thoughts, beliefs and attitudes are no longer in conflict with each other. As a person progressively acknowledges what is on the inside, healing and reconciliation is possible with self, God and others.

Scott Morgan has a degree in Christian Counselling and is in Christian ministry as a counsellor. He is part of Life Builders Inc., Vermont, Victoria.