What if lust for porn is really a search for true passion?
From Amazon: In a world where there are 68 million searches for pornography every day and where over 70 percent of Christian men report viewing porn in the last year, it’s no surprise that more and more men struggle with an addiction to this false fantasy. Common wisdom says if they just had more willpower or more faith, their fight would be over. Is the answer really that simple?
According to the counselor and ministry leader Michael John Cusick, the answer is no—but the big truth may be much more freeing. Backed by scripture, Cusick uses examples from his own life and from his twenty years of counseling experience to show us how the pursuit of empty pleasure is really a search for our heart’s deepest desire—and the real key resistance is discovering and embracing the joy we truly want.
Cusick’s insights help readers understand how porn struggles begin, what to do to prevent them, and most importantly, how to overcome the compulsion once it begins. In the end, this powerful book shows us all how the barrier built by porn addiction can become a bridge to abundant life.
I wish I had discovered this book ten years ago.
I’ve read a lot of books over the years dealing with the specific issue of pornography addiction, but this one easily stands out above the rest. The author, Michael John Cusick, paints an in-depth picture of the true source of our desire to keep coming back to these images which can never truly satisfy us.
The book is written in a way that is very easy to understand, even though the topics can be quite in-depth. I highly recommend Surfing for God to any man who is struggling with pornography, especially those of you who feel as if you have tried everything and have all but lost hope.
Purchase Surfing for God on Amazon today!
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Highlighting My Highlights:
I’m one of those guys who can’t read a book without a highlighter in my hand, and as far as I’m concerned, it would be a shame to mark up my favorite content and never share it with you. With that in mind, here are some of my favorite quotes from Surfing for God:
“When we fixate on porn, we choose to remain selfishly anchored to our own pleasure above all else.”
“If we seek on the physical level what can only be obtained on a spiritual level, then we set ourselves up for a never-ending cycle that only leads to desperation, despair, and bondage.”
“A man’s sexual appetite is a barometer for what’s going on inside his heart.”
“Most men don’t feel terribly strong or adequate in the presence of a real, live woman—wether they’re the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, a decorated war hero, or a seasoned pastor. And yet, God designed our masculine souls to be energized by offering ourselves on behalf of our female counterparts.”
“Only when we identify [our core thirsts] will we begin moving toward those desires according to God’s design.”
“As a man heals from his bondage to porn, he must understand his brokenness and allow it to compel him toward Jesus. Our brokenness is our only requirement for receiving God’s grace.”
“Some wounds aren’t the result of a specific event but the slow accumulation of disappointments. It’s not the two-by-four over the head that these men have trouble accepting as a wound, it’s the drop-by-drop buildup of pain and sorrow that can erode our soul as well.”
“That’s what porn and lust do to us. They tell us we’re not going to receive God’s provision, that we’ll never be satisfied with His manna, so we’re better off finding out own. But the intimacy we experience in those illicit moments is a counterfeit intimacy. It makes us feel like men without requiring us to be men—until we wake up one day with a cheap imitation of intimacy in our top drawer.”
“Unbelief is rarely concerned with God’s existence or whether we believe that Christianity is true. Instead, unbelief deals with God’s character—is God trustworthy, and is He truly who He says He is?”
“A false self cannot be loved. A fake self does not exist, it is only an illusion. You and I can only be loved for our true selves, as unlovable as we think we might be.”
“At the core of humility is trust—trusting God, and trusting others with who you are.”
“The goal is not to turn off the faucet of lust, but to turn on the faucet of trust.”
“I’m not horny; beneath feeling sexually aroused, what I really feel is lonely.”
