“What’s the one piece of advice you would give
to someone struggling with porn addiction?”
Pastor Bob Beeman has been on the cutting edge of Christian music for over 40 years. Since opening Sanctuary International in 1985, his focus has been on pioneering Christian Heavy Metal as a ministry. His dedication to discipleship and mentoring have spawned countless metal ministries and festivals worldwide. Pastor Bob travels and speaks internationally, is an avid podcaster, and is the host of the popular “Pastor Bob DAILY!” on YouTube.
Pastor Bob recently published his first book, Seriously?! Letters to Myself at 21.
Connect with Pastor Bob
Home Page: http://PastorBobBeeman.com
YouTube: http://youtube.com/PastorBobBeeman
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PastorBob
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PastorBobBeeman
Instagram: http://instagram.com/PastorBobBeeman
Spotify: PastorBobBeeman
Check out all the “One Thing” video interviews here.
Transcript:
Steve: Hey guys! Steve here from Belt of Truth Ministries. I’m standing here with Pastor Bob. Pastor Bob, I’ve got a question for you, same question I’m asking a bunch of guys, but if you could give one piece of advice to guy that’s struggling with pornography or sexual addiction, what would you say?
Pastor Bob: That’s easy. A lot of times the advice that we give is to surround yourself with a lot of accountability. I don’t know about you Steve, but accountability has never worked perfectly for me personally. I can always find a way around it. I think the first thing that I need to do is to find out what it’s going to take for me to be honest and true to myself. And for me to say that this isn’t going to be a problem in the future is to be dishonest to me. I realized that God created me with sexual desire. It’s always going to be there. I’m always going to struggle with it. The bible tells us that it’s a gift, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way, especially when it comes to porn and some of those things that there really aren’t so much sexuality and are little more addictive. I’ve always found that the thing that works for me the most, and I have to be honest I’ve never been addicted to pornography, not that it doesn’t look attractive, but the thing that helps me the most is what I call fighting the battle before the battle. If I am honest with myself and I say I realize that this is something, when I encounter it, that’s going to be difficult for me. I need to already have a battle plan in mind. And that battle plan is what am I going to do and how am I going to react? The bible says to flee those things that are not good for me and the Greek word there is run away as fast as you can. What am I going to do that’s going to give me those kinds of legs to run as fast as I can, and honestly it’s to be prepared for it and to know exactly what I need to do when the situation occurs. I think sometimes, Steve, we have this idea that when we’re finished fighting a particular battle that the battle is not going to happen anymore, that we’re going to get to this place where we just don’t struggle. And especially when we get through with struggle, we feel like “wow that’s great. That’s over.” And that’s the biggest lie that we can tell ourselves. The truth is we’re always going to struggle. It’s always going to be a difficult time, and if I don’t have a plan in place, then I’m going to fall.
Let’s talk about that plan for a minute. When I say fight the battle before the battle, I mean I need to plan for the battle when it happens, and so that what I do at that point becomes automatic. When I’m working on my computer and all of a sudden one of those pages comes up that leads to a porn site or I’m driving down the road and billboards these days, it’s amazing what you can get away with on a billboard, and those things are attractive to us sexually. What do I do when I encounter that? How do I react when that comes up on my computer? The first thing, if I program myself, is that I turn it off quickly. The second thing, if I can’t do that, I shut it down and walk away quickly. I realize that I have to have a response at the point where it’s a problem, as quickly as I can and as automatically as I can. You know Steve, for me, that’s been the greatest thing, is to fight the battle before the battle because when the battle comes, I’m ready for it and I’m ready to run with it and I’m ready to go another direction. For me that’s been very successful.
Steve: Thanks for sharing that, Pastor Bob. That’s a great advice and I appreciate you taking the time to share it with us. Thanks.
Pastor Bob: Thank you. It’s a pleasure.
