Note: This post is the conclusion of a six-part series on desire. It has been adapted from my book, 10 Lies Men Believe about Porn, available now wherever books are sold.
You can find beginning of the series here.
The more you understand the truth about what’s really fueling your desire for pornography, and the more you recognize how God wants to satisfy those desires for you fully, the less likely you will be to seek fulfillment through cheap and damaging substitutes.
If you find yourself seeking to be desired by a woman as a means to validate your masculinity, stop and consider if that’s truly what you need. Perhaps what you are experiencing isn’t the starvation of your masculinity, but the misalignment of it. Once you realign your masculinity with what God has called you to, you will find those false desires beginning to disappear.
The more you embrace the adventures God places in front of you, the more likely you will be to recognize how He uses them to strengthen you as a man. Your desire to turn toward pornography and fantasy for “safe” adventures will diminish because you will be experiencing the true and fulfilling adventures that come with a life of faith.
The next time you are drawn toward pornography because you feel alone, stop and ask yourself where your loneliness is really coming from. Is it the result of nobody in your life offering you love, or is it the result of you hiding behind a mask and not allowing your true self to receive love? If you can trust God enough to remove your mask and allow Him to love the real you, you will begin to experience true intimacy in your soul, which will free you from the need to seek it from pornography.
I encourage you to ask the Lord to reveal to you the truth behind what is driving your addiction. Chances are, it’s related to one of these three areas: your masculinity, your desire for adventure, or loneliness. Once you discover the real needs you are trying to meet through pornography, ask God how He wants to meet them for you in appropriate ways. Whatever His answer is, it will likely require you to trust Him in ways you have never trusted Him before. It will be worth it, though. No matter what He calls you to, it will be an adventure. But remember, you were made for adventure.
