Can you please pray for me? I am married to a wonderful women, the father of three beautiful kids, pastoring a wonderful church and am living with a deep secret...I struggle with lust and pornography. Guilt plagues my soul. Fear grips my heart. This sin has begun to strangle the life out of me...I am fearful that the only emotions that I will soon have will be those stirred by the images I view.
I do not want this vice to define who I am...just pray for me. Also, I fear the pain of exposure and disgrace it will bring more than hating the sin or loving Jesus. This scares me. Perhaps there has been a discussion before on this subject and you can direct me there.
Baltie,
I will pray for you. But my primary concern is for you to get the help you need and you need to find that today. Also, you will need to take a step back from pasotring so you can focus on dealing with this and the effects it has on your family. I am sure others have some resources where you could go to find the help you need.
Waldo
Waldo,
This might seem self serving, but I truly feel that I can deal with this is private. I can't bear the thought of my wife losing trust in me. Granted, I don't deserve her trust based upon my private actions, but I truly believe that with a bit of accountability (through a message board like this) and prayer, I can beat this.
Do you or others think that this disqualifies me from pastoring, even though this is a private sin? I have confessed and am in a right relationship with God. I pastor a large ministry (over 30 employees operating with a million dollar budget). Stepping away would send some shockwaves across my denomination. I don't know that it would do more harm than good...truthfully, as I write this, I am beginning to see the depths of my denial. Thanks for letting me speak freely and get this all out of me.
Balti,
While I think you can deal with this privately, the impact on your family seems to be what is critical right now. Perhaps you can find that same accountability here, but also through some counseling or other websites that provide counseling on this specific issue. Regarding pastoring, I just believe that you need to take a step back to regroup, recover, and revive your walk with God. You have asked for help and accountability and I believe these are some of the steps you need to take to recover from this. Lastly, you should not think on how this might look to your denom. Your first priority is to God, your wife and family, friends, chruch, denom.....The first two are what is needed the most right now before any other.
Thanks for your advice and prayers.
Take it from a fellow struggler that you need to find help outside of yourself.
Here are a few things that have helped me:
1. Finding another pastor (outside my denomination) who I can trust to hold me accountable and to pray with me. Preferably in the same city or within driving distance.
2. Installing a filter on my computer THAT I DON'T HAVE THE PASSWORD TO!!!!! I use the B-Safe filter through the American Family Association. It's about $60/year, and it is a very tough filter. You used to be able to install it on up to three PC's for the price of one - don't know if they still do that. There are other filters out there that are good as well. What I like about this one is that I can request some sites to be unlocked for me, but those sites are checked out by them before allowing them through. One or two have been denied, even though they weren't pornographic - but the filter people felt that it was not a wholesome site, so they didn't allow them. Bugged me for a bit, but I'd rather err on the side of caution. And in this situation, there is no such thing as too much caution.
3. Installing accountability software that sends a list of questionable sites (that you have visted or attempted to visit) to an accountability partner. You can't delete this history, even if you delete it from your computer. Just having this on my computer helps me avoid even attempting to go sites that will probably be blocked anyway because my accountability partner (a pastor friend of mine) will still see the search I performed or the sites I may have attempted to access.
These last two suggestion goes along the lines of "plucking out the eye" and "cutting off the hand." When you cut off the sources, it goes a long way to getting past the problem.
You may have to forgo television, movies with more than a G or PG rating (this means not watching PG-13, either), taking alternate routes to work if your current route takes you past places that start the mind going.
If you want to call or e-mail me, please do so. E-mailing is best, because I'm bi-vocational. P_B@aberdeenwesleyan.org
Brian
Brian La Croix
I had to clean my office for my avatar picture. Maybe I should take pictures more often...