Too often men who struggle with sexual integrity issues are so ashamed they are unable to celebrate the good times. It’s vitally important to remember that some days are gifts; they’re good days, untainted by lust and licentiousness. Sure, it’s easy to get down in the dumps and feel depressed and hopeless after acting out again. But whether or not there is progress is up to you. And that progress will be highlighted and accentuated by celebrating good days and victories.
In the midst of an addiction, we often end up measuring life by the days since we last acted out. Whether it’s a couple days or a couple months, we attribute our sense of well-being and worth to the amount of time that has elapsed since we “did it again”. This, unfortunately, keeps us locked into believing lies about ourselves. The lies go like this:
- “You’re a hypocrite; you call yourself a Christian? You just looked at porn ___ days ago”
- “It’s only a matter of time before you do it again – don’t get your hopes up”
- ” You’re a pervert. You would be completely rejected if anyone knew what you were really doing”
- “You’re unworthy of love and forgiveness”
- “The world would be better off without you”
You see, the truth is, some days you are striving to be a man of integrity. Some days you do have character. Some days you can hold your head high regarding your husband-ship or your parenting. Some days you can be proud of your ministry. And those days have to be celebrated. Maybe not by the people closest to you. In fact, probably not by your wife or anyone else you’ve hurt by your actions. But internally, between you and God, I urge you to take a few moments and acknowledge that the day is a good day. To thank Him for the gift of integrity that day. You might find your spirits lifted and the veil of hopelessness start to lift if you begin to measure your life by the days that you do live with integrity, rather than the days that you don’t.
Excellant work of encouragement! Thank you Jason.
Thanks be given to God who takes us from triumph to triumph in Jesus. Great article. Many blessings.
Thank you. This article is very inspiring to me. I have those days but i thank Jesus for today. Thank you again. Peace to you.
I am the wife, and I have said the first line, not those exact words, but still the same idea. I hate even saying it or thinking it now I have stopped saying it. Now it is more of an “I give you to God every day, because I can’t ever be sure if you are doing it or not.” It really hurts. The worst is when he asks me if I have been loyal, when I have all these 15 years, and sometimes I wish I could do what he did so he would see how it feels, but fortunately God has not put that is my character. I have stayed loyal and will, because I know the pain it brings to everyone innocent. I thank God I will never know the pain of the one who does this kind of hurting to others, so I will never understand my husbands pain. But I have been praying constantly that God removes all expectations I have of my husband, this way I won’t be hurt if he doesn’t do something I expected and I can learn to rejoice when he does something I didn’t expect from him. But it is very hard to do, and I don’t have it mastered at all. But with God’s help, I will keep getting better at it, and keep forgiving him everyday. But we wives have to rejoice in the days when we don’t think about the pain too, because that is also hard to do, Satan loves to remind us of it.