The Lord’s delight

“Lying lips are abomination to the Lord: but they that
deal truly are his delight” (Proverbs 12:22).

Honesty is an essential part of discipleship because it is an essential part of Godliness. Honesty is an essential part of Godliness because God must be completely trustworthy (not that its in his nature to be anything other than such. Its a simple fact that if God were not trustworthy, he would cease to be God.  Certainly God is not in any danger of losing his status as God--Honesty is who He is.  And its who He wants us to become.

Think about this...what if God did not keep his promises?  What if we could not trust him. What if there was no law "irrevocably decreed in ^bheaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all ^cblessings are predicated" that when "we obtain any ^ablessing from God, it is by ^bobedience to that law upon which it is predicated."  God is just because God is honest and true, and if God somehow failed to be honest, he would fail to be just, and if he failed to be just:

• Alma 42:13

  13 Therefore, according to justice, the plan of redemption could not be brought about, only on conditions of repentance of men in this probationary state, yea, this preparatory state; for except it were for these conditions, mercy could not take effect except it should destroy the work of justice. Now the work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God.
   
  

And if my responsibility is to be like Him, to magnify Him, and to serve in His name, then it is as much my responsibility to be honest...How can my kids trust me if i am not honest and true? How can my wife trust me if I am not honest and true? How can those I serve, those I call to repentance, those I challenge to make changes in their life--how can they trust me if I am not honest?

So the first step to any movement towards God is to be honest with myself and with those around me, and with God.

Here's to being honest.

-AC

How Have I lied about my addiction?

"Without honesty, our lives . . . will degenerate into ugliness and chaos" --Gordon B. Hinckley•

Oooh, honesty time here...I have lied in so many ways about my addiction, how can I even start..

• deleting browser histories
• lying to my wife about time spent online
• downplaying the addiction to priesthood leaders
• downplaying the addiction to myself
• I've lied to myself about what type of behavior constitutes "acting out." 
• I've lied to myself about the easiness of repenting
• I've lied to myself about my ability to "control" myself
• I've lied to myself and about how acting out effects my decision making, my patience, my charity, my desire to love and serve

I know there are so many other ways that I have lied to myself, to others, and to God either directly or indirectly and the chaos it has created has been frustratingly obvious.

When I am preoccupied by sex because of my addiction, I hold my wife to unfair expectations about my sexual needs.

when I lie about my addiction I damage the trust in my relationship with my wife.

When I lie about my addiction I lose the Spirit, lose my priesthood power, loose my authority and credibility with my children.

When I lie about my addiction I feel physically ill, I  feel worthless, and i alternate between hating myself and hating everyone around me and hating hte situation that I'm in and the powerlessness that i feel.

Ugliness is a lack of beauty, a lack of the qualities that induce pleasure, peace, goodwill...ugliness is the opposite of godliness, when I lie, I am damaging my soul, I am weakening my faith, and undermining my efforts to recover.

Chaos is a lack of order, a lack of control and structure, a lack of a plan, a lack of a purpose. God works in beauty and order and lying disrupts both...

"For Zion must increase in beauty, and in holiness; her borders must be enlarged; her stakes must be strengthened; yea, verily I say unto you, Zion must arise and put on her beautiful garments."  D&C 82:14

Part of the beautiful garments of  Zion is honesty--a robe of integrity and truth that can only be worn by those are honest with themselves, others, and God.

"How can your hunger for things of the Spirit help you be more honest?"

When I am honest, I am being obedient to a commandment of God.

When I am obedient to the commandments of God, I am blessed with a portion of God's spirit.

When I am blessed with a portion of God's Spirit, my capacity for obedience increases.

When my capacity for obedience increases, my ability to be honest increases and my communion with the Holy Spirit increases.

So, What are the "things" of the  Flesh?

(Galations 5:19-23) "Now the works of the ^aflesh are manifest, which are these;

Adultery, - infidelity to marriage covenants
fornication, - violations of others chastity as well as my own
uncleanness, - both physical (disease, viruses, etc) and spiritual (unworthy of Spirit)
lasciviousness, - preoccupation with sexual things numbs spiritual sensibilities and ability to appreciate the world,

Idolatry, - worship of objects other than God (drugs, sex, money, power)

witchcraft, - "pharmakia" in the greek, or "sorcery"  hmm...the use of drugs perhaps?

hatred,  - a numb spirit is a hateful spirit

variance, - competition, conention, strife,  again, a numb spirit is a hateful spirit

emulations, - envy

wrath, - cruelty 

strife, - contention, the inability to work together, pride

seditions,  - to speak ill of someone, gossip, etc..

heresies, - to bend and break and twist the gospel to fit ones needs

Envyings,  - see strife and emulations

murders, - sins of the flesh will ultimately lead to murder

drunkenness, - allowing the flesh to control everything leads to addiction 

revellings, - unchecked, unbridled passions

...

that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

And What are the fruits "THINGS) of the Spirit?

But the ^afruit of the ^bSpirit is  

love,  - the spirit will help me feel God's love and others' love as well, and it will help me love others

joy,  - the spirit will help me feel true joy.

peace,  - as I feel the spirit, I will receive the peace that comes with forgiveness and the knowledge that I am, at least in some way, living well enough to have the Holy Ghost with me.

longsuffering,  - the spirit will give me the strength to endure through my addictions

gentleness, - the spirit will help me be softer with my children

goodness, - the spirit will make me a better, kinder, person

faith, - the spirit will give me added faith that I can be forgiven,

Meekness,  - the spirit will help me be humble, teachable, and more willing to follow promptings to avoid acting out

temperance - seeking after the things of the spirit will help me be more temperate, have more control of my physical desires

To hunger and to thirst after things of the spirit is to:

Enjoy the scriptures
Pay attention in church
Read the Ensign
Seek opportunities to serve
Choose wholesome entertainment
sacrifice my "natural man" needs for the needs of others
etc, etc, etc

From Insatiable emptiness to insatiable hunger

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

“And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before
my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and
supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long
did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did
still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens”
(Enos 1:4).

I have felt bot h the emptiness of addiction, shame, and guilt, as well as the hunger associated with humility, faith, and a desire to do good.  

There is something about the relationship between emptiness and hunger. They are NOT the same thing.  Emptiness is a state of dejection, almost an inverse of constipation wherein my soul is blocked off and empty, nothing gets in and nothing gets out.  With emptiness there is no hope, only shame, regret and a sense of compulsive inevitability.  I am feeling it right now.  I haven't done anything terrible, haven't jumped off the wagon at all, but maybe left me feet dangle of the back, my heels dig into the dirt as we go.  The spirit flees and I am empty.  That is perhaps what it means at the heart of it ...to be void of the Spirit, the place in our body and soul that wants to be occupied by the Holy Ghost is not occupied and I feel empty, alone, not abandoned, but the opposite of abandonment--self-inflicted exile.  I have exiled myself from the kingdom of God.

But Hunger, what is hunger?  To hunger and thirst after righteousness.  This is, I imagine, a spiritual version of the hunger an athlete feels after a workout.  The more one works out, the more one needs to eat, the more satisfying a meal is, the better a person feels, and the cycle continues.

The emptiness of addiction is the emptiness of someone who eats poorly and doesn't exercise. They are always full, but never satisfied, they are always consuming and never getting what they need--their diet leaves them empty because what they are consuming contains no nutrition.

The whole point of this first section is to help me be more honest with myself and with others...so how can hungering and thirsting after righteousness help me be more honest?  Well,  I think that has to do with an acknowledgement of what my spiritual diet and exercise regimen does for me--I need to be honest with the Lord about how I am feeling and how my behavior makes me feel and stop listening to the lies that encourage me to continue destructive, compulsive behavior.

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for my weaknesses that help me to be humble.  Thank you for the challenges and opportunities to serve others.  Thank you for your son, Jesus Christ, for his atonement, and for the blessings of mortality, of the opportunity to choose between that which will fill me and cause me to grow, and that which will leave me empty and  spiritually stunted.

My I choose righteousness every time.

-AC

Recognizing my own Helplessness

Mosiah 3:19 For the ^anatural ^bman is an ^cenemy to God, and has been from the ^dfall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he ^eyields to the enticings of the Holy ^fSpirit, and ^gputteth off the ^hnatural man and becometh a ⁱsaint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a ^jchild, ^ksubmissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

 Why is it always children? Jesus said "suffer the little children to come unto me," and he also said, unless we become as a little child, we cannot enter the kingdom of God.  My first inclination is to think of the stress my own children cause me and the lack of rational thinking skills and the sense of entitlement that they often exhibit.  But when I look at a child through God's eyes I see innocence, purity, a desire to serve, a desire to love, a desire to be obedient.  i think most o the problems that my children exhibit are less about who they are internally and more about who i am and how my thirty years of negative behaviors, habits, and hang ups have rubbed off on them. And when i think about that I think the only way to make up for it is to love them and serve them and do my best to apologize along the way.

So, if I am going to become as a child (as god sees them and knows them) and not as  child as I see them and know them, that means I must be

• completely obedient and willing to do whatever he asks,
• curious about the world and what makes it work,
• desirous to learn as much as a I can about the things that matter most,
• willing to sacrifice anything and everything to prepare for the future He has in plan for me.

 A hard lesson for my oldest child to learn is that he needs the experience, wisdom, and knowledge of his parents and that receiving help, guidance, feedback, rebuke, suggestions, or council is not a bad thing....but I think this is a hard lesson for all of us to learn, for me to learn.

Ether 12:27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their ^aweakness. I ^bgive unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my ^cgrace is sufficient for all men that ^dhumble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make ^eweak things become strong unto them.

So addiction is my weakness.   God has certainly shown that to me.  So my job is to be humble, and his grace will be sufficient for me.  I must humbled myself and he can make my addiction an asset.  I'm already seeing this a little bit.  I am in such a better place than I was five years ago. I'm not perfect and I still struggle occasionally with the temptation to view pornography, but I have been sober for a long time and I have recently had the opportunity to help a friend who just came out to his wife about his pornography addiction it has been really hard for both of them.  My addiction, though it is still a weakness is becoming a strength in small ways as I use my own recovery experience to empathize with and support these friends.  

I think that in the way that Alma used his past sins to teach his sons, those of us recovering from pornography addiction, those of us members of the first wave of the internet generations who were unprepared for the challenges of the new world, will have an important, maybe even essential role as the Church moves forward in helping strengthen its priesthood and protect its members from the evils of pornography.

I'm grateful to the Savior Jesus Christ for his atonement, grateful that I can repent and seek his forgiveness, grateful that as I feel the influence of the Holy Ghost that I am sanctified and purified before him, grateful that I can, as  I strengthen myself and become converted, that I can go out and help my brethren.

-AC

Infinite Worth vs. Mortal Nothingness

"Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing i never had supposed" --Moses 1:10

"Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God" --D&C 18:10

How can we be both infinitely valuable to God, but at the same time be nothing?  What did Moses mean when he said the had never supposed that man was nothing?  Certainly it has something to do with the false notion put forth by Korihor that:

"every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime." (Alma 30:17)

At first ring, this line from Korihor sounds right.  We have our agency, we have been put on this earth to use that agency to grow and "manage the creature" inside of us, but the problem with Korihor's philosophy is that it removes God from the picture. We prosper according to our own genius, but where did we get that genius from? We owe everything to God, and are only one small nano-particle in the vast expanse of his creation.

On the other hand, we are created in His image, and we are the crowning of His creations. and his entire work and glory is to

"bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."  

So, on the one hand we are nothing without God, we owe everything to him and would be lost with out him, but on the other hand we are the object of his greatest affection, and his greatest project.  That is encouraging.

I am weak, I struggle, and I fail, but when I rely upon the Lord and trust him, I know that I have an unconquerable force in my corner.

That is really encouraging.

"I Know That Man Is Nothing"

“It came to pass that it was for the space of many hours before Moses did again receive his natural strength like unto man; and he said unto himself: Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed” (Moses 1:10).

How did Moses describe himself as compared to God?

Moses had just seen all of God's creations, and his recognition of the nothingness of man has, I think, so much to do with the 'nothingness' of human cares and concerns.  We see now darkly, as through a glass, preoccupied by the natural man and his "needs" but if we could, as Moses did, see the whole of God's creations, then we would realize that mortality is just a small blip on the long timeline of eternity, and that the things we are concerned with here are completely meaningless.  

So what does this have to do with being honest with myself about a pornography addiction? Well, if I am honest with myself then my addiction is largely about two things. 1) My desire to control something in my life, particularly my desire to control my physical needs.  Its the same reason I don't like someone to tell me what to eat (is it?). And 2) my desire to avoid pain ( or stress or disappointment).


And if I am honest with myself, these are concerns of the natural man, the natural man that Moses has said is "nothing."  So when I am preoccupied by the concerns of the natural man, I am preoccupied with a lie from Satan (Why do we capitalize his name?) that natural man's desires are the most important thing in the world.

So, if I can be humble enough to acknowledge that the natural man tendencies that I am susceptible to are not as important as Satan would have me think, then this is a first step in learning to control my own body.

...Control...


Interesting that in seeking something to control in my life I have instead largely lost control of a portion of myself.

Giving in to addiction

What situations or feelings weakened you so you gave in to your addiction?

Situations
Well this is easy, right now I am at work and the regular sensation is--"Here I sit facing something uncomfortable and challenging, but it would be so easy to click away to something stimulating, something that would let me escape."

When I am alone on a business trip.  The very fact of being in a hotel room is a trigger.  I think I am afraid of being alone, of feeling alone.  Which is ironic because I often stay up late so that I can have some alone time (ironically not typically a time of temptation for me), but when I am alone I don't like the feeling of being alone.  I think part of the reason that being on a business trip or being home alone for long periods of time becomes a trigger is because there is less a concern about getting caught.

And, of course, that is a fact that bugs me to no end, that causes a lot of shame.  If virtue is a measure of our behavior when no one else is looking, then how virtuous am i if the first thing I think about when I'm alone for any stretch is going to look up some pornography? Hmm...

Feelings
I think the feelings that most commonly cause me to fall into temptations are feelings of loneliness and lack of control. Initially it was curiosity.  As a teenager I was fascinated by sex and sexuality and the idea of it all, but that curiosity led me to seek out pornography as a way to feel in control of something.

Sex, is after all, about control.  The best sex is the sex that allows you to completely give up control of yourself and expose yourself emotionally and physically to another person without fear or shame. And if you believe, as I do, that masturbation is a sin, and that having sex with someone who is not into it, or who is simply doing it for you, is worse than not having sex at all, then when it comes down to it, your sex life (my sex life) is entirely in my wife's control.

Because I want to have sex more often than she does, she, by default, controls when we have sex.  She either says yes or no, and that is that.  This puts me in an awkward position because emotionally I connect sex with acceptance, intimacy, and approbation (if she is making love to me, then she approves of me - I'm doing something right. If she is not making love to me, then she disapproves and I must be a failure).  I would like to have sex more often, but I don't want her to do it just to please me - I want her to want me.

Is that co-dependence?  Or is that how its supposed to be? I mean, isn't a man supposed to want to sleep with his wife and vice-versa? And I know that a lot of regular life gets in the way of having the time and emotional space to take an hour to be intimate together, but it seems to me that sex shouldn't be something that one spouse should have to convince the other spouse about.

"Hey, this is really great, you know, trust me, we should try it some time."

Especially when for me, sex is so much about pleasing your partner.  If it were just about orgasm, then it would be a different story, but the mutual act of opening ourselves up to each other is about so much more than that.

So the long and the short is this. I don't feel in control of my own sexual needs.  And pornography is a counterfeit answer to those needs. I don't have to ask anyone. I don't have to wait for someone to be in the mood, or to not be stressed out. I don't have to give back rubs or foot rubs.  I don't have to wonder and worry if she is really enjoying herself or if she's faking. It's counterfeit for sure, but it seems "easier" at the time then engaging in the difficult work of navigating a real intimate relationship.

Of course its not easier, and the more I seek out counterfeit intimacy, the more difficult it is to communicate clearly with my wife about our relationship. That's the definition of a vicious cycle.

I find it terribly embarrassing to feel like I'm in the position of begging for sex.  Even as I write, I can feel rage creeping up inside of me. The idea that women can be so out of touch with what their husbands needs are that a man has to ask over and over again for sex.

Just the phrase "asking for sex" sounds pitiful.

Shouldn't it be something we give willingly, because we love each other?  Shouldn't a husband's sexual needs be as important as anything else in the relationship.

Now, if the husband doesn't know how to meet his wife's sexual needs, that's one thing, but what about husbands who have that figured out (I spend 90% of my time in love-making doing things for her that are designed to help her enjoy herself), and I still feel like I can't ask her for things, can't expect her to do the same for me, like the very act of her being willing to join me in bed should be thanks enough. 

Hence, one big reason for the pornography addiction.

ugh.

Encompassed by temptations

“I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me. “And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted. My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep.“He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh” (2 Nephi 4:18–21).

Do you feel encompassed or trapped? When do you feel this way most often?

Sitting at my computer, trying to get work done, struggling to resist the gnawing compulsion in the back of my mind. That is when I feel most encompassed and trapped.   I discovered a long time ago that I used pornography as a way to avoid pain (or work, or church assignments, or anything else that wasn't "pleasurable"). It was a quick escape, the easy way to forget about the responsibilities I faced.  I have had moments where I've gone to work having made the conscious decision to avoid pornography only to find myself, the moment I sit down at my station, struggling to keep to my conviction. The computer makes it so easy, so anonymous,  so quick.  I am literally encompassed about at work. All I have to do is shut the door to my office and I have access to as much pornography as I want.

It comes in waves though. I can go a week, two weeks, maybe even a few months without feeling much more than an intellectual acknowledgement that an entire world of pornography is just a click away, but then something will happen, some trigger that will remind me of a previous image I'd seen before, or spark some seemingly innocent curiosity, and I will end up spending 10 or 20 minutes looking for ways I can satisfy that curiosity without crossing a line and looking at "actual" pornography.  If I indulge a little, I may spend the entire day back and forth between my work and this "innocent searching."

This is of course, a huge lie, because pornography is pornography regardless of how "serious" it is.  And if I'm looking at it to satisfy some sexual/emotional/chemical need, then the image is pornographic, regardless of the state of undress or the parties present in the image. 

Perhaps this what encompasses me most--this lie that somehow I can live in both worlds successfully, that somehow as long as what I'm viewing is not actually sex, or not actually naked people, that I will be okay.  The ironic thing is that from what I understand of addiction, the dopamine rush and the chemical reaction is charged as much, or more through the anticipation leading up to acting out as the acting out itself, so even if I'm not "going all the way," I'm still maintaining the addiction, feeding it like some virus or infection.  You cannot serve God and mammon for sure, and I cannot kill my addiction if I keep shooting it in the head, but then rushing it to the hospital and hooking up to life support.

It's a little like walking around the liquor store and not buying anything, or on some days, when it gets really bad, its like opening a bottle and taking swig, only to slosh it around my mouth for a moment and spit it out.  Sure, I didn't drink anything, and I may be sober in the strictest sense, but I'm not well.

Step One: Honesty

“Our will in competition to God’s will allows desires,
appetites, and passions to go unbridled (see Alma 38:12;
3 Nephi 12:30).

A list of what is important to me

• My relationship with my wife
• My relationship with my children
• My success at work
• My success as disciple of Christ
• My sucess as a friend to those around me
• My success as a member of my extended family

What I believe

• Jesus Christ is our Savior
• We are all children of God
• Christ will forgive us of our sins
• Women deserve my respect, protection, and admiration
• Sexuality is a private, personal, intimate thing
• Living Worthy of the Gift of the Holy Ghost is essential to my personal, professional, and spiritual success.

What I Lose by indulging in pornography

• I lose a sense of intimacy with my wife
• I lose the peaceful, strengthening, reassuring support of the Holy Ghost
• I lose my credibility as a father, as a disciple, as a leader.
• I lose my ability to choose.
• I lose my ability to focus on work, or on my relationships with my children and my wife.

As I become more willing to abstain and admit the problems I face, my pride will gradually be replaced with humility.