“I’m losing my faith over this stupid struggle with porn! I’ve asked God for help, I’ve promised Him a thousand times that I would stop, and a week later, I fall again. What’s wrong with me?”
Maybe you can relate to Veronica’s anguish and wonder how you can overcome a pornography addiction. For most women, a struggle with pornography doesn’t simply disappear through a promise, a prayer, or getting married. In reality, no sin struggle usually does. Can any woman honestly say that she hasn’t gossiped or had thoughts of envy in the past year?
Yet, people expect a struggle with pornography to be different from an ongoing battle with pride, overeating, or anger. There appears to be few places inviting women to the journey of sexual freedom. Rather, there is a blanket expectation that you should simply no longer struggle.
The New Testament tells us that when we are in Christ, we have become new creations. The old has passed away and all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17). Yet, behaving like that new creation is a process in every area of life, including in sexual integrity.
The Christian life is not simply an immediate transformational encounter, but a lifelong journey of surrender and becoming more like Christ. While this is true for every area of your life, let’s apply it specifically to your struggle with pornography. What does it practically look like for you to surrender your sexuality to the Lordship of Jesus Christ?
Surrender your privacy
The greatest roadblock to sexual freedom is often hanging onto our privacy. You may think, but I’ve prayed so many times that God would take this struggle away! Yes, it’s critical that we get honest with God, but that’s not enough. Confession and repentance are not just between you and God, but also require sharing with another person.
Why is it that we know about David’s adultery, Saul’s pride, Peter’s racism, and Leah’s jealousy? I don’t believe this is just so that we can learn from them, but also because there is no true change without bringing our struggles into the light. James wrote, “Confess your sins one to another” (James 5:16). This is part of our healing.
You may be perfectly willing to confess your sin to the Lord, but the thought of telling a friend that you looked at porn this morning is terrifying. God created us to need community. Honesty with God is born out by our willingness to be honest with trusted friends.
I know one woman who was so determined to figure out how to overcome her pornography addiction that she took off the door to her bedroom. A college student at the time, she lived in a house with other women and knew that she needed that level of accountability.
Unfortunately, most of us want to battle sin privately, protecting ourselves from being known or exposed. Sharing your struggle with your husband, your small group, your counselor, or your mentor is part of your freedom journey. Once you share, Satan can no longer taunt you about what they might think about you if they knew. Instead, you’re able to experience the love, kindness, and support of people who are likely to respond, “Me too. I struggle with an ongoing battle with sin in my own heart!”
Surrender your past
Although porn feels like a here and now problem, it’s rooted in your past. Some Christians think God wants us to just move forward and leave the past in the past. After all, the “old is gone and the new has come,” and didn’t Paul write, “Forgetting what lies behind, I press toward what lies ahead”(Philippians 3:12-14)? This is the same Paul who frequently referenced his own past as he explained his journey of total surrender to the Lord. (See 1 Timothy 1:12-15, Philippians 3:4-16, and Romans 7:7-25 as examples.)
What I’ve learned from decades of ministry is this: When we come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, there are still parts of our lives and hearts that remain “mortgaged” to sin and fear. God, through Jesus, has given us total freedom, but our freedom involves an ongoing process of identifying and surrendering aspects of ourselves that are broken and still in bondage.
In his best-selling book, Unwanted, Jay Stringer explains how our past wounds play into our current struggles with unwanted sexual sin. Pornography, masturbation, and other sexual outlets can become ways we have learned to comfort ourselves or tried to gain mastery over painful past experiences.
Jesus is not only Lord of your today. You may also need to invite Him to be Lord of your yesterday. Where was He the first time you were introduced to porn? Where was He when you were date-raped at 15? Although these are scary questions, God can handle them. How can you overcome a pornography addiction? Sometimes, to walk forward, we must be willing to look at the ways the chords of the past have shackled and paralyzed our faith.
Surrender your identity
Most modern teaching on the New Testament focuses on passages that tell us how to live. In other words, how should our behavior differ because we are Christians? One obvious Bible answer is that our lives are supposed to be free from sexual immorality. What we often fail to recognize is that the power of new behavior stems from a new identity. We do differently because we are different.
What I’ve learned over years of discipling women in sexuality is this: We often try to change behavior while our identity stays untouched. Here’s an example.
Tina lost her virginity when she was 14 in an encounter with a neighbor. What began as adolescent curiosity ended in nakedness and shame. Humiliated and confused, Tina never told anyone about what happened. Instead, she began searching the internet for information about sex. Within a month, she was addicted to porn, chat rooms, and masturbation.
Throughout high school and college, she had a few other sexual encounters, experimenting with both men and women. Her senior year of college, Tina heard about the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ. Longing for freedom from her shame and unworthiness, she gave her life to Jesus and began attending church.
A quick learner, Tina picked up a few wrong ideas from her new community: Christians are not supposed to have sexual problems, and to sin sexually is worse than any other kind of sin. Unfortunately, Tina’s desire to look at porn didn’t go away like she thought it would. And so she hid, confused about why she didn’t seem to have the same new life in Christ that everyone else talked about. When Tina married Todd, she couldn’t even tell him about her struggle. That’s why she plays the part of a Christian wife, imitating the actions and behaviors of her friends.
Tina’s biggest problem is not that she still masturbates or looks at porn. Those are symptoms of a larger problem. At 14, Tina not only became sexually active, but she began to believe lies about her worth, her beauty, and her femininity.
At some level, all sexual struggles are a battle for identity. Satan uses our sin and desires, past and present, to cast unconscious doubt on the finished work of Jesus Christ. Underneath the sexual struggle are lies such as:
- God forgives some sin, but what I’ve done is too massive.
- God forgives me enough to let me into heaven, but while I’m here on earth, I need to continually live in the shadow of my guilt.
- I am unlovable and used goods. I need to project a facade of perfection or people will reject me.
Genuine transformation happens when we allow these fears and lies to surface. A man asked Jesus, “What should we do to do the work God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the One he sent” (John 6:28-29).
Our greatest problem is not our behavior but what we fail to believe. To the extent that our identity is still anchored in lies (and lies can feel truer than the truth!), we will fight a losing battle with our behavior. There are many Christians (and I have certainly been among them) who can share the Gospel with others but fail to apply its transformational truth to the hidden places in our hearts.
Surrender your thinking
I’m sure you’ve read and heard preaching on Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” It turns out that this verse has some brain biology to back it up. Your experiences and thought patterns are stored neurologically in your brain.
Think of your brain like a series of hiking trails. The ones that are walked on every day are easier to find. The constant use clears the brush and reinforces the path. A hiking trail that has been abandoned for years may have so much growth around it that you can’t find it anymore.
In the mental health field, we often use the phrase, “What fires together, wires together.” If you’ve looked at porn and masturbated to those types of images and fantasies for years, your brain will naturally go there even when you attempt to be intimate with your spouse.
God’s transformational work in your life will include the hard work of surrendering your thought life. Here are a few practical ways to do this:
Pray about your sex life
Do you know that God doesn’t leave the room when you look at porn? He knows you intimately. Ask Him daily to help you learn how to overcome your pornography addiction.
Get God’s perspective on sex
During periods of struggle in my life, I’ve needed to be very intentional about retraining my thinking so it’s based on truth. Go through a Bible study, listen to a podcast, and read Christian books that will help you understand the truth about sexuality and sexual freedom.
Consider a sexual fast
Some research indicates that abstaining from all sexual expression for one to three months can give the brain time to heal and prepare to rewire. Imagine allowing weeds to grow over those pathways that have been reinforced through pornography. At the same time, spend time learning about true intimacy so that when you and your husband begin to reengage sexually, you are forming new “hiking trails” that focus on being present with one another.
Friend, God could snap a finger and take away your struggle with porn in the blink of an eye. I’m sure you wish He would do that, but that is often not His way. Instead, He invites us on a long journey of surrender. While a journey is far more arduous than being instantly transported, it also provides the opportunity for intimacy. Your road to freedom is not just about finding victory over sin, but also learning about the love and mercy of Jesus in the process.
In 2012, God called me to start a ministry that talks exclusively about sex, primarily for Christian women. Our heart at Authentic Intimacy is to help you put into practice what you’ve read here through our podcast, online book studies, and other resources. You don’t have to journey alone!
