Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 5, 2021 3:15:46 GMT -7
your a funny guy, haha
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javajake
Silver Member
Posts: 382
Occupation: retired
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Post by javajake on Mar 6, 2021 10:49:06 GMT -7
Had 3 chihuahuas. They all dead now. Last one passed in May of 2019. He was close to 17 years old. So yeah they are like part of the family but I kind of like not having any animals at the moment. We had the parrots in the past also. I have an older house we bought about 27 years ago as is. And boy was it as is. Had plumbing issues down the line. Plumber would have to blow out sewer lines from time to time. Finally got to the point where it collasped. He wanted $3000 to replace it! Did not have that kind of money. So I rented a jackhammer and a friend of mine from work with by son went at it real quick. It was buried under the cemented basement floor. We needed a fix fast cause we couldn't flush the toilet anymore without serious backup. But by the grace of God we got it tore up to the point of the collaspe and put in a quick fix to get things flowing again. Finished up the rest after awhile. I can see why they charge so much! So I feel ya Kevin!
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KevinesKay
Administrator
Posts: 1,744
Occupation: Balloon Artist
Interests: weight lifting, singing, playing the guitar
Days of Integrity: 1 year
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Post by KevinesKay on Mar 7, 2021 8:29:06 GMT -7
Yesterday, I had the most challenging time keeping custody of my eyes and mind. I failed a few times. But God has been with me the whole time. And I spent significant time with him asking for his help; praying and listening to His Word while working.
No, I'll never beat this, but God never expected me to.
I can never defeat a fleshly temptation using fleshly weapons. God is bigger than all of this. I need His help. Despite all that I know, there comes a time that I need to put my weapons down and come to Him.
I think I'm in better clarity today. Today is the most important day. I cannot do anything about yesterday and I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I cannot think of tomorrow, next week, next year. Doing so is pride for me. Today will have enough trouble of it's own.
God, I need you. Help me to stay clear of temptation and sin. I welcome you to take your place in my life as my master. And you are a good master. Thank you. Amen
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javajake
Silver Member
Posts: 382
Occupation: retired
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Post by javajake on Mar 7, 2021 8:53:29 GMT -7
Yesterday, I had the most challenging time keeping custody of my eyes and mind. I failed a few times. But God has been with me the whole time. And I spent significant time with him asking for his help; praying and listening to His Word while working. No, I'll never beat this, but God never expected me to. I can never defeat a fleshly temptation using fleshly weapons. God is bigger than all of this. I need His help. Despite all that I know, there comes a time that I need to put my weapons down and come to Him. I think I'm in better clarity today. Today is the most important day. I cannot do anything about yesterday and I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I cannot think of tomorrow, next week, next year. Doing so is pride for me. Today will have enough trouble of it's own. God, I need you. Help me to stay clear of temptation and sin. I welcome you to take your place in my life as my master. And you are a good master. Thank you. Amen This right here!! Thanks for sharing Kevin. You are not alone.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2021 23:21:45 GMT -7
I read this as: "For future dogs, get muriatic acid. You can find it at a plumber supply store." Lols I thought 'wow, that seems extreme, but okay maybe she's onto something...!" Hahaha! Man you sound like Don when he is talking about cats! So few cats and so many recipes...his favorite saying about cats. Hahaha!
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KevinesKay
Administrator
Posts: 1,744
Occupation: Balloon Artist
Interests: weight lifting, singing, playing the guitar
Days of Integrity: 1 year
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Post by KevinesKay on Mar 8, 2021 7:09:38 GMT -7
And so I entertained a sex fantasy last night.
Lord, I repent. I know that this is sin. And it hurts you and it hurts myself and it hurts all of my relationships. I do not want to open up the channels in my brain that lead me straight to adultery. I want to live in freedom. Purify my heart, my eyes, my mind, Lord. The desire to sin is still in me. I need you. I confess my sin and receive your forgiveness. I am washed clean because of your son, Jesus, and what He did on the cross for me. Thank you, Jesus. Because of you, I do not have to walk in condemnation. I have a new master; one that loves me and lays down His life for me. It is only reasonable that I lay down my life in return by offering my body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to you.
Strip me of my pride. May I walk in humility. Yet not in condemnation. For there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Amen
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Post by Will on Mar 8, 2021 7:16:53 GMT -7
Yesterday, I had the most challenging time keeping custody of my eyes and mind. I failed a few times. But God has been with me the whole time. And I spent significant time with him asking for his help; praying and listening to His Word while working. No, I'll never beat this, but God never expected me to. I can never defeat a fleshly temptation using fleshly weapons. God is bigger than all of this. I need His help. Despite all that I know, there comes a time that I need to put my weapons down and come to Him. I think I'm in better clarity today. Today is the most important day. I cannot do anything about yesterday and I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I cannot think of tomorrow, next week, next year. Doing so is pride for me. Today will have enough trouble of it's own. God, I need you. Help me to stay clear of temptation and sin. I welcome you to take your place in my life as my master. And you are a good master. Thank you. Amen This right here!! Thanks for sharing Kevin. You are not alone. Yeah agreed. One of the best things I ever did in this struggle was say to God: 'Lord, I CAN'T beat this addiction. Sorry, can't do it. Nope. If you want me to be clean from porn, you're going to have to do it. Sorry!'
And He did!!
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KevinesKay
Administrator
Posts: 1,744
Occupation: Balloon Artist
Interests: weight lifting, singing, playing the guitar
Days of Integrity: 1 year
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Post by KevinesKay on Mar 10, 2021 0:20:18 GMT -7
I've not been perfect. I entertained more fantasies yesterday and was oggling a fair amount of women. I don't remember about today. But my mind and eyes often go on automatic. I lust without thinking. When I check out a woman, I go from 0 to sex in less than a split second. However, God has really stepped in to show me to error of this pattern that I've practiced for all of my life. I'm seeing more that this pursuit of adultery will only lead to a dead end. I've been wrong to try use women as a means to obtain validation. It's been a mistake. For much of my life, I've showed no restraint when it came to keeping custody of my eyes and mind. Since no one will ever know, looking and thinking will never hurt. But it does. RU Principle # 2: Every sin has its origin in our hearts. In other words, I think it before I do it. And then the thought turns to lust, and then to porn and masturbation. RU Principle # Small compromises lead to great disasters (otherwise known as little sins lead to big sins). And then the porn leads to actual adultery. Fantasy, masturbation, pornography are all building block behaviors. They all frustrate my desire to commit adultery. I see it for what it is, desiring something that I cannot have. It feels pleasurable for a brief moment. But in reality, it leaves me empty in the end. And yet, I still need God because I cannot say, "No." Sometimes, I cannot resist. My flesh wants to do what my flesh wants to do. I have no self control. But God is bigger than all of this. He can do the impossible. He makes the impossible, possible. Never give up, ... never. This journey of recovery is totally worth it. Having a small moment of clarity at times is worth the journey no matter how long it takes. For me, the journey has taken over 30 years. I'm a slow learner. I just focus on today. I'm not giving myself the thought of what might happen tomorrow. I'm not going to worry if I'll lose clarity and go act out tomorrow. I'm not giving myself permission to think about that. I wasn't sure about posting this video, but Alexander Grace gave a really good description of what's been going on with my eyes. This definitely describes my behavior to a "T"
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Post by Will on Mar 10, 2021 4:49:42 GMT -7
I've not been perfect. I entertained more fantasies yesterday and was oggling a fair amount of women. I don't remember about today. But my mind and eyes often go on automatic. I lust without thinking. When I check out a woman, I go from 0 to sex in less than a split second.
Yep me too. My thing is that I know I can't stop my eyes going 'there' automatically. It still happens from time to time, and there's nothing I can do about it because my eyes are on a woman before having a chance to think about it. But this is a split second thing. Then when my brain catches up I can and do look away. The work for me is to not look back, to not look consciously.
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KevinesKay
Administrator
Posts: 1,744
Occupation: Balloon Artist
Interests: weight lifting, singing, playing the guitar
Days of Integrity: 1 year
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Post by KevinesKay on Mar 12, 2021 21:26:51 GMT -7
When I got arrested in 2004 for soliciting an undercover cop, I had already been through a ton of stuff.
My marriage with my ex lasted only a few years before I bailed out. I was in SAA then. I was a member for 5+ years, going to several meetings a week, and I was still relapsing. The continued acting out crushed my wife. It was pain. And I just left. Horrible. But as I look back on it, I became super happy. That was around 1998.
It was then I dropped out of SAA and started to work on myself by exercising and eating right. I stopped going to church. And I picked up a seduction manual and used it to pick up women in the bar scene. And I started to see some "success". I thought that I was making progress. I thought I was replacing my acting out with "true" intimacy. I had a few girlfriends. The first one didn't last long. She broke it off with me after a few months. Another was with a Slovakian women that lasted a some years. We even maintained a long distance relationship for over two years. I visited her twice each winter. I fell for her. We even got engaged, but she grew tired of my lack of initiative to get us permanently together and she left me for another man.
That was hard for me. All this time, I was still doing porn and picking up streetwalkers. This was the time I got arrested. I've shared the next part before. But sitting in the cell overnight was a bottom for me. I recognized that if I continued believing sex was a need, I was going to continue to do destructive things to go about getting what I felt I needed.
I started going to an SLAA meeting in 2004. And I also started going back to church. It was a great year. And 2005 was even better. Because I was truly learning to surrender this desire over to God. Later that year, I felt the desire to stop MB altogether; something that was impossible throughout my life. And it was crazy hard. I was finally able to ask God what women really wanted without expecting sex to be part of the answer. God was able to offer me clarification about how I perceived women and how that was different from reality. Things regarding women regarding their emotional world and their desire for love were completely foreign to me. I was so caught up in my own world of sex that I never thought others around me saw things any differently. It was like stepping out of "The Matrix". I had my first "red pill" experience then. Things made sense that baffled me before.
Because of this awareness and ability to see women for who they are, not for what I wanted them to be, my interactions with them automatically changed. And I instantly became more attractive to them. I met my wife and married her in 2006. I made a lot of life changes that year to accommodate the new marriage and family. I became a husband, a father to two step sons, I changed jobs, I dropped out of my 12-step group, I moved all in that same year. I thought I would be okay. But that was my pride talking. I did not respect the power that my flesh's desire to fornicate had over me. When we hooked up cable to our new home, it wasn't long before I snuck in pornographic photos on the computer. I did what I never thought I would do. I reverted back to "blue pill" behaviors. Pornography encourages a "blue pill" mindset. I was overconfident. That was another dark time for me. The last good moment that I had was when I became involved with Blazing Grace in 2010. That was a good moment. Other than that, most of my life has tragically been characterized by pain; pain from my pursuit of adultery and fornication.
But whar I'm experiencing now happens to be a good moment. God is being faithful providing me the strength to exercise or custody of my eyes and mind than ever before. The word says that he does lead me into the paths of righteousness for his name's sake (not my own). And with the righteousness, comes gifts; gifts that I don't deserve. I'm actually having another "red pill" experience.
There is actually a red pill movement that people can view on Reddit. However, most of the members are simply trying to use emotional tactics to try to seduce women to have sex with them as opposed to really trying to understand a woman's emotional point of view and behavior. Still, I've been taking in a lot in a very short time.
I realize more than ever before how my pursuit of fornication, adultery, pornography, lust, fantasy all leads to a dead end. I should have never envied those players that get all the girls. Their lives are meaningless. I should have never put so much energy and time trying to get my validation from women via sex.
And I should never put my trust in anything else other than the Lord who gives good gifts to those who seek him. My trust needs to be in the Lord, not in knowledge or any other gift that comes from him.
I'm loving this period of sanctification. I don't want to give this up. Yet, I know that any exposure to pornography, or giving into looks of lust, or fantasizing will reopen those channels in my brain that have been overstimulated by my addiction. So I'm not cured. My flesh is here with me. And my flesh wants to do what my flesh wants to do. Just got to keep walking in the spirit. Staying close to the master, the Good Shepherd. Only then, can I avoid gratifying my flesh. Thus, I have no flashlight weapon or world in knowledge that I can guarantee anyone to step out of this sin. I can only point to the one who has a solution. That one is God in the form of Jesus Christ. Without him, I can do nothing.
Last year, I white knuckled it. I white knuckled for almost 300 days. That's so nuts! In other words, I was fantasizing and lusting after woman everyday all day every hour while trying to hold on by not viewing pornography. It was exhausting. If I had spent half that time drawing near to Jesus as I did fighting off the urges to act out, I'd probably be in a much better place.
But when I finally gave in to my urges and acted out, the Holy Spirit miraculously lifted me back up even though I didn't want to. That's how I know I'm saved. Because God did not let the enemy snatch me out of his hand. God still wants to complete the work that he started in me.
For now, I've stopped white knuckling. Yep. I haven't white knuckled in over a month. It's a good time for me. And I have a feeling that God is going to bring me far more blessings than I have ever imagined. Looking back, I can see why this process has taken so long. I started acting out via lust at age 3. Who does that? How can a 3 year old kid be doing this? What 3-year-old kid has the filters set up in his brain to say no? And this has heavily impacted my life. This has negatively impacted my ability to connect with others socially and emotionally. How was I supposed to know the cost of acting out sexually? This is all I've ever known.
Free porn on the internet is not really free. There is a cost. Never give up. Ever. Even if it takes 10, 20, 30, 50 years to come out. It's worth it. It's totally worth it. It's moments like these that make it worthwhile. Praise God. May bless all of you as well.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2021 21:58:13 GMT -7
Amen, brother, without Jesus aka God we can't do anything.
Lord, please help us to draw near to you every day surrendering ourselves over to you, we give up our desires and consider the old man dead according to Your Word, please lead us and help us to walk in the Spirit to produce the fruits of the spirit and that will make you happy Lord, please help my brother and use him to bring others to know you Jesus, please help him and help us, please protect us from evil, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
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Post by Will on Mar 12, 2021 22:29:45 GMT -7
But when I finally gave in to my urges and acted out, the Holy Spirit miraculously lifted me back up even though I didn't want to. That's how I know I'm saved. Because God did not let the enemy snatch me out of his hand. God still wants to complete the work that he started in me.
Praise God for His grace! Totally recognise this! It's like, 'huh? God don't you know I just screwed up and sinned against you?' And God says 'Yep, and I love you anyway: now at last you're relating to me honestly, humbly and dependently and understanding that my love for you doesn't depend on how well you behave, it depends on how good God is'.
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KevinesKay
Administrator
Posts: 1,744
Occupation: Balloon Artist
Interests: weight lifting, singing, playing the guitar
Days of Integrity: 1 year
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Post by KevinesKay on Mar 13, 2021 6:46:56 GMT -7
I entertained a sex fantasy this morning. It didn't last long before I stopped.
I need you, Lord. I always will. Thank you for encouraging me to strip myself of my pride. I confess my sin before you and ask for your help. I cannot do this alone. I never could and I never will. Thank you for what you did on the cross to purge my sin. I know that I'm forgiven. And I will dwell in your house forever.
Amen.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2021 7:22:58 GMT -7
I entertained a sex fantasy this morning. It didn't last long before I stopped. I need you, Lord. I always will. Thank you for encouraging me to strip myself of my pride. I confess my sin before you and ask for your help. I cannot do this alone. I never could and I never will. Thank you for what you did on the cross to purge my sin. I know that I'm forgiven. And I will dwell in your house forever. Amen. This is a huge breakthrough! Every time you stop, you get stronger and you learn to turn to the Lord for that strength. Praise God!
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KevinesKay
Administrator
Posts: 1,744
Occupation: Balloon Artist
Interests: weight lifting, singing, playing the guitar
Days of Integrity: 1 year
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Post by KevinesKay on Mar 13, 2021 11:04:09 GMT -7
Well thank you, amymine712. I am really appreciating this process of sanctification. Although I'm not perfect and today with all of the women out on this lovely day, it's easy to lose control. But God is bigger than all of this. His rod comforts me.
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