Imagine, if you will, you are driving down a five-lane interstate in 5 p.m. rush hour traffic. You happen to be traveling in the center lane with cars and trucks in front of you, beside you, behind you. Since it is rush hour, the momentum of all the vehicles is about 85 mph. You begin to notice your exit ramp is rapidly approaching, so you start attempting to navigate your vehicle toward the far right lane. You activate your blinker to signal your intentions to the vehicles in the lane beside you and behind you. To no avail, the vehicles ignore you and do not yield an inch. Your exit ramp is getting closer. You continue to try and maneuver into the lanes to your right. Still no cooperation from the heavy, speeding traffic. Your exit ramp is getting even closer...closer...closer...gone! You've missed your exit and now you'll have to take the long way home. The ensnaring drive of sexual temptation has a lot of similarities with the preceding illustration. For instance, the sexual addict can be heading in the right direction in life and all of a sudden find ourselves trapped in the unyielding velocity of sexually immoral compulsions. We know we need to "exit" those temptations, but find ourselves completely powerless to the driving force. We make some vain attempts to get on another path but find ourselves dragged away down a road we really did not want to travel. For me, and many others, that road led to prison and the long way home. Now, envision yourself once again on that same interstate during 5 p.m. rush hour traffic. You are once again trapped in the center lane as traffic fails to yield to your attempts at navigating toward the far right lane. Your exit ramp is getting closer. Except this time, out of nowhere, the center lane in which you are traveling miraculously transforms into an exit ramp, and you are able to escape the velocity of traffic to arrive safely home. Wow! Wouldn't that be great? That is exactly what God promises to do when it comes to escaping the besetting sin of sexual addiction. When He says He will "...show you a way out..." [the KJV says He will "...make a way of escape..."], it means He will make an "exit ramp" for you so the temptation will not be too strong for you to resist. Yes, before you become defeated by the compulsory power of your "sin nature" and its sexually immoral urges, God will make an "exit ramp" for the Christian to take as a path of escape. I am persuaded to believe that the "exit ramp" God most commonly makes available to the Christian who struggles with compulsive sexual behavior is the "exit ramp" of transparent honesty and accountability. Let me give you a personal example of what I am talking about. As I mentioned in a previous chapter of this book, I had become addicted to Internet pornography. Even as a Christian, I had allowed myself to give in to the lure of Internet porn and could not seem to escape the dominion it had on my mind. Well, a couple of weeks before I found myself in trouble with the law for accessing images of females under eighteen years old, God had offered me an "exit ramp" via transparent honesty. I did not see it as that at the time, but now that I look back I can recognize it for what it was. Alone at the radio station where I was employed, I sat in front of a computer viewing pornographic websites. My cell phone rang and I noticed that the caller identification indicated that the person calling was a Christian friend. I answered the phone and we began conversing. My Christian friend had no idea that I was having any kind of problem with pornography. In fact, my friend had no idea I even looked at pornography at all. However, after we had been talking for a few minutes my friend said, "John, you sound different today. Are you looking at Internet pornography?" I could not believe what my friend had just asked me! It startled me so much that I turned to look around the room as if someone was watching me. However, by placing it on my friend's heart to ask me such a question, God was providing me an "exit ramp" of transparent honesty that I could use to escape the power that Internet porn had gotten on my mind. All I had to do at that moment was honestly answer my Christian friend's question by saying, "Yes, I am looking at Internet pornography and it has gained control of my mind." Had I said those words, I have no doubt that my transparent confession of sin would have made a way for the power of God's Holy Spirit to begin enabling me in resisting going any further into the downward spiral on which I found myself plunging. I wish I had taken that "exit ramp" of transparent honesty, but I did not. Instead, I was ashamed and afraid of losing my friend's respect so I hid my struggle and ended up in jail two weeks later. By the way, I have since told my Christian friend about what I was doing that day when my cell phone rang. My friend has assured me that there would not have been any lost respect had I been transparently honest. In fact, my friend tells me that my honesty would ultimately have increased their respect for me because of the courage and humility it takes to admit such a struggle.
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