I was raised in the Church and made in what was in my mind, a highly logical decision to accept Christ at the age of seven. My line of reasoning was that Jesus loved me and I didn't want to go to hell so it wasn't even a choice really. For a while, I was carried along on the coat tails of my parent's faith. At around 13 I discovered a lot of things all at once and became enslaved to lust and masturbation and shortly after that pornography. I'll keep the details light here, but I can remember going to God again and again and praying and saying, I know you don't want me to do this, please take this sin from me. But I didn't want Christ to lead me, I just wanted to do the right things to please God. I wanted to be good enough for God. God did not answer that prayer, in fact I felt nothing from God and started to question if I were just praying to myself and trying so hard to hear an answer that I was sometimes answering myself.
Eventually, I stopped praying altogether and did what I thought was right in my own sight. That meant that I gave in to what was an addiction. I also made friends with some guys who were also directionless and started smoking pot and generally doing stuff I wasn't supposed to be doing. Eventually the friends stayed behind, but the addiction stayed with me. It ended up being over a decade of a habit that was so destructive I truly believe it stunted my personal growth. I didn't have to go anywhere to seek what I wanted because it was immediately accessible at home. I didn't feel the need to pursue girls and I had no reason to assess the direction of my life because I could bury my head and self-medicate so effectively. And for the most part, I felt no guilt over what was going on. It wasn't until after college that the issues which were being created started to pop up. I had never had a girlfriend, had never been kissed at that point and I couldn't ignore it anymore. I was in an agnostic state of mind. I started to fight against my addictions because I realized that they were bad for me. At this point, you could have said that I was addicted to the computer in general as well and I can't refute that. At this point, I decided to turn to Christ. Even though I had been flirting towards atheism I could not deny the existence of a creator. The problem was, I had turn to God to help me out of my sin when I was younger and then a week or two weeks later I was back at it. I had doubts about whether I was having a religious experience or was just fooling myself. Eventually though I had turned back to God I fell back into pornography. In my mind, it was like "Oh well, I guess I was just fooling myself again." But this time it was different. I had needed God and new it. I could not deny God.
So I started doing what I wanted, but this time I had a viewpoint that it wasn't that God did not exist or was not sovereign, just that I was not doing right. That everything did exist as the bible laid it out, but I was unable to comply and I was just accepting that. The need for companionship was still eating at me, and to make a long story a bit shorter, I ended up on dating websites. While I was in that mode I heard "You know if you would just deny God you could have a girlfriend and regular sex and you'll get to do those things that you always wanted to do." Immediately I was reminded of when Job's wife told Job "Just curse God and die." I knew it was the devil. I didn't even read my bible or pray at that time but still understood that I was under spiritual attack and didn't know why, after all, I was no threat.
Fast forward a bit. I wanted to lose my virginity, but I realized that I'd probably be better off doing that in a relationship, with someone who was willing to take the time and boiled it down to the fact that, actually what would probably be best for me would be to find a girlfriend who was a virgin. As I looked I came across this woman's profile who was a virgin, but also she was Godly and modest and good looking to boot. God used that to crush me. I can't explain it, but it made me sob. I was clearly not being what I was called to be. I was lonely and jaded and was keeping God at bay because I thought that there was no hope for me to be fulfilled in that way through God and yet I was looking at the evidence. In my brokenness, I brought it to God. I told God that clearly, I was unable to run my life the way it needed to be. That I had no idea what I needed. I asked Jesus to be Lord and to lead. On top of that, I desperately wanted to make sure that both God and I knew that I wasn't doing this because of women. I needed God and I needed him badly. I prayed in the corner of the warehouse at work the next morning, seeking God and telling him that It was him that I wanted. He asked me to delete my dating accounts and so I did. That act of obedience was sort of like a consummation for me. At that point, I was 27 and had been addicted to pornography and masturbation for 14 years. God freed me of that. Yes, I have stumbled, but it's nothing like it was. God clearly began a work in me and liberated me and he deserves all glory. Let my testimony stand as an account of his Glory.
What's your struggle right now?
. But they tell me that's not good for a body. 
