“The Internet is filled with booby traps”
Changed by Jesus #49
By Raynon, Ballard campus
One of my oldest memories is the day my mother first told me the story of Jesus, and asked if I would like him to come into my heart. I trusted her, and I accepted what she told me as true. My early life was filled with church, in some form or another, but as I got a bit older we didn’t go to church as much.
I’ve always been a pretty dedicated gamer, and as such spent a lot of time on the Internet playing online games. Of course, the Internet is filled with booby traps, and along came pornography. Enough accidental images (advertising, etc.) led to what would become an almost decade-long addiction to pornography.
I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop. I would just throw out a prayer afterward and try my best not to do it again. It got so bad that there were times where I would pray for forgiveness, go to bed, wake up from a deep sleep, walk to my computer, and watch more pornography.
How wicked I was. It would have been so fair for God to drop the Hammer of Thor right atop my head. But for some reason which I will never completely understand this side of heaven, God continued to pursue me.
A few years ago I was perhaps at my absolute worst. I was still locked in my addiction, and I was in a “relationship” which entailed a lot of sexual activity. In the back of my mind I still had all these memories of church, and I knew the life I was living was unacceptable. And I was so powerless to stop myself. It literally took what was perhaps the deepest emotional pain I have ever felt, via an extreme case of betrayal within my family, to wake me up from my nightmare.
I cried so hard. At that point I finally realized how rotten I had become on the inside. A strange memory came upon me from high school when my Jewish teacher asked our class to make a list of important historical figures to do a project on. For some reason, I chose to study Jesus. That memory prompted me to re-investigate the claims of Christ.
I prayed all over again for God to seize control over me. And by the grace of God alone, I have been walking with him ever since. He has showed me so much of the sin in my life–sin I wasn’t even aware of. What a mess I left for him to clean up!
But he has been so patient with me. Even as I write this there is so much he is working on. And he has used the powerful teaching of Mars Hill to relinquish my longstanding addiction to pornography.
This is the abridged version of the goodness of God in my life.
Porn Again Christian
