Ignorance will Kill You !

lone-traveler · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:29 pm Post subject:

bumbs?..
BUMPS..
I can spell I can..it's not my fault.. Sad

VikingMan44 · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:37 pm Post subject:

VikingMan44 · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 12:42 pm Post subject:

May I ask the significance of your handle?

MoJo · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 1:43 pm Post subject:

Hi Viking. Welcome to the board.

Good post.

Very Happy

VikingMan44 · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 1:47 pm Post subject:

lone-traveler · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 2:09 pm Post subject:

VikingMan44 · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 2:19 pm Post subject:

Here's another way I think this issue can be seen. Take the parable of the prodigal son.

When he finally comes to his senses and goes home, does he have to do anything for his father to put the robe on his back, the ring on his finger, and throw a feast for him? Absolutely not. Just showing up is enough. But that's not the end of the story. Let's carry the story forward. What will the father's response be if/when the prodigal son, a couple years down the road is abusing the father's servants, starting fights with his brother, stealing from his father, being lazy and not contributing, sleeping with the servants? What will he do? Well, he'll obviously talk to his son and impore him to change when he first hears about these various "sins". Right? Well, what if the prodigal son does not change? What if time after time the father goes to him and says to him, "listen, you cannot go on treating my other servants in this way". If the son continues to do this, the father will have no choice but to throw him out because in addition to his responsability to his son, he has a responsability to everyone else and his son has forced him to choose. And here's the key, WHY does he do this? Because he knows that the world is not a nice place, and his son will hopefully reach bottom like he did before and be brought to repentance. He is too comfortable living under the father's roof to have any impetus to change.

Now, where is that point? The point where the father says enough is enough? No idea. But, I can tell you with certainty that I work with men who it has happened to. So we kid ourselves if we think the father's grace is unending in the face of willful sin.

Willful, deliberate sin past the point of knowledge will get us into trouble. If we yet continue regardless, I think we jeopardize our very salvation.

VikingMan44 · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 2:39 pm Post subject:

Lone:

So you know I've got to ask. Are you a Christian? Have YOU trusted Jesus as your Lord? Do you believe he is who he said he was?

lone-traveler · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 4:51 pm Post subject:

Jhn 20:31 But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.

Rev 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, [which is] new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and [I will write upon him] my new name.

Act 11:26 And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

So you know I've got to ask.
Are you a Christian? YES! Very Happy

Have YOU trusted Jesus as your Lord? YES YES!! Very Happy

Do you believe he is who he said he was? YES YES YES!!!
Very Happy

VikingMan44 · Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 10:59 pm Post subject:

I think it's so funny that you like felix. I remember that as a very young child, felix was my favorite cartoon. But, I don't actually remember much of anything about what was in the cartoon. I just remember that felix used to carry around a little black bag of tricks. At least, that's what I remember. Weird how things that happened so long ago get distorted in the mirror of time.

Regarding something you posted earlier. Why don't you go to a church? The Bible says in Hebrews 10 not to give up meeting together. And, though I think online communities can serve a valuable purpose, there is something powerful about sitting down with a group of believers who follow our God, and worshiping him together. And, there is no way you will ever receive the encouragement you could if you do not meet with other believers face to face.

Something I have experienced is God telling me that though his body may not be perfect, it is his body, and if I don't love it like he does, I am missing something vitally important. I have struggled with issues with the local church I attend, well, church in general really. They can sometimes be so superficial and fake. Ask someone how they are doing and you are more likely to get, "Fine brother" than anything else. When everyone in the room knows full well that "fine" is the exact opposite of how 90% of the people there are really doing. There is this unspoken expectation of not burdening others with your troubles and cares which I think is so not how God wanted us to live. We are to be a family, sharing each other's burdens. And so, my sex addiction recovery group actually, has served as the place I can be more real than anywhere else, for a number of obvious reasons. But, it led me to think poorly of the people in my church because I felt superior to them. After all, I posses the ability to be real. And while I still think that is a better trait than being fake and carrying around a false fassad, I realize that I was wrong to feel that way. They are God's family, and if I consider myself his child, I will accept them, despite their flaws, for truly, I have my own that they could be every bit as miffed with.

Anyway.

Just some food for thought.

lone-traveler · Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 7:04 am Post subject:

Hi Vike,
I don't want to hijack the thread although I may have already...sorry Silver.. Embarassed

But ignorance is the topic so, maybe it's ok.
I'm not "ignorant" concerning meeting together face to face. I've been to many churches, many denominations.
I was born a catholic, then moved over to Southern Baptist, visited evangelical, Petacostal, never been to JW, but they visit me, if they catch me at home..LOL..
We are very rarely home. Mostly truckin on the road.
Just recently moved to FL within the last two years. I think I've spent a total of maybe 4 or 5 months at the house at random times. So I haven't really looked into a church in my area.
Sometimes if we have time I stop in the truckers lounge and they have services on sunday.
My hubby, well..I'm holding to Paul when he says how do you know wife whether you will save your husband..LOL..
He's a good man, but he's more into engines and tires..LOL..

But there's a lot more to it than that. I just haven't been placed in one yet.
If there is just one, that is. I don't believe the Church of God is a denomination. I believe it's all of us who believe.
That's a big house for sure..LOL..

felix and his little black bag of tricks..LOL
I'm hoping for a white bag of miracles.. Very Happy

notice felix isn't carrying any burden except his thoughts.
sometimes they can be heavy enough.. Rolling Eyes

I'm sure if and when the time is right and if it is the Lord's purpose to settle me down, he will find a place for me to settle in body, but I don't know if I will ever settle in mind.
I have friends all over the world and we all meet together online. I really don't need to see their faces to know what's in their hearts.
I hear them just as if they were sitting in my own living room, or I in theirs.

Maybe it's easier here to share our feelings without thinking we're burdening others in person.
But the burdens that we carry which are the heaviest are usually those that weigh on the heart and not so much the pocket.
So I believe online communication serves just as much an awesome purpose as those we have face to face.

(and I'm a hermit)..LOL..

ignorance..maybe I choose to be ignorant of what I may see with my eyes, and choose rather to hear with my heart..
Maybe my eyes are weak, and I could be led to judge by my eyes? Maybe the Lord is making my heart strong first before I am tested by what I see...hmm.

maybe the Lord uses ignorance as a blessing.. Wink

ok ramblin now..see?..I ramble..lots..LOL
HUgs
lone

atoz · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:55 am Post subject:

VikingMan44 · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 12:11 pm Post subject:

atoz · Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 4:32 pm Post subject:

VikingMan44 · Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 12:04 am Post subject:

Interesting post atoz. A couple thoughts. Firstly, I'm sure a level of self hatred can certainly play a roll in any addiction. For surely, the addict knows that his addiction is destroying his life. And someone who's actions reflect love of self would not be engaged in such things.

However, what I would caution against is the idea that sexual addiction(or any addiction really) has a spiritual solution. *eek* I know, sounds blasphemous, right?

This is a quite long and drawn out issue, and if you'll hang with me, I'll explain why I believe as I do.

Firstly though, the biggest reason I believe as I do is empirical. By enlarge, I simply don't see most men who struggle with sexual sin finding any kind of long term freedom when they are talking to their pastor about it. When they are in a freedom group and possibly seeing a therapist skilled in leading men out of sex addiction, I do see some men finding freedom. I am among them. Going on 3 and a half years sober and turning my attention to destroying the kingdom of darkness amongst my brothers. The most time I ever experienced apart from my sin while I talked to Godly brothers and pastors before was a few months at most. AND, even during those times, my eyes roamed for more than is healthy.

So, if the answer is not spiritual, what is the answer? Before I answer that question, allow me to use a scriptural reference to support the main idea behind why I think the solution is much more involved than a prayer, a Bible verse, or a church service. Joseph. Early in life, he has a dream, given by God. What does he do with this dream? He tells all his brothers and his father about it. A rather arrogant thing to do. So what does God do with Joseph's obvious youthful ignorance and arrogance? God sends him through a series of trials and troubles that mold him into the man God intends him to become. To what end? Becoming the most powerful man in the most powerful kingdom on the earth at the time. It is the process of that molding that is fascinating to me. Molding character is NEVER done without fierce resistance. I can very closely relate to this from the point of view of my weight lifting. At my strongest, I had a 425LB ass to grass back squat, and a 525LB deadlift. The process of becoming that strong was arduous and life changing. Fighting through so much resistance hardens a man's character, and fixes it in place so that when the real day of trouble comes, when pharaoh comes to me and asks me to lead the whole country through a 7 year famine, I don't fold under the pressure.

The Bible says that God uses everything for the good, for those who are called according to his purposes. If I have a problem with a specific sin, God wants to turn that against the enemy. The first and foremost way of doing that is by using that person to help others with a similar problem. There are no shortages of sinners in need of help. So, hypothetically, how I think most Christians think this works, is.... God heals the person of his sin after he says a few prayers and repents of this or that, and the person then turns to his brother who struggles with the same thing and tells him to do what he did. Only, in 9 out of 10 cases, the empirical observation is that that doesn't work.

God wants us to help our brothers in sin. And so he will let us take the long road, to both fashion our character in the process, and to show us the way so that we can lead others because we have walked that road before.

So, what is the answer if it is not spiritual. The answer is physical and emotional AND spiritual. I'll speak to sexual sin, because it is what I understand best, but the dynamics aren't all that different for different vices.

First, physical. Did you know that when a person has an orgasm, that the body releases high doses of endorphins? What are endorphins? Basically, a "morphine like substance originating from within the body". And, they are quite addictive(4 times more addictive than heroin, my therapist friends tell me). That has good and bad points. If I am getting them in a healthy way, i.e. in a sexual relationship with the woman I made a lifetime commitment to, they serve to act like glue, because the thing a person is looking at or experiencing when that high dose of endorphins is given becomes associated by the brain to those endorphins. In other words, it creates a neural pathway. The healthy consequence of this is that everytime a man has sex with his wife, he becomes more and more attached to her. She becomes more and more attractive to him.

Conversely, if I am feeding those endorphins to my brain in a negative way, my brain is attaching to something else entirely, the pictures, the videos, the people I am not married too, the specific behaviors I am engaged in, etc. This will serve to destroy the foundation of a man's ability to properly bond to his wife, the way God intended. The consequences for this are vast and far reaching.

How does a man break these attachments? They are chemical in his brain. How does one pray for that to go away? Can God heal that? I'm sure he can. But why would he? Is it his plan, is it his nature to suddenly and forever remove the potential for an extremely effective character building process in my life? Long experience would suggest that it is not. I must fight through this process.

One tool that is highly effective in helping a man with the chemical, biological aspect of his sex addiction is a rubber band, actually, put around his wrist. When a man experiences his initial "trigger" (a pretty woman walking by, a beer commercial on TV, the stuff he sees at the checkout counter at Wal-Mart, driving by an adult book store, whatever), he reaches down, and snaps the rubber band. This gives the brain, which until now has become conditioned to expect an endorphin reward when it sees it's trigger, some pain instead. The brain does not like pain. It is a highly effective teaching tool. The negative neural pathways will soon fade away, as long as the rest of his process is structured correctly.

Second, Emotional. Sadly, the emotional reasons why we can't stop masturbating are no where near as easy to address as the physical reasons. Best case scenario is you only have physical issues, and a rubber band can help you stop. Worse case is you have more underlying emotional reasons that require much more effort to uncover and address and a rubber band alone will not help you stop.

Ask yourself a question. Why do men like to masturbate? Dumb question, huh? Well, if we delve a little deeper than just the obvious, we will find a plethora of possible answers to this question. Allow me to answer it for myself, and maybe you will see what I'm talking about. A large portion of my own addiction was only biological in nature, but I did have some emotional reasons why as well.

1. I masturbated because I longed for excitement and fun that I wasn't getting from other places in life.
2. My dad was not a very good dad, emotionally abandoning me when I was young. This caused a great deal of pain, anger and frustration.
3. My wife and I were having several different overwhelming issues that we could not find a solution to.

Those, for me, are the biggest emotional reasons I masturbated. Now, allow me to elaborate on one nuance of how this works. It's not like I would be sitting at home one night feeling a need for excitement and say to myself, "Hmmm, I need some excitement in my life, let's go *What This Member Does A Lot*." It's a much more subtle process than that. It's the subtleness of that process that makes this a difficult question to answer. YOUR response when I asked you why you masturbate is evidence of this. There are likely more reasons why men masturbate other that the obvious, "Well it's fun, duh!!!" This is not an easy question to answer, but if you want to have success with this issue, finding an answer to this question is vital. Here's how another part of it would work for me.

I used to struggle to a large degree with being frustrated. Like, just random frustration, and I couldn't put my finger on why. My mom would ask me what was wrong, and I wouldn't be able to answer her because I didn't know. I just felt like I was going to burst I was so pissed off all the time. I was going through this because of the issues with my dad. He was not there for me and it hurt, that caused all manner of run away emotional issues in my life that were difficult to trace the origins of, especially for a teen age kid who didn't have any emotional intelligence. So I would have this high amount of frustration that was difficult to live with. Well, guess what happened when I masturbated? It all went away for a while. It became the mechanism I would use to cope with emotional hurts, even though if you had asked me at the time if that was what I was doing, I would have looked at you with a blank stare.

So it's never obvious, the real reasons WHY we all have issues in this area. But if you want to succeed, addressing these issues is vital.

So how do we address emotional problems? This is where it gets even more difficult to address this particular area of entanglement. Why? Because there would be a different solution depending on what the emotional problem is. If the problem is an emotional need that isn't being met anywhere else in life, like my need for excitement and fun, or perhaps someone would have a need for love and affection, or to feel powerful and in control, all different kinds of emotional needs being served, if something like that is the emotional problem, then the solution is to meet that need in a healthy way. I had a need for excitement. So, I stopped masturbating, and started lifting weights. Putting a 400LB barbell on my back was pretty exciting. If you think it's the need for love and affection, get a dog to be your friend and companion. If it's the need to feel powerful and in control, take up a dangerous sport. See what I'm saying? We all have emotional needs, no matter what they are, and a healthy man takes responsibility for his own needs, and preemptively meets them in some healthy way, knowing that if he doesn't, they will seek out a means of being met, no matter what way it is.

If the emotional problem is an emotional pain of some kind, those are the hardest reasons to address of all. Could be anything from having trauma or abuse in your past, to having family of origin issues, or any of a host of other possibilities. Suffice it to say, the solution YOU will have to employ will have to be highly specific to your unique set of problems and struggles. If the rubber band and addressing emotional needs does not help you with your addiction, it would be best to seek counseling to find out why you do what you do, and what to do about it.

Some of that is clipped from an article I wrote to help some of the addicts I work with, so forgive me if it sounds like I'm talking to you as if you have an addiction. I'm not.

Anyway. There it is. That's why I wouldn't necessarily agree with your premise. Repenting of self hatred is probably a very valuable thing, maybe even something those in the arena of sex addiction recovery should think more about. But even that is not going to address the reasons why the addict hates himself. THOSE reasons are probably a complex emotionally damaging past that needs some work. And I really don't think it's God's nature to just take all this stuff randomly and lift it from our shoulders, as the process of finding healing from that stuff is PERFECT material for God's process of building character into a person. It's hard, requires a lot of prayer and faith, requires us to reach outside ourselves and enlist the help of others, and a plethora of other things that we would miss out on if God just took it all away.

One day, I think God will interact with his children in that way, simply take all their problems away. But, the Bible says that in this life, we will have trials and troubles. Those ARE NOT BAD. That would be like me saying the 500LB barbell on the ground is bad for my development of strength and power. It's not bad, it simply is. The question is do I have what it takes to develop the strength of body, soul, and spirit to pick it up.

And finding the answer to that question, in all it's facets throughout my life, drives me like no other.

Do I have what it takes? What lies at the core of my being? Can I find the strength of God buried in my fears and insecurities and crap? He lives in me. Will I let him complete his work in me? Or will I choose to fade into the shadows of mediocrity?