Porn No More! Tools for Gaining Freedom

Internet pornography (I-porn) has always been easily accessible. I should know. I have to keep watch for my own soul on a regular basis. If you have been trapped in this addiction, you too know its power to hold and its power to keep you in bondage or if you need assistance in keeping your computer (and your eyes) from accessing I-porn, then this article should help you learn more about what you can do.

Early in my healing process, I was once sitting at my computer looking at I-porn. When I came to my senses that I was stuck I spoke to God, "I know this is doing me no good and yet I remain addicted. What do you want me to do so I can walk in freedom?" A good question deserves a good answer. He replied, "Don’t worry about it." That was not the good answer I was looking for. I shook my head and then said to myself, "Obviously that wasn’t my Lord!" Immediately, I heard the same still small voice, "Don’t worry about it." Maybe you responded just as I did; however, as time matured, I understood His point in beginning there; it was foundational for my continued freedom. The foundation I was to learn was submission to the Lord’s ways. What was communicated to me that night was that I needed to trust Him and not trust my own ways for my healing. This was His way of moving my attention from self-reliance to God-reliance; I was not to be worried about how I would guarantee my own healing but rather I should be concerned about God’s method of bringing me my own personalized healing. Over the next few months, I began to position my mind to be silent, yet waiting for Him to speak to me—whether it is at church during singing, during prayer or at home during my own personal time with the Lord. Sometimes this felt forced. What I mean by this is that there were many times I felt that being silent was not the thing I should do. Sometimes, because of habit, I felt as if I should be singing along with everyone else; however, I pursued a posture of trusting in Him to make a way of escape for me even in those times. It was during this time that I learned how much He loved me. I began to hear Him say things like, "You know those jokes you tell people where nobody laughs? I want you to know that I made your sense of humor and I love them!" Or He would say, "I really think you are a great person!" Unless you position yourself to listen and to hear these things from your Father and subsequently receive them, all your efforts may just be in vain. Without the powerful foundation of the Father’s love toward you, you will most-likely fall into self-condemnation, if you fail during abstaining from immorality. It was these times of hearing how much He loved me that I became more interested in what He had to say about me. This, in turn, caused my eyes—both natural and spiritual—to turn more readily to Him than to I-porn. I had learned a valuable lesson. Intimacy with the Father is one of several keys that releases you from any addiction you may have. There was; however, something more I had to learn.

As I progressed through the next few years, I stumbled in and out of I-porn; however, less and less often compared to previous attempts. Since then, I have come to realize more steps are needed if I am to walk in greater levels of freedom.

Several years ago, First Stone subscribed to a filtered Internet Service Provider (ISP). A filtered ISP allows you to browse the Internet without much worry of running across pornography or anything else you don’t wish to find. This was a good idea. However, with some time and creativity, a persistent addict can find some unblocked sites. I know because I did! I have had to move further into the light (John 3:19-21, Eph 5:8-13) by seeking tougher solutions. Because I live alone, I removed the modem from my home computer and gave it to my boss. I also pursue accountability with my fellow staff members while I am at the office. These are great solutions IF I can always walk in the light by acknowledging our temptations and failures to those with whom we are accountable. The lesson here is: Know Thyself! I can deceive even myself; and you can too. These tools have been a great solution for me, but Jesus continues to raise the standard even higher.

Over the past year, Jesus has been preparing me for something foreign to me. I went through pockets of time becoming vaguely familiar with concepts of holiness, suffering and death. Then I ran across a verse in Amos where God is showing him the plumb line. Just a few weeks later, I was encouraging a brother to give himself grace when he falls into sin. I didn’t want him to be condemned by the enemy for still having a propensity for sin. A couple of weeks later, he came to me with a word from the Lord. Bluntly, he told me that my statement ‘give yourself grace’ became an offense to him. He proceeded to remind me that while God’s grace is constant, it does have a special purpose in our lives. It serves as an ongoing source of power for overcoming sinful behaviors not yet defeated in our lives. He reminded me that when we become aware of our sin, we are to place it at the foot of the cross, leave it there and then proceed on in a constant pursuit of putting to death the deeds of our flesh. It is only through this active ‘putting to death’ phase that we receive grace for overcoming our sin. He then spouted the word lasciviousness. When I had asked him it’s meaning, he stated, "Absence of restraint." My heart sunk. I now understood to where the plumb line was being raised—I had failed to understand that my grace for overcoming anything sinful hinged upon my will to not engage in sin—sexual or otherwise—and subsequently acting upon that will AND upon my will to receive affection from my Lord. No wonder I was having so much trouble. Upon further study of the word lasciviousness, I found that it describes - a person who doesn’t restrain himself will not mature in that area! Our choices prove just how much we want to mature.

One thing to keep in mind here is that our choice should be to show dependence on God by receiving acceptance and affection from Him both privately, just you and He, and corporately, you and other believers. I say this because it is so easy to slip into performing for God or performing to ease our consciences. Performance leads to misery. Trusting in God’s grace leads to freedom and greater life. One of my favorite quotes comes from Nancy Groom’s book entitled: From Bondage to Bonding: Escaping Codependency, Embracing Biblical Love (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1991), 117. It goes like this: "Why choose God’s dangerous journey into grace? In a word, the reason is life. God invites us into pain because loving always costs us pain. He offers us danger because fighting evil is never safe. He promises us persecution because God’s people—including His beloved Son—have always been misunderstood and opposed. Resting in Jesus is infinitely harder than accomplishing our own agendas. Trusting grace feels more demeaning than earning our salvation. Coming alive to hope is more painful and cruel than being dead to our emotions. But it is life. And once we’ve tasted being alive, we can’t go back to being dead. Aliveness in God is addictive."

While these are the most helpful concepts to grasp in pursuit of freedom or in maintaining the freedom you have, there are some tools available to everyone who wants access to the Internet that will help him/her steer clear of I-porn. There are four basic options from which you can choose: adjust the content permissions in your browser, subscribe to a filtered ISP, subscribe to an unfiltered ISP but install 3rd party blocking software on your computer and/or subscribe to an accountability service. Adjusting the settings on your browser isn’t a bad idea; however, this isn’t the best system. I believe the service relies on a rating system. Not all web sites participate in rating systems. There is an option to not view unrated sites; however, not all unrated sites are bad. This might be a good "just in case" choice to use with other options mentioned in this article. A filtered ISP, as I mentioned earlier, prevents you from accessing sites blocked by the filtering service. There are now two ways that this can work. The first uses a proxy server provided only by certain ISPs. The second uses the server of any ISP you choose.

A proxy server is a substitute computer network that you, and others who have subscribed to the service, dial into. This network is then connected to the World Wide Web. The network contains all of the addresses of sites that have been blocked and it is the only conduit that you and other subscribers can pull web sites through. I say this because, unless the proxy server is very large, your service will most likely be slower than a non-proxy ISP. Basically, you have to pull web sites through a filter that is already clogged by an enormous amount of site requests.

The second filter has a major difference. You don’t connect to a substitute computer and you aren’t actually pulling sites through a potentially clogged filter. Instead, you choose the dial-up of your liking, subscribe to the ISP filter and install their software on your computer. When you request to see web page, the software first sends the address request to their server and then either sends back a "yes" or "no" response which then releases the request to be processed through your local connection. This service allows you to use AOL, Prodigy, DSL or any type of connection to the Internet and this service cannot be tampered with—you either have the service or you do not. This may be how programs like Cybersitter and Net Nanny work. These are software packages you can purchase at software stores or download and install from the Internet.

My last-mentioned option Covenant Eyes is my favorite. This membership service doesn’t keep you from viewing porn. It rather acts as your big brother by keeping track of all the sites you visit on either a weekly, bimonthly or monthly basis and then, as a requirement of the sign-up process, it sends this list, with questionable sites listed first, to one or two accountability partners you have chosen. I like this best because it actually encourages you to restrain yourself rather than relying on other services to restrain you, which, as I mentioned earlier, is a vital component for maturity and promotes self-control. They have since added a filter to their service, time-blocking as well as solutions for Apple Products, etc.

Joseph Thiessen is Office Administrator of First Stone Ministries