How to Defeat Porn

Sitting in Swaziland, a tiny country in Africa, surrounded by a group of extraordinary men, my heart was broken. I had watched these men do incredible things in the months prior. Caring for orphans in Ecuador. Building a church for widows in Mozambique. As we looked around at one another, shame and fear and frustration filling us with vulnerability, there was one foe we all had in common.

Porn.

Almost every man has struggled with pornography. It’s a liar and a disease and an addiction. The men in Swaziland opened up about it. Most had even struggled with it, hating themselves, during the same months we were involved in incredible ministry.

We shared all the things men try. Accountability partners. Negative reinforcements. I once knew a guy made a pack with friends to burn a hundred dollar bill every time he watched porn. We’ve tried the websites that lock you out of websites and throw away the key. We’ve tried. We’ve tried. We’ve tried.

And, in spite of ourselves, men continue to struggle to defeat the epidemic problem of porn. Like a horror-movie villain, sexual sin always seems to come back for one last scare.

The problem with fighting porn is that we spend too much time fighting porn. We address the symptom rather than the disease.

We are much like Peter. Called into greatness. Called to get out of the boat and walk on water. But more than that. Much more than that. Peter is called to fix his eyes on Jesus. When Peter’s focus shifts, and he looks down at the formidable waves, he starts to stumble and Jesus has to pull him up. Oh Ye of little faith. (Matthew 6:30)

The way to defeat pornography is to fill the deep void it is pretending to cure with the true elixir. It takes a higher power to cure us of our addictions. Because addiction is just a passion for purpose gone awry.

Without vision, we perish (Proverbs 29:18). Porn is slowly decaying our souls because we have not fixed our eyes on purpose. We are looking at the wind and the waves and trying to calm them rather than fleeing into the Arms of He who is Able. It is a bit like going to the decaying fruit of a rotting fruit tree and fumbling at the outgrowth at the edge of the limbs. The problem is the tree and we are wasting our time trying to patch up the fruit.

It is purpose that drives us. Meaning is the only thing that fills our soul because it is the only thing we were created for. When we can find, name, and commit to that meaning, there is little room for anything else.

The most extreme heat burns all others away. As counterintuitive as it sounds, the best way to combat porn is to flee from it. But you must have somewhere to flee. Without vision, we flee in circles and find ourselves right back where we started.

The men in Swaziland were called to greatness. They are called to so much more than being ‘defeaters of porn’. So, why do we spend so much time fighting an enemy on its home turf? The men in Swaziland made a new commitment, not against porn, but to find, discover, and pursue our purpose. And allow porn to dissipate into its rightful oblivion.