Struggling With Porn Addiction is A Sign of Becoming Holy
In this post, despite of how discouraging things may seem, struggling with porn addiction can be a beautiful and productive means of becoming holy.
I’m not kidding! You are becoming holy.
Struggling with porn addiction is a sign of becoming holy and a clear sign of overcoming it.
Can you believe on that?
So let’s define struggle first…
Defining ‘Struggle’
Plenty of Christians, seem to think that the word ‘struggle’ is synonymous with “give into”. We hear people say, “I’ve been struggling with porn” and we assume they mean “I’ve been giving into porn” and that is what they do mean. But struggle doesn’t mean “give into”. In fact, it means the opposite, it means “to contend with an adversary or opposing force”.
Since this is the definition of struggle, if you are chained with porn addiction, I hope you won’t take offense when I say, I hope you struggle with porn. Of course, we should not seek it out in order to struggle against it but when a person experiences such temptations, he or she can actually gain a merit by resisting.
Growth in Virtue
When you struggle, when you “contend with an adversary or opposing force”, you grow stronger. This is true with your struggle with pornography addiction. When you struggle with porn addiction we grow in virtue. It is not just the virtue of purity we grow in but many others besides.
Let’s look at these five following virtues:
You wanna know?
Here it is…
1. PATIENCE
Though pornography offers a quick fix to our momentary affliction or pain by struggling with it, we grow in the virtue of patience; we learn to endure hardship manfully.
2. SELF-MASTERY
The man who struggles with porn addiction gains mastery over himself. As the Catechism puts it, “Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy”.
3. HUMILITY
Struggling with porn addiction is a constant reminder of how weak and how in need of him, we are. St. Paul spoke about having a “thorn in the flesh,” though it’s unclear what this thorn represented, he tells us that it was to keep him humble: “To keep me from being too elated a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated” (2 Cor. 12:7)
4. COURAGE
Courage does not mean that one is not afraid (if one were not afraid, courage would not be required) rather it means choosing to do what is right in spite of fear, pain or uncertainty. Indeed, standing up against one’s own fallen desires, when (what feels like) the entire world is telling you to give in, takes courage.
5. TEMPERANCE
If a man or woman is struggling with porn addiction, then he/she is certainly growing in this virtue. And if they can learn to say no to sexual sin, then he/she will certainly become stronger in saying no to less tempting pleasures, legitimate or not.
“Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures and provides balance in the use of created goods.”
We need to recognize and remind each other that we have here not just a struggle but an opportunity to tap into a massive outpouring of God’s grace.
Therefore, it is ok to struggle brothers and sisters and remind yourselves often to our Lord’s words: “take courage; I have conquered the world”.
(Jn. 16:33)
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Source & Citation:
http://chastityproject.com
