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Exchanged Glory V: God Meant it for Good
<page 44>
Chapter Six. Hope and Mistakes
Desiring to experience the work of the Holy Spirit is good, but the way in which I went about it got me into trouble. I tried to give myself over to Him in the same way I had given myself over to the fetish – by indulging in powerful feelings.
Short Term Success
Shortly after the fetish started, my circumstances took a turn for the better. To start with, I began to achieve some of my athletic goals. I rolled my way to highest average in the bowling league and became the Most Valuable Player in the little league. These successes combined with the intoxicating high of the fetish to create a powerful emotional elixir. I began to climb out of the depression that had been pulling me down for the past two years. My confidence grew as I cautiously launched into the new world of Junior High School. Figure 9 is a picture of my emotional life at the time.
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The important thing to notice in this figure is that Fear, Guilt, Anger, and Sorrow were no longer major issues for me. (Unlike Figure 7 on page 30, Figure 9 has no arrows from Fear and/or Guilt, Anger, or Sorrow to the Sinful Behavior and Attitudes box.) The relief brought by the fetish (symbolized by the highlighted arrow from the Fun Emotions and Desires box to Sinful Behavior and Attitudes box) felt too wonderful to let negative emotions pull me down. The dark cloud that had hung over my life was lifting. Sexualized images were like antidepressant drugs that medicated my inner turmoil.
<page 45> Though I was disobeying God, I didn’t feel especially guilty. “Thou shalt not lust after smoking” wasn’t a commandment I was aware of. Once I had passed through the initial shock associated with my strange desires, they felt natural for me – as if they were an expression of who I was. I knew they were weird, but I was ready to accept a little weirdness if it cheered my soul. It wasn’t as if I was giving up on being a good person. I continued to focus on being nice and doing what was right in other areas (symbolized by the arrows to the Obedient Behavior and Attitudes box).
Saved
I started getting drunk occasionally in 1971, when I was in the ninth grade. I had never heard that there was anything wrong with this, or even dangerous, so it wasn’t an act of rebellion on my part. If someone had warned me about it, I probably wouldn’t have done it.
Of course, after I got drunk for the first time, I wanted to do it again. Like fantasy and privately acting out, it was a powerful experience that reinforced my growing optimism about life.
In the providence of God, the first time I got drunk I ended up at my friend Rich’s house. We had a good time as he and his brother joked with me about my behavior. Several weeks after this, I arrived at Rich’s house again, drunk with a bottle of wine. I offered Rich some, but he politely refused. This surprised me, but I didn’t push him to join me. My philosophy of life was, “Do your own thing.” Rich had as much of a right to do his as I did mine.
A few days after this, Rich and I played basketball together, and our conversation moved to a decision he had made that summer. At a church camp, he had dedicated his life to Christ. As he explained what had happened, I for the first time heard about a relationship with God through His Son Jesus Christ. Rich told me that everyone should have that, and I believed him. I dedicated my life to Jesus from that day forward.
People have sometimes asked what motivated me to make this decision. They expect me to say that I was unhappy or searching for something. Just the opposite was true. Emotionally, I was at a high point in my life. My heart was in the first stages of addiction, where I was receiving all of the benefits and none of the pain. At the same time, I was a talented student and athlete. A few months after this, I was elected president of the student counsel, and a little after that, I became a starter on the basketball team. There may never have been a time when my life looked brighter.
Why did I decide to follow Jesus? It just seemed like the right thing to do. If the Bible was true (and no one had ever told me that it wasn’t), nothing else made sense. It told me that I would be rewarded for receiving Jesus or punished for turning away from Him. Even with a few screws loose in my brain, I could figure out which choice I should make.
It wasn’t until years later that I realized that my quick response was fairly unique. Most people insist on rebelling for a while before they respond to the gospel. The Holy Spirit reached me at a time when I barely considered that option, and to be honest, I have rarely turned to it since. If the Bible is true, rebelling would hurt everyone, so simple logic tells me that disobedience would be stupid.
I have, of course, wondered at times if the Bible was true. If I had decided that it wasn’t, I would have felt free to choose a different path for my life, one that would have seemed much more natural for me. But I have looked at the evidence for Christianity, and it has convinced me that Jesus was who He said He was. This has left me in a position where turning away from Him <page 46>would have required me to violate my mind and conscience, so it always seemed best to hold on to faith.
Damaged Parent
Though I am grateful for the straightforward way in which God led me to Him, my quick choice to give up everything for Him showed a weakness. In a typical person, their internal Parent emotions would caution them about listening to a man who said:
And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
Healthy emotions are hesitant to embrace pain, but for me, the young boy who just a few years earlier had cut himself with razor blades, those emotions had never developed properly. I am glad that I made the right choice, but I made it without understanding what I was doing. I was much too willing to blindly dive into dangerous waters without first checking for sharks.
That approach didn’t cause me much trouble at first. In fact, my willingness to make sacrifices and suffer allowed me to quickly adopt much of the Christian lifestyle. I started reading the Bible, praying, and going to church. I gave up unwise partying, improper talking, and many other sins. Jesus put in place the foundation of relationship with Him that I would later need to deal with the tough issues of my life.
The confusion in my internal Parent eventually did hurt me, however. This happened in 1974 when I was sixteen years old, two and a half years after I had accepted Christ. I joined the Charismatic movement,[20] and this introduced me to a world of spiritual warfare that I naïvely mishandled.
The power of the Holy Spirit thrilled me. I spoke in tongues, prophesied, and started to witness about Jesus to anyone who would listen. I devoured the Scriptures, read books, and listened to Christian teaching tapes. I intuitively sensed that I had found an experience of God’s love that could meet the deepest needs of my heart.
I am still convinced that this was (and is) the case. Looking back over the years of my recovery, I can find no other explanation for the freedom I have found than the presence and intervention of the Holy Spirit. Though I am about to describe a number of mistakes I made in response to Him, please don’t interpret that to mean that I am against spiritual experiences. I doubt I would have survived at all if I hadn’t sensed the Living God moving in my life. I know of no other workable basis for faith than His power.
And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
<page 47> My path to freedom had nothing to do with my human wisdom or abilities. I loved pleasure and had little clue what purity even meant. I found it easy to throw off cultural norms and be different than others, and this could have easily led me to crazy choices. My heart contained many fatal weaknesses, but I fell in love with the Savior Who reaches out to people with fatal weaknesses.
His vision of love and power gripped my heart and inspired me to do whatever was necessary to walk with Him. My recover has never been about climbing out of addiction; it has always been about getting to know Him and letting Him live through me. I have sought to have a demonstration of the Spirit and of power be at the foundation of my life.
I feel sorry for anyone who tries to battle sexual addiction based on anything less. I can’t imagine another source of strength and guidance that could have sustained and equipped me through the difficult process.
Spiritual Addiction
I was, however, young and from a spiritually disadvantaged background. My damaged internal Parent had bound me into an addictive mindset which had been shaped for years by the smoking fetish. The rush of warmth and excitement the Holy Spirit brought reminded me of the life transforming effect of my misguided sexuality. As I sought for Him to work in my life, I tried to do so by turning Him into the “ultimate high.”
Perhaps the best scriptural picture of what I sought is what happened to King Saul.
And he (King Saul) also stripped off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Therefore they say, "Is Saul also among the prophets?"
Saul had set out to kill an innocent man (David) and became so touched by the Holy Spirit that he lay down naked and prophesied for a day and a night. God’s power had a drug-like affect that changed him for a time. It brought a love and power that made his demons flee.
I could relate to that. Though I never experienced anything as radical as laying down naked and prophesying, I loved the way the Holy Spirit made me feel. He bathed me in His glory and stirred my heart like nothing else. When I sensed Him, my problems faded into the background and I felt secure. This made me want to experience His touch always, and I devoted myself to continually seeking Him.
Desiring to experience the work of the Holy Spirit was good, but the way in which I went about it got me into trouble. I tried to give myself over to Him in the same way I had given myself over to the fetish – by indulging in powerful feelings. Rather than letting Him encourage me to use my mind, will, and emotions, I sought for Him to take over my mind, will, and emotions. I wanted to lose control in the river of His life and float wherever He carried me, similar to the way in which I had let the fetish carry me.
Saul’s example shows that this won’t work. His “Spirit-drug” experience only affected his behavior while he was medicated by it (much like a natural drug). After the effects wore off, he returned to being himself and set out again to kill David (1 Samuel 20:33). Permanent change took more than a spiritual high; it also required sincere repentance and wisdom.
<page 48>Though I tried to repent, I lacked the wisdom to make the changes that were required. When I returned to being myself after a time of sensing God’s power, I didn’t know how to build on the experience. It felt as if God had stopped working – as if I was now forced to rely on my own strength – and I wanted so much more than that! I had read about the futility of my human efforts; I knew that there was nothing good in my flesh (Romans 7:18). I wanted people to see Jesus living through me, not me trying to live for Him (Galatians 2:20)!
Empty and Passive
The fetish had reshaped my heart to the point where I didn’t feel right without bliss. When it was missing, I did my best to stir it up through worship, Bible reading, or whatever other spiritual discipline I knew. I tried to get God to replace the good feelings brought by the fetish with good feelings brought by the Holy Spirit. To the extent that this worked, my ugly emotions didn’t come to the surface, and I was able to step directly into love, joy, and peace. I could live like I thought I should without finding answers to the complex issues buried in my heart.
I didn’t realize that I was trying to replace one crutch with another, and I didn’t understand why God chose not to cooperate. I thought He should overwhelm me, but He wanted to transform me. I looked for Him to replace my heart with His, but He was working to reshape my heart to express His. I hoped to step directly into spirituality and character, but He was birthing those traits in me through a long process. His word and Spirit were planting the seeds that He planned to nurture and grow gradually; I expected those seeds to grow overnight.
Decades later, when inner freedom truly came, I discovered many of the feelings I had sought as a young man – security, joy, soundness…. The difference was that those qualities weren’t “magically” dropped into me by a “drug-like” experience. They came from a Spirit empowered renewing of my mind, will, and emotions in the middle of the dirt and grime of being human. Peace became a reality as spiritual life produced real-world wisdom.
The “drug-like” times had their place – they gave me faith and a vision for God’s ability to raise me above the weaknesses of my humanity. But supernatural living also required me to find the Holy Spirit in the drudgery and faithfulness of everyday obedience. Through the process of learning to hear Him in the “non-drug-like” difficulty of hard work, He developed within me an internal Parent that expressed His care. This enabled me to consistently walk in a level of power that I had vainly tried to force out of Him when I first sensed His supernatural presence.
As an immature sixteen-year old who had just discovered the spiritual world, however, I didn’t know that this was where I was headed. When God held back from what I expected, I emptied myself in the hope that He would fill me. I looked deeper and deeper into my spirit, forsaking my reason and emotions in an attempt to hear Him speak. I tried to take myself out of the equation – to become increasingly passive so I could be carried by what I hoped was His Spirit.
I didn’t realize that becoming passive was a technique used by spiritualists in order to contact demons.[21] Those demons were more than willing to carry me – but it wasn’t going to be in the direction that either God or I wanted to go.
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