Hide or Seek – John Freeman

Even as Followers-of-Jesus, it’s our tendency to hide and pretend that “I’m okay; you’re okay.” It’s been true since the garden and continues to be our default setting. Perhaps nowhere else is this tendency, of pretense, more obvious (and damaging) than our self-protective attempts to hide . . . regarding our miserable history of and current reality of our sexual temptations, struggles and failures.

So, just what is the effect of this default setting of our hearts to keep it all “under wraps”?  Well, it isn’t pretty.  It often reduces our prayer life to a schizophrenic one where we’re constantly in the pleading, shame-based, stance of “God change me, change me, change me; help me, help me, help me; forgive me, forgive me, forgive me” . . . all without the familial elements of a child / Father relationship.  Let’s face it, years of hiding and self-deception, when it comes to our secret-sexual-selves, warps and disfigures our own hearts and impacts every significant relationship in our lives.  Unaddressed struggles with sex and sexuality actually alter our personas, making us God-haters, Idol-makers, and Game-players.  This can continue for years, yet we’re often the last to know its damaging and soul-robbing effect.

A pornified heart, which seeks immediate, secret and powerful pay-offs, sexually speaking, takes away the very essence of the gospel in our lives, making us vulnerable to our own lies and all the lies and schemes of Satan to derail our spiritual vitality.  Plainly, it keeps us from speaking good and true gospel words into our own hearts and those closest to us.  It robs us of our confidence in and enthusiasm about things of God.  In reality, it renders us ineffective and spiritually impotent, in that it hinders our availability to love and serve God and others well.

But as those bought by the blood of Christ, kept in his power, and assured of his mercy . . . we still have a choice to make.  Will we continue the hiding, secrecy, and isolation, even though we know it’s killing us . . . or will we come-into-the light to find grace and forgiveness?  For most men, and an increasing number of women, the question then becomes, will I continue the hiding which leads to hopelessness and despair . . . or will I begin to seek God, again, and let him seek me out to find a new power for living and a peace with my sex-gone-amuck heart?

Taken from Hide or Seek: When Men Get Real with God About Sex by John Freeman.