There is a man here that for the last four days I have watched move more and more into a sinful habit. He has found a website that has Phillipino woman that are looking for marriage. However as you can picture the website offers descriptions and photos photos of the woman and the ability to chat with them.
What you have to understand is that he is married, his second. Has several children and right now he and his wife don't get along very well. They talk often but always seem to have issues. I know this because he is very vocal about what is happening. There are problems with money, and expenses and whos working and who isn't and those types of things. He has even spoke about divorce as he is just sick of it.
So his journey began somehow with the web site and jokes about how he was going to go on R&R to the Phillipines. Pointing and joking about the woman, how they were dressed and what they wrote. At first he acted as if it was no big deal. "Just looking, it ain't no big deal"! That evening I came into the office at 2100 and he was still sitting at his desk viewing the website. More interest however, but still trying to pass things off as no big deal.
Yesterday, not only was he back on the site but now he was texting with the woman and staring and reading intently at the conversations. Every once in a while bringing the computer to someone and showing them one of the woman and snickering. At one point he even mentioned that one of the woman called him on his cell phone. He laughed and said that she was wacked for calling. Even reiterating that he was married and was staying with his wife.
Today, first thing in the morning he is back on the computer and texting with the woman again. The most startling part of it however is that I am seeing him from the side and there is an intent stare at the screen as he examines the photos and reads the words. I can see a very strange look in his eyes. The lust is apperent to me.
Over the last three days he has slid down a slippery path. He began as, in his mind, an innocent look at a web site. He justified his actions and reconciled in his head that it was ok. Now he sits and stares intently at the screen and recieves calls from woman that he doesn't even know because of this desire that has built up insisde him.
I don't want to be a hypocrat and act as if this has never happened to me. I have been there and looked at websites that I should not have. It is even a struggle here not to look at mild sites that would cause me to faulter. I think for most men there is a constant battle of the eyes that is difficult to avoid.
I guess I write because I have never seen this from the outsiders perspective. I am seeing his eyes, wondering if that is what I looked like when I looked at things like that. Is that what lust looks like. Is that how it happens to me, by slowly justifieing more and more until I am hooked. It disturburbed me to think that is how I may be at times.
It also demonstrates vividly how sin works in our lives, how Satan sets his traps and then draws us in. A brief mention or add for a website. One click and we step in, not realizing that we have eaten now of the fruit. The taste is pleasing so we continue to progress into it, saying that it tasts good so how could it be bad. Once we are fully engauged then we don't care that the taste has turned sour, that the fruit was poison. It is now in us and we crave to continue until we get the look that does not see past the screen. We get the look that only those around us may see as we are blinded by what is in front of us and now set in our heart.
A wise man once told me that the only way to avoid sin is to flee it. If you have a problem with internet pornography stay away from the computer. If you can't do that then have a strong filter put on. It is stated that way in the Bible, flee from sin. Unless we are willing to flee sin we will end up straing intently at a computer screen while our wives sit at home thinking about us staying safe and coming home in one peiece. Unless we know our weeknesses we will allow ourselves to step in the trap that Satan sets.
John 2:10 always comes to mind when I think about this downward spiral. the chief servant, after tasting the water Jesu has turned into wine says "Everybody sets out the fine wine first, then, after people have drunk freely, the inferior. But you have kept the fine wine until now".
Satan like everyone else who wants you to sin, will give you his best first until you are drunk, then sease to give you their best once you are hooked. Christ on the other hand will always give you His best. We are all going to fall short at some point. We are going to move into something that may not be our best. We must turn to Him and realize that He will always give us His best.
Men, remember to flee first and reach for Him. If that doesn't work, put a mirror in front of your face and see what you look like, or think of the ones you love, if they were to see you at that moment, what would they think. If you do fall into sin, realize that He will forgive you and that he has already made the payment for that sin.
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