My Experience With Masturbation.

Culled From:
A DeepWords Special 
A Man's experience with masturbation.

THIS IS MY STORY

In 2008, I was invited by a Christian Fellowship in Abia State University to talk on Christianity and Sexuality. The talk was billed for the Valentine Weekend. I had my lecture note well researched. I had planned to talk about the struggle in the lives of notable ministers of the gospel in order to highlight the reality of the problem. I got the shocker of my life.
As I took the podium God told me not to mention the name of any minister in that message. I was stunned. What was I to say then? “Talk about yourself, your own struggles with masturbation.” The Holy Spirit’s instruction was clear and terrifying. My knees buckled. My courage evaporated. I invited the choir back on stage as I tried to plead with God to change His mind. It was the most embarrassing moment of my life.

In humility I began to share my painful experience as a boy. I was consistently abused from primary 4 to my ss1 by a close family friend – a lady my family trusted so well. The abuse started the very day death snatched my elder sister from us. Those years were the most terrible of my life. I could not mention the torment I was going through to anyone. Would anyone believe me? Will I be killed? My father was a Victorian school teacher who would punish your domestic sins in your classroom before your peers to deliver maximum pain. How would he react if he learnt of my new sexual status? I was less than 10 years old and bruised beyond repair in my mind. On the surface I kept my calm and no one in my family ever knew of it. They will be hearing of it the first time today.

By SS1 when my abuser-lover let me be, I have developed a chronic hatred for the nude female. But somehow this hatred was buried from sight and later expressed itself as a chronic addiction to masturbation. I didn’t know it was the root cause of my addiction until much later in life.
When I got born again in university, I thought the desire will just disappear. I was mistaken. It became worse. My faith conflicted with my failure and I was torn in my hypocrisy. Year after year I made New Year resolutions only to break them before January was over. I stopped praying about it because I didn’t want to play games with God. I honestly admitted to God in prayer every time we would be asked to confess our sins, that this was the one sin I was struggling with.  I really wanted to break free but I didn’t know how.
I believed that the free access to sex that marriage will bring will deliver me from that yoke. Again I was mistaken. My appetite only reduced slightly. I got born again in 1996 and got married in 2006. That decade was one I was in fervent fellowship with God. It was one too that I struggled with the despicable sins of hypocrisy and masturbation. I give these details so you will know that God is patient with us in order to let His love break us from whatever prison. I believe today is your day of freedom.

By 2006 I was no longer a baby in Christ, and finally I was now married. First my revolt for the nude female body came back in a strange way. I was not just having weak erections, I was having no erections. My heart will be on fire for my wife, but my body will refuse to participate. That is a marriage breaker for couples who were in their late 20s. We took it up in prayers and then slowly I got back. But this was when the real challenge started. One of the most hideous dangers of masturbation that no one ever talks about. My wife was not competing with a strange woman. If she were, she would know what to do. She would probably threaten the lady, or dress better or find out what it was the lady was doing to share her bed. But here she was competing against me. And she can never win me in that competition. The strange lady lived under her roof and slept on the same bed. I believe husbands whose wives struggle with lesbianism face the same challenge.

I understand fully when men sneak out of their bed rooms to go watch pornography or go masturbate in the bathroom. I know the guilty pleasure driven by the sense of incompetence – your own incompetence and the incompetence of your spouse - Especially if she is the churchy and non-adventurous type. These sweet taboos are driven by our mindset. Your spouse may not understand how powerful these addictions are.

The danger is that for the Christian man, you console yourself on the fact that your ministry still flourishes. People still feel the power of God when you sing or preach or do the other Christian things you do. You soon push the struggle further into the depths of your mind and perfect a smooth front as the perfect Christian without a struggle. You become comfortable with it and settle into the grips of a satanic embrace. At this point you can even preach about it without feeling a thing – like I planned to do at ABSU. You are the blind leading the blind. The reason God permits your ministry to continue is so that you will encounter grace in this area of your life like Paul did in Rom 7, like I did.

One day, I had the commonsense to talk to my wife about my struggle with masturbation. It took her a while to accept that this polished Christian she was living with was such a chronic sinner. Prayerfully, she asked me to go confront the lady that had abused me years earlier and to forgive her. She told me that will release me from the hurt and guilt and set me on the path of healing. I did. The experience wasn’t pleasant but it was worth it.
If you suspect your man is gripped by these mind sins, you have to create an atmosphere of understanding where he can verbalize his struggles and gain your trust and support. That is the key to his victory. But it may not happen overnight.

My ultimate victory came that evening on the altar in ABSU. After I shared my story I asked whoever needed healing from sexual hurts and sins to join me at the altar. I was the first to kneel at the altar because I needed it more than anyone else. It appears the whole school joined me at the altar. That was when I realized my experience was a common experience.

I wish I could say that was the end of the struggle. Yes it was the end of my masturbation (I have stood clean after that humiliating experience) but in 2010, God took me to a whole new dimension of this hidden sexual sin stuff.
For the first time in my life I went on a personal 40-day fasting prayer. I decided it will be a bread and fruit fast. Days 1-7 were heaven on earth. From day 10 my body started revolting physically – intense sickness of all kinds. I also lost the presence of God I had enjoyed so much.  By day 19 I had a strange experience. All of a sudden I had a sudden craven to rape my sister-in-law who was living with me.  It was not a passing thought. It stayed with me for every hour of every day until day 36 of the fast. Yes I was praying against it. But God seemed so far away from me.

When the presence of God returned on Day 37, that was the first question I asked. What is happening to me? I can understand if I have a desire to sleep with someone, but why the urge to RAPE? God’s answer was so deep and comforting. I think we should talk about it tomorrow.

I wish to offer my sincere apologies to my wife and other family members who are in no small way embarrassed by this public confession. These sins were my personal sins and your prayers went a long way to release me from that prison of the mind. Thank you for loving me truly and genuinely even though you had no clue of the dirt you called a brother or husband.

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work 
together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies. Phil 4:8-9 (MSG)

Culled From:
A DeepWords Special