I’m afraid to look at others
Question:
Hello,
I really appreciate your articles. The ones on OCD I think are starting to help me. I have a few questions I think you can help with.
I have been a Christian since my twenties. I was recently rebaptized because I felt the one from my twenties didn't count, since I had a rebellious thought when I went into the water and didn't rebuke it. But that is not where my issue lies. When I was a teen and into my twenties, I struggled with pornography. I stopped a long time ago, but I felt afraid to look at women and struggled with this for years and managed to hide it well. But now this fear has become a cancer. I was afraid of seeing teens who were not dressed well, and now I struggle with seeing children and things in my peripheral vision. I have gotten a little better, but I often feel bad about sinful thoughts and struggle to get rid of them, and I sit and question myself for noticing or focusing on body parts from my peripheral vision. I also question and feel horrible for impulsively looking toward someone or noticing women. Sometimes I don't remember or know why I looked.
I struggle with noticing physical features of females of all ages and sometimes males. I also feel nervous being close to people and children, afraid of them coming into contact with my groin or having impure thoughts pop into my head about how my touching them could go. I don't want any of this.
I am reading and praying a lot, but I am really struggling. It is robbing me of joy and affecting my ability to work, be a husband, and be a father. I have recently been praying about the thing I have been questioning, asking God to forgive me for it. I just want to be godly, serve my Lord, and fulfill my duties as a worker, father, and husband.
Answer:
Like many OCD sufferers, you are an imperfect person, living in an imperfect world, yet convinced that God will only accept perfection. "Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?" (Ecclesiastes 7:16). While we strive to be our best, we have to accept that we will never be perfect. "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. ... If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us" (I John 1:8,10). Even when we mess up, we trust God's mercy to pull us through. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:9). That is why Paul said we are saved by God's grace, not by our own efforts. "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
This doesn't mean that we sit back and do nothing. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). God requires that we work as He directs us. "So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:12-13). We work, we work hard, but our work will never be enough to save us. We are dependent on God. "So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done'" (Luke 17:10).
It is great that you've stopped looking at pornography! That is a sin that many struggle to overcome. However, you have gone further. You are attempting to stop all temptations, and that is impossible since temptations to sin come from Satan, and you can't control him. Being tempted is not a sin. Accepting a temptation becomes lust, which eventually leads to sinful action. Just because your body reacts when a pretty woman walks by doesn't mean you have sinned. The situation becomes wrong when you start imagining yourself committing sinful actions with another person and decide that you badly want it.
You need to realize you will be tempted to sin, but the answer to each temptation is "no." "Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 4:7).
