Am I being unrepentant?
Question:
Hello,
I am a fellow disciple of Christ who recently has had his faith attacked from seemingly every possible angle. The foremost attack is self-inflicted in the form of a sin I committed.
I want to preface this with two things: First, I need to hear the truth, no matter how painful. Second, I have prayed and prayed over this situation but have let my anxiety run rampant during all of this to the point where I have great difficulty trusting my feelings, including my ability to interpret the infallible word of God correctly. I have even gotten some advice from an elder who is a very dear friend of mine, and I’ll get to that in a minute.
I have struggled in the past with pornography. When I met my wife, I quit it cold turkey and stayed away from it entirely for years into our marriage. She was aware of all of this. This past year, I started to struggle again, even though I justified it by saying I never went back to “full nudity” material. It was still sexually explicit and sinful. I am not trying to mitigate my sins; I am merely trying to provide background on how far I’ve come in this struggle.
Anyway, I was having a day of temptation, and while I was on a bathroom break at my company, I gave in to temptation and did a search for an inappropriate term, and it got blocked by the company firewall. I logged off my Wi-Fi immediately, and much to my shame, I continued the search on my data plan and watched an inappropriate video. Again, not that this matters, but it was not explicit, just very sexually inappropriate. Then of course I came to my senses and went back to work. This all happened probably within two minutes.
I lived in great fear for the next few weeks that my sin would be found out because of the firewall. I prayed earnestly that God would spare me the earthly consequences of my actions (possibly losing my job) and tried to move on. Weeks have passed, and I keep getting washed over with guilt and shame. This sin scared me so badly that, fortunately, I have found the strength to quit cold turkey again by the grace of God. I have repented, told my wife, and am trying my hardest to serve the Lord. That is a blessing from God. However, what is still bothering me is that company policy would have us not use personal devices at work, and it says, “There is zero tolerance for inappropriate activity on company or personal devices while on company property.” I can only assume this includes what I did.
My question is, am I being unrepentant and sinful by not telling my company what happened? The elder I spoke to has advised me to make things right with God and my wife, which I have, and that since I have not harmed the company with my sin, it is not strictly necessary to tell them. He said if it bothers my conscience, I should, however. The thing is, I have turned from this sin and agree with what he is saying.
I felt a lot better about all of this until I found the article “Sins of Ignorance” on your website. This made me question my motives and whether my not telling my company what happened, even though I don’t consider that sinful after much deliberation, might be seen differently by God. I should note a couple of things that arose from my praying about this. I have been praying to God that any personal gain would be out of the picture and that I would be able to trust the counsel of that elder, that I would be able to decide with finality in such a way that is pleasing to Him, and that my heart would point me in the right direction. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I discovered that IT and HR may even monitor the activity on the company Wi-Fi. This, in a way, feels like God was telling me that I need to move on and that it’s possible that they already know what happened and maybe assumed it was an accident.
I am not seeking justification for my sin but rather more counsel to determine if I have sinned in this regard without my own bias in the way. The reason I have not taken any of this lightly is that I know I have hurt my relationship with God and that I also need to consider the impact this could have on my family. This is not to say that the severity of consequences determines whether something is right or wrong; it is merely that I am a human and want to take care of my family and not lose my job.
I am stuck in a mental anguish cycle. On the one hand, I feel as though I am letting my anxiety run wild and that I don’t want to hear, “Depart from me, I never knew you,” if I don’t tell my company. Then, on the other hand, I have the sin of turning up my nose at the graciousness of God that has allowed me to not experience consequences from this yet, and so I’m going out of my way to punish myself. Then, of course, there is the overarching sin of anxiety and distrust in the goodness of God because I feel as though God is watching my every move, and if I don’t make the right call, I am condemned.
Any advice and prayers would be appreciated.
Answer:
When dealing with God's laws, there is always a danger of altering the laws. You can accidentally miss something God commanded. However, there is also the danger of adding rules that God didn't give. "Do not add to His words or He will reprove you, and you will be proved a liar" (Proverbs 30:6).
"Repentance" is changing your behavior and your attitude toward sin (II Corinthians 7:10-11). A part of that change is the desire to fix what you broke by your sin, but not everything is fixable. You can't roll the clock back to change what you did. Thus, if you stole something, you try to make restitution where possible. If you acted with inappropriate anger, you apologize to the person affected by your anger. Where is the passage that requires you to tell everyone you sinned? Where does God say that this is a condition that must be met before you can be forgiven? I looked back through the article you referenced, and nowhere does it mention a requirement to tell people that you have sinned. You are in a panic because you've added to God's laws.
You understand that pornography is wrong. Yes, firewalls do keep records of what is blocked, but those records are rarely searched unless something alerts those in charge of repeated attempts. It was wrong to break the company's rule, but the answer is not to repeat it. Your act of lust was against yourself and against God. Nowhere does God require a person to incriminate himself. You have to be honest if you are accused of a crime, but you should not be your own accuser. The only thing that is important is that you change and ask God for His forgiveness (I John 1:9).
I do want to point out that while you state that you know it doesn't matter, you still go out of your way to "soften" your sin. I know you are trying to ease the guilt, but you are better off being objective. You sinned by chasing after sexual lust. It doesn't matter what was depicted. In this way, you will be better able to stay far from sin. There is no compromising with it. "Do not enter the path of the wicked and do not proceed in the way of evil men. Avoid it, do not pass by it; turn away from it and pass on" (Proverbs 4:14-15).
You have gotten yourself caught up in scrupulosity, which is a form of OCD in which you try to eliminate all religious errors. You have added extra rules, but all they have done is make your life miserable. "Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin yourself?" (Ecclesiastes 7:16). Stick to what God actually said to do. Trust Him.
Response:
Thank you so much for your reply. At the back of my mind, I knew I was doing this, but sometimes, bringing our sins to light helps us think more clearly. Thank you for your words of wisdom and admonition.
I also want you to know how much I appreciate these articles. They have been very helpful for Bible study, but I know that hearing about people’s struggles with their own sins, especially from all over the world, might be heavy on the heart. Thus, I will pray for you just as I hope you will pray for me.
Much love in Christ.
