Jesus the Christ, does has the power and ability to heal, but sometimes that healing is not instantaneous. More often than not, it requires time, faith, and growth on our part. It requires diligence.
How can we be diligent?
Joey suffered from porn addiction and he wanted Christ to help him overcome it. Joey kneeled down and prayed, but nothing happened.
Joey decided to pray again. This time he cried and prayed at the same time, but nothing happened.
Next, he tried screaming at God. He told him that he hated Him. This didn’t work either. He tried, pleading, begging, reasoning, and making deals, but nothing seemed to help. Joey decided that Christ wasn’t going to heal him.
A lot of the time, Christ has already given us the answers to our problems. He told us through answers to prayers, sermons, and conversations with others, but we didn’t understand the answers when we heard them. We were not mature enough to understand the answer when He gave it.
Joey was married to Beatrice. Beatrice was very bitter. Beatrice was very upset at her husband for using porn. This bitterness consumed her. It blocked her ability to feel the spirit. She was irritable, short with others, and unhappy.
Beatrice got on her knees. She prayed to God for help and then she went to work. She read multiple books about her situation. She listened to hours and hours of podcasts about her predicament. She prayed, meditated, and pondered. She read the “Support Guide for Spouses and Family of Those in Recovery.” She attended support groups.
Her understanding coincided with her growth. God was able to impart more knowledge line upon line, precept upon precept, as she was able to understand it. As her understanding grew, so did her enlightenment. Gradually her bitterness melted away and her love for her husband grew.
When Beatrice was more mature in her understanding, she understood the scripture passages differently. She understood sermons differently. She could see that the answers to her prayers were present all along. She was not yet mature enough to understand the answers God had already given her.
Joey saw the change in his wife Beatrice. He saw how peaceful she was. He wanted some of that peace for himself.
After listening to an inspiring sermon in church, Joey decided to turn his will over to God. Joey did this by finding a quiet place. He relaxed his mind and he mentally turned his will over. He decided that he would do whatever God would ask of him. Joey asked God what he should do to get rid of porn. Then, Joey waited with a calm clear mind. Joey felt that he should change his phone from a smart phone to a flip phone. That is all the impression that he received. It took Joey a month to follow his prompting, but he did follow it.
After the execution of this prompting, Joey asked God what he should do next. Joey was prompted that he should read articles on the subject. For the next week, Joey read articles. In article number 34, Joey read that computers should be in the living room. Joey felt a strong spiritual impression when he heard this. It took Joey a few days to follow through with the prompting, but he eventually did.
Joey continued to prepare his mind through scripture reading, praying, relaxing his mind through meditation, and preparing his heart to turn his will over to God. Joey’s next prompting came in the form of a conversation. He had started meeting with Addiction Recovery. In Addiction Recovery he heard about Disney Circle. This is something that plugs into the router and blocks porn from every device that is being streamed through the router. That night, as he meditated and prayed, his thoughts were repeatedly driven towards Disney Circle. Joey recognized this as a prompting and bought the product.
Joey had some good boundaries in place. His battle against porn was getting better, but he still had a way to go. In counseling with his pastor, the pastor, quoting a talk, said that he cannot have one foot in the stirrup and one foot on the ground. Not knowing what this meant, Joey pondered his Pastor’s words. He recognized that it was something he needed to ponder, because the Holly Ghost prompted him to dwell upon the words.
In meeting with a local therapist, Joey learned how the body responds to what the mind is thinking about. If the mind is thinking about porn, the body will start to respond physically to the thoughts of porn. This will result in the feeling of cravings.
The therapist invited him to not think of an elephant. As Joey tried to not think of an elephant, thoughts of the elephant flooded his mind. What happens, the therapist asked, when you try to not think about porn?
Joey pondered this problem and prayed about it. If I think about porn or try to not think about porn, I’m still thinking about porn. If I’m still thinking about porn, the cravings will still be present. Joey took this problem to the Lord in prayer. His answer did not come right away. He was lead in his mind to study books on training his mind.
Through the course of his research, Joey stumbled across a book that he was prompted to read. In the book, he learned the power of not arguing with his mind. He learned that he doesn’t have to be caught in a dichotomy of focusing on porn or not focusing on porn. He can instead, think of a third thing. Joey was overjoyed at this and put it into practice immediately.
Joey was able to decrease his porn use significantly; however, Joey still messed up from time to time and looked at porn. Whenever he did, he beat himself up immensely. Every time he beat himself up, Joey would become very depressed which would lead to a stronger and longer relapse. This time, Joey remembered that in a recent address, the speaker said members could counsel with their Elder’s quorum president.
Joey’s Elder’s quorum president loved to garden. Joey sheepishly told his president of his predicament and asked for some advice. His Elder’s quorum president told him a story about how he puts manure on his rose bushes every fall. In the spring they bounce back happy and strong. One fall, he reasoned to himself that if a little manure is beneficial then a lot of manure would be really beneficial. He told Joey about how he put 2 feet of manure on his roses, only to find that the pile of manure burned his roses. Pondering upon the lesson, Joey decided to stop using self-denigration as a means of self-motivation.
Joey was doing better at beating porn, but there was still something bothering him. Joey felt very inadequate. Joey compared himself to people around him. He believed that everyone else was more put together than him. Joey constantly compared himself to the people around him. His low sense of self-worth created feelings of depression. The feelings of depression made it difficult to hear God’s promptings because his head was full of noise. The depressed feelings made him more susceptible to porn because his body craved quick escape. The heaviness resulted in him wanting to give up and stop trying as hard.
As Joey was reading the Bible, he ran across the parable of the 10 talents. He noticed that the Lord was pleased when the person with 2 talents grew his talents into 4. He was not upset that the person didn’t grow his talents into 10, like his companion did. During one of his meditation sessions, Joey was sitting in the woods pondering the scripture. His mind was opened and his understanding was enlightened. Joey noticed the trees in the forest. Some trees were large. Some trees were small. Some were green. Some had a brownish hew. Each tree, by itself, existed in a state that represented itself. Each tree was adequate unto itself. It was only when Joey compared one tree to another that the tree became inadequate.
Joey was finally able to beat his porn addiction. As Joey met with his Pastor in an interview, Joey talked about his journey. He discussed how he originally thought that he already had all the answers and it was God that wasn’t holding up His end of the bargain. He explained that he later learned that God wanted him to progress. Joey told his Pastor that he didn’t grow himself. He put aside his pride, surrendered his will and allowed Christ to grow him. It was God’s grace that Joey relied on when he needed strength to resist porn. It was the healing power of Christ’s atonement that healed his body from the effects of porn. It was the light of Christ that helped Joey recognize which books to read and which books to disregard. It was the Holy Ghost that prompted him to talk to his Elder’s quorum president. It was his Heavenly Father who answered him when he prayed.
God does help us. Often the answers are already there. We cannot see them, because we haven’t matured enough to understand them. As we swim upstream and push against the impulses to do wrong, we will mature and grow. We will grow in the way God wants us to grow as we surrender our will to His.