Runners and Seekers
Authored by Bryan Steele and Jessica Jean Alba, 2011
I start with a story of a couple - Tom and Mary. Tom and Mary were a happy couple. They had a temple marriage, four beautiful children, were active members, and attended the temple. A few years ago, the secrets emerged. Tom was leading a double-life - 16 years of video tapes, trapped in pornography, having affairs while serving in bishoprics, and attending weddings in the temple. A cancer had infested their family circle. Mary was willing to support her husband of 28 years, and help him overcome his addiction, but to no avail. Two years after the discovery, Tom decided that his 2nd life was the one he wanted to lead. Family shredded and left in ruins. Future and promise blasted. It leaves me breathless and broken. How can Mary bear it? No one should be asked to endure such pain and despair.
It is such a delicate and difficult subject. I shrink to offend the most tender and chase among us, but Elder Holland said WE MUST BE BOLD - SO BOLD I WILL BE. Warning to parents:grab those sweet 5 and unders, and quickly give them crayons of every color and a large coloring book.
I hate to speak it aloud in polite company. It leaves the most vile taste in my mouth. Elder Scott called it the most damming force on earth, and so it is - this world-wide scourge of pornography. President Packer, in the August Ensign spoke of a frightening development. That Great and Spacious Building of Lehi's Dream - I choose to call Satan's Palace - has grown so monstrously large it has broken through that awful gulf separating us front he wicked, and now fully encompasses the iron rod, the path, the tree of life and its healing fruit. Instead of our having to look over at the building of no foundation from a vantage point of the tree, quoting Elder Packer, "[We] are [now] living in that great and spacious building.... That is our fate in this generation." .... Without feet shod in gospel truth, our wading in wickedness, if we are not watchful, may cause it to all run amok in our personal lives.
Even with pop up blockers on our computer, sexual images are popping up everywhere, in pictures, music, texting, virtual reality, video games and are now coming to us LIVE in LIVING COLOR! Let's not misunderstand what we are saying in our boldness. Pornography is any material depicting or describing the human body or sexual conduct in a way that arouses sexual feelings.Simply, pornography is anything that crates lust. This is the root of the issue.
That great and spacious building is full of lust with depictions of pornography in every direction - on every wall and in every hall. Satan's Gallery is set with a feast of vile and vice - a perverse pleasure for every palate.
We encounter pornography everywhere we look - the Malls, the Beach, the Gym, the Street, the Schools, the TV, the Computer, our Homes, and our churches. WE ARE ALL SEERS! What a repulsive thought. Us, our spouses, our sons, our daughters, our children. How did it come to this? It is no longer enough to try to avoid it. We must address SEEING it, because we are all SEERS.
There is only one righteous response to SEEING - and that is to RUN! We all must become like Joseph of the Old Testament. We must turn and RUN. Even if we are imprisoned for years for our running. Even is we have to leave our cloth garment and run naked, WE MUST RUN! We must become the greatest runners in the world so that lust will not overtake us. Running is the only way out and the only way up.
Just to make sure we understand the rules of running. We see a scantily clad athlete in the Gym - we turn away and RUN. We feel lust creeping into our hearts at the m ovie - we leave and RUN. We RUN past he Victoria Secret sisplay in the mall. We DO NOT hold our gaze. At the moment of seeing we are at the greast peril, for it is a moment of decision. So we RUN or do we LOOK? It is not easy to choose. Too often we want to LOOK. If we choose to look, we then descend from innocent SEERS to indulgent SEEKERS/
SEEKERS of LUST. It is what captured David, the great King of Israel. A man of whom God said was after His own heart. "And it came to pass in and eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king's house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon." (2 Samuel 11:2) Of course she was beautiful to look upon, but a prophet and a king should have chosen better. An adulterous affair; a stillborn infant; and a despicable murder later, the Greatest King in Israel had lost his exaltation. And it all began with a simple LOOK. What would history have written of David if he had been a RUNNER like Joseph?
After LOOKING follows the lingering look. The gander. The gawk. As we entertain ourselves with lust, of course we get a high or buzz.I call this GAZING and GRAZING. Elder Holland explains :
“Like thieves in the night, unwelcome thoughts can AND do seek entrance to our minds. But we don’t have to throw open the door, serve them tea and crumpets, and then tell them where the silverware is kept! (You shouldn’t be serving tea anyway.) Throw the rascals out! Replace lewd thoughts with hopeful images and joyful memories; picture the faces of those who love you and would be shattered if you let them down.” (“Place No More for the Enemy of My Soul”, May 2010)
Then the law of immoral gravity kicks in with a descent into Hell. Dwelling. Desiring. Fantasizing. Obsessing. Hungering and thirsting. Immersing. Feasting out of control, and one is hooked physically and chemically - an addict in every sense of the word!
DO NOT make the mistake of assuming that there is a great distance between LOOKING and IMMERSING or FEASTING. It is a very short road from OOGLING to GOOGLING; just a quick mouse click away. Remember David fell in a day.
Also, let’s not make the mistake in thinking that LOOKING is okay. I have heard some say that you can look at the menu as long as you don’t order. No you can’t. Lust begins long before the order is taken.
I have heard some say that these desires are ‘natural’. C.S. Lewis stated,
“…contemporary propaganda…make(s) us feel that the desires we are resisting are so ‘natural’ so ‘healthy’ and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them. Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health…and normality. Now this association is a lie.” (Mere Christianity, 100)
I have also heard some say that at least I am not having an affair. You may be mistaken about that. Pornography may be a man’s or a woman’s way of having an affair without the consequences or the exposure.
“But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman, to lust after her, hath committed adultery already in his heart.” (3 Ne. 12: 27-28, 32)
By the way, for every married couple, there is never a reason for a lingering or 2nd LOOK. Never. Joseph’s Problems started because Potipher’s wife LOOKED long and fantasized.
Let’s not make the mistake of thinking this is just a man’s problem either. It is staggering the number of women and children captured by lust. Look at how so many 40 year old women during Twilight are screaming over a 17 year old boy. If those were 40 year old men screaming over a 17 year old girl, someone would call the police!
A WORD of caution to single young men and young women: if you are GAZING and GRAZING and are waiting for marriage thinking that your sin will fade away into marriage intimacy…THINK AGAIN. SEEKERS are engaging in lust not love. Marriage will only make it more destructive, as lust will distort and pervert your love. Lust doesn’t morph into love. Only RUNNERS can love.
There is, however, a guaranteed way out. The way out SEEKING is the same process that drew us in. Just TURN AROUND from the darkness and LOOK to the LIGHT. Begin by Looking. Seeking. Dwelling. Pondering. Desiring. Hungering and thirsting. Feasting. You can be a RUNNER once again. Don’t get discouraged if you fail. Just keep trying. The atonement will reach down from heaven and lift you back up. Repentance can only begin with honesty. We must admit these things about ourselves if we have any hope of escaping the catastrophic consequences of lust. We must have no lies in our life.
Another disheartening realization is that powerful people are in control of you and your fixation. You have lost all control, and placed it in the hands of those who wish to make money off you. What a pathetic and frightening epiphany.
I believe that pornography may be the most deadly force on earth. Why? Essentially, all men and many women have been given what I call the power of the Gods. The power of procreation. These are tied to the God-given desire of intimacy. The temple teaches these passions, appetites, and desires are written in our DNA to insure that the greatest attributes of the LORD would be made manifest on earth through fathers and mothers and husbands and wives.
Lust is at constant war with this power, and we are at constant war with lust. Lust is to have an inappropriately strong desire for something; a fondness or desire for unrighteous physical pleasure, especially sexual immorality. As a result, lust is unlike every other sin in that it doesn’t require LOOKING to BECOME pleasant. We are hard-wired for love and intimacy to BE PLEASANT. Here is a heightened danger as expressed by C.S. Lewis,
“Everyone knows that sexual appetite, like our other appetites, grows by indulgence. Starving men may think much about food, but so do the gluttons, the gorged as well as the famished.” (Mere Christianity, 97)
We can get so inflamed and jammed up with desire that there is not much room left for anything else, including family! Unfortunately, in our age, that power of intimacy was made sufficiently strong so that in the more common culturally modest ages it would still be strong enough to draw men and women together. Add immodesty and outright perversion to our present culture, and the power can be overwhelming. I heard this best expressed by a famous Mormon. He said, “I don’t gaze at women. I want to, but I don’t.”
I heard a bishop once describe this as hunger that can’t be filled. To illustrate this point – passion is natural and God-given. So, in a very real way, when it comes to lust, we are all alcoholics and we are living in a bar. We would call a man a fool if he suggested an alcoholic would be okay if he just drank lite beer instead of hard liquor. But that same man might suggest that “soft” porn or a held glance is much different than hard core. How destructive that can be. How foolish is that man.
Unfortunately, this means we are always at risk, and will be for the rest of our lives. It’s better to be honest about this and prepare for the battle that will only end at death.
Lust is no respecter of persons. Women and men. Stake presidents and nursery leaders. All are targets in the rules of engagement – an equal opportunity destroyer. This is how Satan now wages war against the saints. Lust is the principal strategy to defeat the elect.
I WILL RUN.
Women hear this promise in Proverbs,
“Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.” (Proverbs 31:10-12, 25-26, 28-30)
How could any woman wish for more?
SO I WILL RUN.
May I share a word with the serious SEEKER. Again, do not suffer from an illusion of where you might be. Your soul is in jeopardy. If you have gone from images of courser and courser perversions descending down that whirlpool of hell and tried to quit but have relapsed, you are addicted. You had better get help fast, and I’m not talking about self-help. I know you are caught in a vice you can’t get out of. I know how much you ache to stop. I know your self-loathing and self-incrimination. I’ve heard it from so many. You know the suffering of Alma the Younger:
“But I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins. Yea, I did remember all my sins and iniquities, for which I was tormented with the pains of hell; yea,.. in fine so great had been my iniquities, that the very thought of coming into the presence of my God did rack my soul with inexpressible horror. Oh, thought I, that I could be banished and become extinct both soul and body … I [was] racked, even with the pains of a damned soul.” (Alma 36:12-15)
1. Start with this: proclaim with all your heart and strength “I WILL NEVER STOP TRYING TO QUIT. NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I FAIL, I WILL NEVER GIVE UP!” Even in failure, triumph in this, I WILL NEVER GIVE UP TRYING.
2. Next, realize you are not going to be able to stop! You are addicted. I’ve studied the medical pathology of pornography addiction, which is by the way, just like every addiction, except that it is faster to fall and more difficult to get out of. I don’t know how many times I’ve read that drug and pornography addicts always claim the cocaine was easier to escape than the lust!
3. Next, RUN. RUN to our good bishop, fast! Don’t worry about the embarrassment. This good bishop will keep a confidence to his grave. He will not think less of you, but will help bring out more of you through Christ Jesus. Just worry about this: stop paying the costs of addiction. Don’t pay more than you have already lost. I know you want to stop. I know you hate the pain. Get thee to a Bishop. The Church has a 12-Step Program to deliver you from this monster. Just RUN to the bishop. Don’t think about it, just RUN! Know this there is nothing that man or Satan can do that the Savior cannot undo. There is no injury, no anguish, that man or Satan can inflict that the Redeemer cannot heal. You need the atonement, and the man to lead you to that is the bishop.
Hear this story:
There was a man who got addicted to many things when young. He went to prison, and found Christ. He cleaned up, became Elders Quorum President, married a sweet wife, and brought some wonderful children into their family. Then, an event triggered his addictions, and like a dog to his vomit, all his former sins returned. He became so distraught that he questioned God’s love for him to the point that he knew God had abandoned him. How could God love a man who came back into the light and betrayed it once again? He began robbing small convenience stores eventually at gunpoint. One particular night, the attendant tripped the alarm. As the sirens drew closer he ran for the bushes, he knew he couldn’t go back to prison. So, he took his loaded gun, put his finger on the trigger and was about to end his life when he heard a voice - the voice said “I am still here” He returned to prison and with the help of the bishop and family services is trying once again to return to the light.
God will never leave us hopeless!
Despite all that is known about pornography and its destructive path, sadly, there are those of we saints who are providing stumbling blocks to many. Elder Oaks made a remarkable statement,
“And young women, please understand that if you dress immodestly, you are magnifying this problem by becoming pornography to some of the men who see you.” (“Pornography,” Liahona, May 2005, 87–90. Italics added for emphasis)
Any act, dress, talk, text that is immodest and/or creates lust is pornographic. I call these stumbling blocks CARRIERS and PROVOKERS. CARRIERS are those who are innocently generating lust. PROVOKERS are doing it intentionally. In the most important way, it doesn’t matter because the end result is lust.
Speaking specifically to CARRIERS both men and women – you are making it very difficult on all of us. Please stop! I beg you! I know the world teaches that in order to be beautiful you must look and act a certain way, but THE WORLD IS WRONG. Ask someone of the opposite sex who is not your brother or sister if you don’t believe me. I pray they will be honest. I know you get attention from looking that way. Of course you do. Lust is a powerful attention-getting emotion. But consider this, WHO ARE YOU ATTRACTING??
The RUNNERS are long gone – The SEEKERS are what remain. Do you wish to marry a SEEKER?? What will that mean to your marriage, to your self esteem, to your happiness, to your destiny?
Young women – do not delude yourselves into thinking that this type of behavior is what men want. The ones who deserve you and will take you to the temple are the very ones you are repelling.
Young Men – Take the advice of President Hinckley,
“The girl you marry is worthy of a husband whose life has not been tainted by this ugly and corrosive material.” (Ensign, May 1998, 49)
I Ask Married CARRIERS – why would you want to attract SEEKERS into your life or generate lust in your marriage?
Married Women – it has become common for you to adjust your garments to fit your outfit.
To both married men and women I ask - Do you think that you an unrepentant CARRIER will not bear some responsibility for the lust that is destroys lives and shreds families?
I beg you to change please consider my words! Become a PROTECTOR – those who are modest in dress, action, word and text. The only “normal” courting is found in modesty. And, to the RUNNERS of the world – modest is the hottest. Starve lust and it will die. Remember, PROTECTORS attract RUNNERS!
I challenge every member to go home and take what I call a PC test.
*Examine every article of clothing – is it a PROTECTOR or a CARRIER
*Examine every DVD – is it a PROTECTOR or a CARRIER
*Examine every Conversation – PROTECTOR or a CARRIER
*Examine every Text – PROTECTOR or CARRIER
Save a Life. Save a Family. Save Yourself. BE A PROTECTOR. And if you are single, you are bound to attract a RUNNER. There is safety and happiness only in RUNNING.
A woman I know is now on her 3rd marriage. She is beautiful, fit, a little into body worship (unlike me, obviously), and she likes to show it off. She also talks to me about a temple marriage and happy family, and doesn’t understand why her marriages always end in disaster. Stop being a CARRIER! You are attracting SEEKERS. RUNNERS to do not beat you, berate you, destroy your self esteem! BECOME A PROTECTOR and get a RUNNER!
A word to parents. What would you guess is the average age when someone becomes 1st addicted to pornography? 9. Do you believe it? So disheartening and shocking. So, parents you have very little time to train up your child in our day. God gives us a free 8 years.
At their core, all children, for that matter, all adults are good – Intelligence, light, truth, Spirit. The words cleaveth, receiveth, embraceth, loveth, claimeth are explaining the absorption of these truths. Surround your children with light and truth when they are young. It might probably mean the difference between life and death for the next generation. Are the 5 and under still coloring?
Listen to this addicted kid – it is heart wrenching
Blair: I grew up in the Church and have a testimony. However, there is a part of my life that few people know. At age seven I often saw a pornographic poster on a teenage neighbor’s wall. It left an impression in my mind that I could not forget. Unworthy thoughts led me to develop an unworthy habit I felt I couldn’t break. My self-confidence dwindled in church, school, and everywhere. Many times I felt very alone, awkward, and unworthy. If a girl liked me, I would think, “She wouldn’t like me if she really knew me.” I would shy away from being social. I prayed for strength to leave these temptations alone. I made a list of things like prayer, scriptures, and clean thoughts that would help me draw close to God. But although I worked hard, it didn’t solve my problems. The thought of confessing to the bishop made me cringe. I felt it would be better to tell the bishop about the problem when it was in the past. But I finally realized it wasn’t ever going to be in the past if I didn’t confess. If God already knew my struggles and I felt comfortable talking about them in prayer, why not talk face to face with God’s servant? Once I finally decided to confess, I felt a reassuring peace that it was the right thing to do. I felt relief when I stopped pretending. Sharing the burden with my bishop and my family meant I no longer had to deal with this addiction alone. Now I hold on to this support system. A problem that dominated my youth could not be overcome overnight. This road has been long and hard—and it continues. It isn’t enough anymore to look happy. I want to be happy. I am coming to know Christ and the Atonement with much deeper and more personal meaning. The Atonement gives me the strength I need so my self-confidence and self-respect grow step by step each day.
There is only one answer in controlling the power of godliness, and that is to LOOK to God and live. I know I can’t afford to go weaponless in the battle between love and lust. I must armor up in a suit of armor fashioned by the only perfect man who has won his battle with lust.
I don’t want to be a SEEKER, EVER! His word is full of power and healing. Reading his Word is not enough for me. Studying his Word is not enough for me. We must IMMERSE OURSELVES in his holy writ. We must give His Word a deep place in our hearts and in our schedule. And it takes a lot of time. BUT IT WORKS. It rips lust from my heart, and it feels so incredibly good. I can’t get enough of it!
As we approach the Temple for the 1st time AGAIN - we may feel living water flowing out from His House, and as we enter in – we are wading in living water to our ankles. As we return, we find the water embracing us is increasing to our knees and growing ever still until there are waters to swim in – so wide and broad that it spans both time and space, and everything it touches comes to life.
I see that water flowing out of the Book Mormon. I see it flowing out from the Sacrament Table. I see it flowing out from the Bishops Office. And the source of that living water is the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. Waters to swim in. As it flows, it touches me anywhere, and heals me everywhere. And I need it – so desperately need it.
CHRIST CAN Hear You – He Can Heal you – He can Save You – He Can Raise You
I am driven by desire. Desire to drive lust away from my head, from my heart ,and from my life.
SO I RUN.
In the Name of Jesus Christ AMEN
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