Unka Glen

Anonymous asked: i’m in this crazy cycle where i pleasure myself by reading pornographic material and masturbating. i battle within for about 5 minutes, and then it’s like a go into a trance, and have no idea what i’m doing, and when i realize what i’m doing, the urgency in turning to God is almost comical. i feel like i’m really struggling. I’m trying so hard to remain pure not only for my future husband but for myself as well because the aftermath of it is really hard as well. i feel guilty all the time and just dirty. i know it’s easy to say i’m just going to stop but i’m nearly 20 yrs old and it’s escalated from innocent childhood exploration to reading erotic material. i don’t want this holding me back in my walk anymore. [edited for length, and this didn’t come anonymously, but I’m anonymousizing it for her (that is too a word).]

Unka Glen answered: Okay, there is a lust thing going on here. I’ll certainly grant you that. But let’s look at everything else going on here as well. Shall we?

1. Part of this activity makes you feel good, and part of it makes you feel terrible. So our eyes should be open to the fact that it just doesn’t work as a way of improving your overall mood.

2. Normal people have sexual desires. Those desires are, in and of themselves, not wrong or sinful. It’s of course what we do with them that puts us on the right side of things or the wrong side. You aren’t dirty, and sex isn’t dirty. It’s the most intimate physical expression of love there is, and God made it to be beautiful and meaningful and fun. There would be something wrong with you if you didn’t want that in your life.

3. You feel “guilty all the time”, and that hasn’t fixed things, so moving forward, we know that the emotion of guilt is not part of the solution (and we may indeed discover that it’s part of the problem).

4. This guilt-centered view on masturbation is compelling us to focus on the wrongness of this whole cycle, but its given us no wisdom as to how we got here. The emotion of guilt has you saying: “I am bad, therefore I want bad things, and because I’m bad I don’t stop myself from doing the bad things I want to do, thus reinforcing that I am bad. End of story. Nothing else to see here.”

The conviction of the Holy Spirit sounds different: I’m better than this, and God has better for me than this, so why would I settle for something so inadequate, small, cheap, and empty? There must be a reason why I’m settling, and I need wisdom to figure it out.”

5. The emotion of guilt clouds the wisdom you need to understand this thing, and to lay the ax to the roots of this thing. So let’s say you pray and meditate on it, and you realize that you get caught up in this cycle every time you’re lonely. Well, loneliness is fairly easily dealt with, once you finally see that as the source of things. Maybe you realize this cycle kicks in when you feel stressed. Maybe this cycle starts when you feel doubtful about finding the right man in your life. 

Regardless… if you cure the disease, the symptoms can then be eliminated.

One last point: you said you don’t want this holding you back in your walk anymore. I hear stuff like this being said, a lot. “Sin separates us from God”, well, yes it separated (past tense) me from God, and then God sent His Son, and He closed that separation by paying for those sins. When I accepted that payment for my sins and become a Christian, Romans 8 says nothing separates me from the love of God. 

I think maybe we’ve got it in the wrong order, first I come out separate from God’s plan and his will, and then sin is the result. 

What I’m saying is, nothing is holding you back from God, and nothing can hold you back from God. Open your heart to His love and boldness as you read this. He is near, so toss aside anything that troubles you, and steals your joy, and dwell in the warmth of God’s love. There’s no more temptation there. 

Everything else is a work in progress. God is patient.

Anonymous asked: Hey Unka Glen. We my boyfriend and I are both Christians, and this is the first time either one of us has been in a relationship focused on God. We both have had past relationships that were sexually immoral, this one is not (praise God). He told me the other night he had a slip up with masturbating and watching porn. He asked my forgiveness, and he just felt horrible like he cheated on me. How should a Godly lady react?

Unka Glen answered: I think you ought to look at his reaction to the stumble more than the stumble itself. And I think you should pay careful attention to the way he characterizes the nature of the stumble. So, for example, he characterizes this as similar to cheating on you, and that’s just true enough to be plausible, but it doesn’t fit just enough so that you’d be inclined to be Christian about it, and tell him you forgive him, and to stop beating up on himself. 

Everybody’s feeling bad, but so far nobody is taking responsibility for getting things on track.

This is different from him saying, “you and I set limits and boundaries in this relationship, and I showed that I’m not capable of maintaining those boundaries, and here is what I’m going to do to change my patterns of behavior, and here is what I’m going to do to gain your trust back. You deserve better, and I won’t rest until you have better.”

This kind of response, one that involves taking responsibility, is a LONG way from him telling you how horrible he feels. If he’s making things worse, we don’t need to hear how bad it makes him feel, when you mess up, it’s about the other person’s feelings.

Now, make no mistake, I don’t think you should be harsh with a guy who is working (as you both are) to have a totally different kind of relationship than you’ve ever had before. As such his deep regret is appropriate and relevant. And mistakes and stumbles are bound to occur, thus you should be understanding of him and the situation (regardless of what you decide to do next).

But it sounds like (from just a few details here) he’s mourning the stumble more than he’s taking responsibility for rolling up his sleeves and making changes. 

If feeling really bad over our sins was a cure, a lot of us would be practically sinless by now.

Anonymous asked: What about females that struggle with lust, pornography, and masturbation? I feel like it’s such a downplayed problem in our society and in our churches, but I know it’s a very real problem for me, and as a woman, I feel like there are limited resources out there. What would you say to a woman who struggles with this temptation/issue?

Unka Glen answered: I’d say that you’re not alone. I get just as many messages and prayer requests from women struggling with pornography as I do from men. CNN reports: “In the first three months of 2007, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, approximately one in three visitors to adult entertainment websites was female; during the same period, nearly 13 million American women were checking out porn online at least once each month.”

It bears mentioning that this is a relatively new trend, and the internet has a lot to do with that. If it means anything, I’ve mentioned this issue with every pastor I’ve talked with in the past six months. So hopefully the awareness is increasing. 

But let’s make a few things clear, the theology and spirituality of all this works the same with women, as with men. God gives us a sex drive, and He gives us wise instructions on how to operate it. We tend to ignore that, screw it up (no pun intended… well maybe a little), and then we end up turning back to God and trying it His way. And speaking for myself, wow, yeah, do it His way. Like everything else in the Kingdom, it’s really tough at first, but then things get really awesome. 

Sex, and the desire for it, isn’t dirty— it’s beautiful, natural, and God given. There is nothing weird or abnormal about you having a curiosity about sex, to have a sexual imagination/fantasy life, and to take matters into your own hands (okay, that was intended). Things may take a wrong turn, but this is a very common occurrence, I assure you.

I’m not sure most Christians know where to rank their sexual imperfections and struggles, because they tend to really fixate on them in a way that often eclipses all other considerations in their walk. So let’s make sure we aren’t wallowing in guilt and shame on this thing, and we FOR SURE need to stop portraying masturbation as some kind of all-consuming evil. Because dang.

Having said all that, I think every church should have a women’s group that meets to talk about sexual struggles, including rape/molestation issues, and sexual appetite/changing sexual lifestyle issues. I think women need to be empowered to heal each other on this stuff, and I spend many hours training the ladies in my own inner-city ministry to do just that for each other. 

Final note: ask yourself, am I using porn as a sort of “boost” when I’m feeling bad towards myself? Am I using porn when I feel lonely and unloved? Am I using porn to change my mood off of something negative? If so, then I think, rather than getting all negative and upset about the porn, why not ask yourself a simple question: am I using the best tool for the job? (See, now you think I’m intending puns all over the place).

There is a better cure for low-self esteem and loneliness, and plenty of better ways to change your mood and outlook. Porn is just the easiest way, the most readily available way. But it isn’t the most effective way. That means you’re cheating yourself out of a better life, all for want of going to God and telling Him, “I want what’s real, and lasting, I want what’s pure and true, I need pleasures beyond the physical, I need pure uncut 100% angelic joy filling me up to overflowing until it’s pouring out of my life and into everyone else’s around me! And I need it right now!”

God wants you to have the real stuff. If you’re running short, that’s on you, buttercup.

Anonymous asked: Dear Unka Glen, Have you ever had a problem with porn and masturbation? I feel like I am the only Christian guy who is struggling with such problems. do you have any tips or tricks that can constantly remind me that my body is the temple of God? Despite what is said in the Bible, I would prefer to not gouge out my eyes and chop off my hands. 

Unka Glen answered: Not only are you not the only Christian guy who struggles with this, but I’d say that at least once a month I find myself counseling a pastor who struggles with porn. Okay? And yeah it’s a fair question of me, you deserve to know whether your spiritual leaders have had their struggles or not. And you bet, I struggled with this stuff big time when I was your age.

But in truth, even that isn’t fair to your struggle. As you know, I am super-old (born in the late Jurrasic, frozen and later thawed), and to get a glimpse at a non-airbrushed, pre-silicone, very curvy, mostly still-dressed ladies in what passed as porn at the time, we would ride our bikes for hours to get to a friends house who had somehow got his hands on some magazine that had been found in the trash. 

We were so busy trying to find it, we never thought about trying to resist the temptation. Porn seemed to be constatntly resisting our efforts to get at it. The temptation levels, in terms of how easy it is to access porn today, is no comparison. I guess you could say I fell into temptation with much less to tempt me, but today you have a much tougher challenge to face, and I respect that.

Before we delve any further, you may want to look at this post where I cover the theology of masturbation, because I won’t be repeating much of that here. And you may want to look at this video, which is a bit cheeky, but makes a serious point about stripping away the shame to find effective ways of dealing with this struggle. 

As you’ve already guessed, when the Bible tells you to gouge out your eye if it causes you to lust, this is what’s called a hyperbole (which is just an exaggeration made for emphasis or effect). The point in this case is clear, do whatever it takes to get your body under your control, make whatever changes needed to break your habits.

So in your case, as I’ve mentioned before, if you want to change a habitual behavior, you want to look at the context that usually surrounds that behavior. With this issue, I’m guessing that temptation is at it’s strongest when you are: alone, stressed, and when some sort of outside stimulus has set you off. 

So you don’t necessarily need to be able to fight this thing all the time, but you need to be able to totally defeat it at these “high risk” moments. Plan something else for those times. Something that gives you a sense of release and pushes the reset button on the stress. Maybe for you that’s going for a run, maybe it’s watching a movie with your favorite snack, maybe it’s playing a video game.

For any habit you want to break, it’s about being proactive, thinking and planning for the day ahead. If you stumble, pick yourself up, quit feeling sorry for yourself, and figure out how to improve your strategy. It may take you stumbling a dozen times for you to find a habit-breaking strategy that works for you. So be it. God is patient.

There are no easy fixes, and that may be part of the lesson God is looking for you to learn here: how to I prioritize what I need to fix, so I can be sure to focus all my attention on the most important thing (which may not be masturbation just yet, by the way), then how to I work a complex strategy to deal with a complicated problem? 

Personally speaking, good Christian fellowship has helped me stay on-track more than anything in my life. And finding a way to be thankful in prayer has prevented more backslides in my life than I could count.

Now, brace yourself for a BONUS MASTURBATION QUESTION:

Anonymous asked: Unka, my question is this: The guy I’m almost dating (spirit-filled, amazing, heart-for-God, guy), opened up to me about the fact that he can’t and shouldn’t go longer than a few days without masturbation because things get crazy for him hormonally. Whats the deal? Sexual addiction/lust, physical issue/needs marriage, or both?

Unka Glen answered: How about— full of it/trying to play you? 

Ah, the “Hulk Defense”. For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is where the boyfriend explains that if he doesn’t release the pressure, a dangerous hormonal build up will occur, and he will expand to twice his normal size, go on a rampage, and smash everything in sight with his super-strength. Indeed we’ve all tried the “I need to orgasm, or I’ll die” speech. But c’mon sista.

I mean, he’s right from the standpoint that to do without orgasm is a bummer of MASSIVE proportions, and that physiologically speaking it is different for men to “do without”. But it won’t kill him, or drive him “hormonally crazy”. Young men who aren’t sexually active, will ejaculate in their sleep, so the body knows how to regulate it’s own levels. And we all need to learn to regulate our own behavior. 

We all have our sin nature, but God calls us to make use of super-natural strength to control whatever natural desires we have in our bodies.

If your almost boyfriend had said that he prayed about it, and that God wants him to focus on making other changes, and that masturbation is slated for a change to be made later, that might be one thing (we obviously can’t change all our behavior all at once, so there has to be a priority, an order of importance that God places on those changes that need to be made). But this sounds more like excuse making to me. 

He needs to learn how to pray through and set boundaries that God ordains, in order to have healthy relationships with anyone, let alone a romantic relationship with you.

spedz asked: Yo Unka Glen. What is your interpretation of the unpardonable sin? What does it mean to blaspheme the Holy Spirit, and what are the ramifications? I’m sure I’m not the only one for whom this verse causes consternation. Every time I read it I am made uncomfortable. Perhaps you can reconcile me with old Matthew and Mark on this touchy point.

Unka Glen answered: The unpardonable sin, as we all know, is the sin of watching porn, touching it, and then repenting, and then watching porn again. This can never be forgiven, and you will be sent directly to Hell on a greased chute.

Well, that’s what we’re all worried that it means, right? So, I thought I’d just say it out loud, so we can all see how it sounds. Sounds kinda silly huh? But believe me, there was a time in my walk where stuff like that would have made perfect sense in the dark messed up place I called a mind.

You and I have both read the context of those verses in Matthew 12 and Mark 3, and we know in both cases Jesus is talking about religious leaders who said that Jesus was doing miraculous things by the power of Satan. And I’m not saying that Jesus does things by the power of Satan, so…

But what is it about us, that we hear about an unforgivable sin, and we’re certain we’ve done it, before we even know what it is?

Dang, I don’t know what you think a blasphemer is, but the most basic definition would be something like: a person who has no regret or concern about a lack of reverence towards God. That means, if you’re worried about being a blasphemer, you, by definition, are NOT a blasphemer. A person determined to wallow in guilt is wrong on so very many levels, but blasphemy can’t be one of them. And yet, that’s the ONE sin they’re SURE they’re guilty of!

My beloved, you are forgiven. Of everything. All of it. It’s been removed from the playing field. If that scares you, I say to you now— suck it up and live with it. The alternative is much worse.

I received two seemingly unrelated questions the other day, but I think there is a common thread here, an issue that many of you struggle with, and I’ll show you what I mean…

Anonymous asked: My question is: How do you talk to a gay person about Jesus and their sin? One of my best friends is gay. You’ve probably heard about the new gay marriage law being passed in NY. Everyone is celebrating. I’m quite uncertain about everything, and I haven’t ever expressed any sort of disagreement with homosexuality, because truthfully I am afraid of the opposition I’ll face.

leeonsimonandrew asked: Do you think we should celebrate Halloween? I want to hear your personal view.

In both cases the question is: what should we be against, how much should we be against it, and how do we share our against-ness with the whole world? This is a losing game, and it never, I repeat, never gets people closer to the Lord.

So lets start with the Halloween thing. How is it, that when non-believers celebrate Christmas, they are ruining Christmas, but when Christians celebrate Halloween, somehow Halloween is ruining them? I don’t get the logic there.

Listen, anything might be messing me up as a Christian, anything can turn into a temptation. Anything can be an idol. Ehh-Knee-Thang! People, and you know I love you, but dang please one time get your minds around this: you cannot condemn everything that is or might be a sin, and imagine that you’re doing God’s work.

You are in the world to call people to a closer walk with the Lord. Is a Gay Pride Parade, Harry Potter, or Halloween really getting in people’s way of getting closer to the Father? Really? I seriously doubt it. Okay, maybe in some cases, but dang y’all go at it like you’re afraid to not be against stuff enough. Do you have any idea what kinds of issues are more important than these things? God has made it clear, for example, on nearly every page of the Bible, the way you treat the poor is of MAJOR importance to Him. And it’s hard for the world to detect that we care about that issue AT ALL.

But DANG are you people obsessed with sex. Dang. Seriously, what the heck? Can you shift that into neutral long enough to realize that the church has developed a truly unhealthy obsession with sex (especially homosexuality, dang, have we not heard enough on that already?). And you’ve got to let it go. Okay, masturbating to porn is a sin, we get that. But for some of you, that triggers a level of shame that genocidal maniacs never feel. Doesn’t it seem like we’ve lost our bearings a bit there?

Christians: I love ya, I do, but you really need to recognize: the world already knows EVERYTHING that you are against. Everything. They know. If you have a gay friend that knows you’re a Christian, he knows that you’re not in favor of his lifestyle but that you love him anyway. If your neighbors know and respect your Christianity, and they see your kids trick-or-treating, they won’t assume that you’ve converted to devil worship. They’ll assume that your kids like candy. Hello?

Move closer to God, and “cast off everything that hinders” (Heb. 12). If it isn’t hindering anything, then don’t let it become a distraction from casting off what needs casting off.

Anonymous asked: Is masturbation a sin, I mean, wouldn’t God rather have you masturbate, than have sex? People say it’s not a sin as long as you don’t think of lustful things. Well I don’t know, I’ve asked this question to pastors/pastor like figures and none have ever answered, but I really want to know if its a sin, because if so then I want to find a way to quit.

Unka Glen answered: Ah, the weekly anonymous masturbation question. What follows is the complete theology of masturbation, once and for all…

Masturbation is curiously missing from the Bible. Yes, there is a dude named Onan in a very obscure corner of the Old Testament who displeased God because he “spilled his seed on the ground”. However, from the context of the story, it appears that this means he was using the coitus interruptus method of birth control (also known as the the “pull it out at the last second to keep from making a baby method”).

So, as you say, masturbation may not be a sin, if you could keep from thinking lustful thoughts while doing it, but unfortunately this is exactly how masturbation works. The other question you’re not asking is: is an orgasm a sin? That’s the whole goal here anyway, and the Bible gives no indication that an orgasm is sinful either. Indeed males who don’t masturbate will orgasm, and ejaculate in their sleep. We obviously can’t call that sinful (especially since it happens when they aren’t conscious).

You’re looking for a simple yes or no on this, and that’s just not going to happen, it’s why pastors and spiritual leaders don’t like answering this question, because it’s complicated. In fairness though, what is and is not a sin always needs to be worked out in the context of your life, between you and God anyway. So, for example, if I love football so much that I stay home from church to watch football, then football has become a sin for me. If you record the game and watch it after church, with some brothers from the church, then football has become an occasion to fellowship and maintain a day of rest. Therefore it doesn’t make sense to say that football is a sin or not. It’s about the larger picture, if you see what I mean.

Since we can’t be perfect in our words, thoughts, and deeds, all at once, right now, then God must have an agenda for the change in your life. An order of importance. A time when a change is called for, and when it’s NOT called for. It’s super-important to let God dictate than order, not you. Having said that, if masturbation causes you crippling guilt and shame, then God will almost certainly call you to first get rid of the guilt (because it’s crippling you, it’s not stopping the behavior, and it’s messing with your relationship with God).

If you’re a new or young Christian, masturbation is probably not at the top of that list anyway, so don’t let the enemy use it to distract you from what is at the top the list. Ultimately, being a Christian is about submitting your whole self, and your whole life, to God (like a living sacrifice). If God is telling you to stop masturbating today, then it’s a sin for you, whether it is for anyone else or not. If God wants your focus elsewhere, then keep it elsewhere, just be ready for the day He taps you on the shoulder and says that now is the time for this to stop.  

So finally there’s the sin of lust. Lust is simply this: a burning, unquenchable desire for something that cannot be satisfied. Lust locks us in an endless cycle of: a) desire, b) the attempt to satisfy that desire that never fully satisfies, and c) more desire. The game is rigged, but all we can see is that I’m never quite satisfied now, if I did less towards this, then I’d really be hurting. We’re so busy trying to scratch that itch that we fail to see that this itch is never going to go away. Lust lures us in with pleasure, but denies us satisfaction.

Here is what I know about you: the only moments of pure satisfaction you’ve experienced have been with God. That perfect moment on that church retreat. That short term missions trip where you wished you never had to go home. That time you were hanging out with your Christian friends and you said, “this is my family, and they rock.”

You are a spirit, and only the things of the spirit can satisfy.

I’m trying out some audio answers, let me know what you think!

Other Unka Glen video here.