Anonymous asked: I love God. I have struggled with lust almost my whole life. I bring this up because I am an art student and there is an entire class on studying the human figure. Nude. The models are sitting there in class. It is more annoying than anything else, but how can I deal with seeing the nude figure all the time? Is there a way to please God and stay pure in this situation while also not making a scene?
Unka Glen answered: Here’s a word I’d like us to all stop using— purity. Purity is a long term ideal to be strived for, purity is something we work out in a process with God, it is not our natural default state in any area of our lives, especially when it comes to the constant itch of lust.
But you present an interesting challenge. There is a difference between the naked statue of Michelangelo’s David, and a naked image on a porn site. I don’t know if I can explain that difference, but then again, you’re the artist, so you tell me. There is a difference between the celebration of the most beautiful thing in all of creation, the human body, and something that has been cheapened and erotisized.
But what constitutes that difference? Can one enjoy the beauty of the human form without being triggered into lust? Where is that line? How do we walk that line? If you think about a medical student, they deal with nudity on a frequent basis, but that’s in a clinical and de-erotisized environment. A picture in an anatomy textbook is likely to be neither erotic, nor art.
I think if you’ve struggled with lust (like roughly, oh, 100% of the human population), then you already know that you can’t really hide away from it. It’s everywhere. But it may actually be an empowering exercise, with the Lord, to see beauty in the human body, and to NOT let that vision be crowded out by lust. Maybe then you can show us, with your art, how we can do the same.
What a joy, to think of being at that point where you’re not giving in to the ride that lust wants to take you on. Maybe that’s what great art is really all about, something that takes us beyond our mere appetites, to see the fingerprints of God Himself.
ohhowheloveus asked: So. You know there’s a hard time coming up in your life. Maybe you’re already in it. Death, money problems, sickness, what have you. You know someday things will get easier, whether you see the light at the end of the tunnel or not. My question is, is, how can we get through that hardship when most of us feel alone, scared and we don’t how to help ourselves? I don’t want to wallow in this season, so how can I make it better for myself? Also, how can we tell the difference between the devil tempting us, foiling our plans, ruining everything, and getting in the way, etc, or a season of being tested by God in our faith? And how do we come out on the other side of that? [edited for length]
To answer the second half first, often what the enemy means for evil, in trying to destroy something from happening, the Lord also simultaneously means as a test to strengthen us to be able to trusted with that thing, once it happens. So often there is no real difference between God’s test and the enemy’s temptation, just the intent, I suppose you could say.
And I suppose you could do what a lot of Christians do, which is to see it all as a series of trials and attacks, and cast yourself as the victim, bravely overcoming the obstacles and that would be okay, I guess, but I’d prefer to think of to all as a series of challenges, which are designed to help me grow stronger, or to be more wise and experienced, or to have the right attitude, or you name it.
But you asked how do we face these challenges. Well, think of it like you’re going to take a trip, and you want to pack everything you need. If you’re crossing the desert you need lots of water. If you’re hiking in the woods, you’ll need a compass. And so on. Well think of Godly virtues in this same way.
If I’m going to Aunt Pearl’s house, and she drives me crazy, I need to pack some extra patience. If I’m starting a new semester in school, I need all the courage and self-control I can get. As you use this stuff in these situations, you will run out all too soon. So you go back to the Lord and ask Him to give you more patience or courage.
I know what you’re thinking, this sets up a system where you’re constantly going to God for wisdom, courage, faith, joy, and any other virtue you need, in a state of total dependancy. And you’d be right.
Your lies are stupid. I don’t mean that to be insulting, heck if I’m insulting anyone it’s me for believing your stupid lies. Actually, I haven’t just believed these stupid lies, I’ve often lived my life according to them.
Here’s a stupid lie: I’m the only one who’s looked at porn. The porn business makes about a zillion dollars a year, but I’m the only one? Heck, if Christians alone stopped buying it, they’d go out of business. Here’s another stupid lie: people won’t think I’m cool if I’m a Christian. Cool people don’t care what anybody thinks. Besides, what, people are gonna think I’m cool for being nothing?
Here’s another stupid lie: I’ll never find someone to fall in love with, and get married. Dang, the whole world, down through the generations, has found a way to pair off and hook up, but you, in an internet-connected world of nearly infinite possibilities, presents such a huge challenge to search algorithms and to Almighty God Himself, that we can’t find someone for you? C’mon.
Here’s another stupid lie: God doesn’t really love me when I mess up. Heck even imperfect people like me manage to love others, even after they’ve made mistakes. I’m supposed to think that a God who says about himself, “I AM LOVE”, somehow is less loving than I can be?
These lies are so stupid, that by simply saying them out loud, they start to fall apart and lose their power. So all that’s over now. The cure is simple: anything that steals my joy, I’m gonna say out loud what that thing is. Your lies are too stupid to work in the cold light of day.
In Jesus name,
Me
P.S. Bite down on that and suck it.
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.
Hey guess what I just learned about you? If you can’t pull me out, you’ll push me deeper in. If you can’t keep me from going to church, you’ll keep me in church so much that I don’t have any time to serve other people and share the Gospel with them. If I set out to serve others, you’ll keep me so busy doing that, I won’t have any time for church.
I can see now that the whole key is balance, and I’ll bet that word chaps your little red butt. If I have faith but no wisdom, I’ll boldly strike out, flailing around, and end up making a mess off things. And if I have total wisdom, but no faith to act on it, what good does that wisdom do me?
I actually owe you an apology, I often accused you of just wanting bad things for me, but you’d actually encourage me to max out on one good thing, in order to ignore all the other good things I need to be focused on. Anything to keep me caught up and run aground, huh? This frenzied mania, this “target-lock”, this desperate obsession is the problem. I should have known something was up when peace and joy left the dang building. I won’t be this easy to fool next time, I promise.
In Jesus name,
Me
P.S. Bite me.
thathipster-texas asked: This might be a weird question.. But I’ve gotta ask! My best friends want to all go swimming on Labor day - 3 are boys, 3 are girls (including myself). What kind of swim suit is appropriate to wear in the company of my God-fearing brothers? And is it okay to ask them personally?
Unka Glen answered: You’ve come to the exact right place to get all the answers you need on the subject of ladies swimwear. Let’s start with this, I think anything along these lines should be fine:
Okay, maybe that’s taking things a bit far… So let’s break down the issues you’re dealing with here:
1. I’m thinking of asking male persons how revealing my outfit should be. Um, yeah. Two possibilities here, either you’re dealing with truly Christian guys, who will tell you that a cute pair of board shorts and a matching cover-up over a modest bikini top is fine… or you’re dealing with guys who aren’t that Christian, and you’ll get a response like: “I’m pretty sure thongs are totally in this year”.
2. I really want to wear this cute suit that I just got, that I had to look all day to find, that fits me and that didn’t make me feel bad about myself. Okay fine, just make sure that it has the structural integrity to withstand being hit by a gentle wave without showing everyone your lady business. You don’t want to spend all day tugging on a small piece of fabric in a failed attempt to cover your areas, ya know?
3. I don’t want to inflame any lust in my male companions. Oh sweetie. That ship has already left the harbor. At their age, I’m not sure it can be inflamed a whole lot more. I mean, does an erupting volcano burn a little hotter in the noonday sun? I guess, but, ya know, it’s already pretty hot. Besides, some other gal who really craves attention will be walking around and falling out of her suit anyway, so let’s not pretend that we’re single-handedly holding back a hormonal tsunami with our fashion choices.
Bottom line, it’s important to express your style and your femininity, to feel comfortable in what you wear and comfortable in your body, and to know that men will find you attractive regardless, and that’s all lovely. With that in mind, modesty is something that’s easy to under-do, and hard to over-do. You won’t really regret wearing something a little on the un-revealing side, and you’ll probably be more relaxed and into the fellowship… and that’s what it’s really all about anyway.
Anonymous asked: Hey Unka Glen. I don’t like how I only come to you whenever I have a problem. But I have another problem. *sigh* You give such great advice. There’s this Christian guy who has gotten my attention. I feel attracted to him. The thing is, I am not ready for these emotions. Before I got saved, I used to use such attraction as a means for showing my desperation. And now that I’m saved, I don’t trust myself with these feelings! I’m afraid I’ll lose focus on God. I use this to drive myself more into the bible, and prayer but I still keep thinking about that guy! I don’t know how to feel right now. Thanks so much Unka Glen.
Unka Glen answered: Coming to me with problems is just how I like it. It’s and honor to be part of your life. So let’s do this…
When you talk about previous attractions to men becoming a “means for showing my desperation”, I assume you’re referring to “getting busy”, or “taking a belly ride”, or doing some “horizontal jogging”. I mean, if we’re talking about lust, let’s talk about it. Anyway, it sounds to me like you’ve got two problems here, one is a physical temptation towards sex, and the other is an emotional entanglement you aren’t ready for.
In both cases keeping your distance is a good idea, but I don’t think that you have to be afraid of your romantic desires. After all, there will come a time when you are ready for this kind of relationship, and having crushes can kind of give you a chance to imagine, and even mentally work through, how you would handle yourself, to see where your weaknesses would be, and mentally devise ways of dealing with it all.
Spiritually speaking, we don’t fight off temptation by making a “boogie man” out of it and building a fear of consequences, we fight off temptation by getting smart about it. Wisdom will show you pitfalls that fear never will. Wisdom will tell you when to quit playing and when to start getting serious. Wisdom is already telling you to hang back, even though your emotions and hormones are running wild. You’re stronger than you think. When the time is right, you’ll have all the strength you need to do things just right.
ciaradawn asked: Hey Unka Glen! As usual, your words have been encouraging me and helping me TONS. How God speaks through you is absolutely awesome. However, I’ve been having this issue lately that’s not so awesome. You know how some people get really bad anxiety at night? Well, I get really bad anxiety in the morning, as soon as I wake up. All these thoughts, worries, and everything else is spinning around my head to the point where I’m worn out by the time it’s lunch. Is there anything I can do to get rid of this anxiety?
Unka Glen answered: You’re not alone. I’ve experienced this exact same thing. I have a Tuesday night worship service that we run for ex-cons and gangbangers to find a church home, and we usually have about 70-100 people attend. It’s exhausting, exhilarating, and overwhelming every week. And God really does watch out over it. But come Wednesday morning, it’s like all of the enemy’s attacks that were held back, come rushing in and anything that can be tweaked out, is tweaked out. So yeah, the enemy will look for any opening or weakness he can find.
So how do we deal with the enemy attacking us like this? Well, Unka Glen has got something for ya! I put this post together specifically for your question, so cut and paste the text into your word processor, then print it out, and then tape the printout to your bedpost.
You can see all the “Dear Satan” posts here.
I have a theory about porn. I’d like to share it with you. I think it was invented by a really devious demon, who set out to create the ultimate distraction, both sexual and spiritual. As anyone with idle time, an internet connection, and garden variety horniness has discovered, looking at nekkid people (which is wrong) is easy, and let’s face it, quite enjoyable (but still totally wrong).
I can picture the “pitch meeting” where this demon is describing his porn invention to the boss, and I can picture the boss being quite…unimpressed. Sex, and the temptation to have it, is nothing new. “But wait” the demon must have said, “there’s a whole ‘nother part!”. That likely brought an arched eyebrow from the boss. “I call it PHASE TWO. Ya see, watching porn is something you do in secret, so it has a built-in sense of shame. They won’t know about all the other people up and down their church pew that have been up to something as bad or worse. In Phase Two their shame will send them running from God. We don’t have to convince God to condemn them, they’ll condemn themselves without even bothering to speak with God!”
Oh how they must have lit the cigars and waved their pitchforks around, or whatever demons do to celebrate. Yep. And it’s been working like gangbusters ever since.
This is a simple equation: all saved people are sinners. They were sinners before they were saved, and they’ll be sinners after they’re saved. Man, it would be awesome if you could learn to live with that. You are not perfect, and you are not close to perfect (bless your heart, neither am I). When you die, hopefully many years from now, you will still be an imperfect human being. The Bible says “godliness with contentment is great gain”. But how can I be content, when I’m still a sinner?
You are in the process of being perfected, and you should submit to that process, rather than declaring yourself marked and excluded because if this one sin. Save yourself untold pain and drama with this one realization: sanctification is a process, it starts somewhere, and it proceeds forth, through many changes, over the entire course of your life. If you’re still near the beginning of that process, you are probably aware of more sin areas than you have time or focus to deal with. One thing will have to wait, while another thing is dealt with. It’s a process. The conviction of the Holy Spirit should dictate the agenda, not the emotions of shame.
You are saved, and you are a sinner. If you can’t find a way to live with that, my beloved, you are in for an extremely unpleasant journey. Your only other options are: a) convince yourself that you really aren’t much of a sinner because you have all the big taboo sins out of the way, or b) wallow in shame and guilt forever. After all, no amount of shame or guilt have stopped you from watching NaughtyClownPorn.com, or whatever you’ve been lookin’ at (I don’t judge).
My point is, you may end up falling into the temptation of watching porn, but don’t make it worse by constantly falling for “Phase Two”.
