To The Cross
by Richard
My Journey To The Foot Of The Cross
I was raised in a Christian home. In fact my father was a pastor but the church I grew up in as a young man was very legalistic and during my teenage years I began to rebel against the church and what it stood for. Without even realizing it at the time I came to resent Dad and even God himself. My picture of God was based on my relationship with my earthly father. Because I was unable to separate the things of value that I was taught from the things I knew I could never live up to, I tossed everything away that I had been taught about God and the Church. This would prove to have a devastating impact on me and my family. My first marriage ended in divorce after about 13 years. I had several adulterous affairs during that marriage and the pain and damage it caused was too much to overcome. I remarried two years later and determined to do things differently, but it wasn't long until I was right back in the same madness that I seemingly had no control over.
As I look back now, I realize that through this entire time God never took his hand off my life or my family. In January 1990 I recommitted myself to God and began giving Him the broken parts of my life. He began healing certain parts immediately. I've had the privilege of seeing all my family members accept Christ, including my youngest son who had gone through drug and alcohol rehab and was in and out of the juvenile court system.
We became involved in our local church and for the first time I began to enjoy worshiping and growing in Christ without the baggage of legalism. All was not well however. There was a dark, secret part of my life that was hidden from even those closest to me. It was the life of sexual addiction. While I was able to remain faithful to my wife physically, I lived in a sexual fantasy world and I fed off a steady diet of pornographic images. I would literally cry out to God at times to heal me of this burden but those cries seemed to fall on deaf ears. I also experienced deep anger almost on a daily basis and would often take that anger out on family members or coworkers. There were periods of times through sheer determination and willpower that I would cease viewing pornography and determine in my heart to start over, but eventually I would always fall back into the same rut with an even deeper sense of shame and hopelessness. Through all of this I stayed close to my church family. It was there that I found hope. It was there that I stayed hungry for healing.
I continued to participate in areas of leadership in the church and I learned how to project a good false image to those around me. It became increasingly difficult to live this double life however and I began to feel the need to retreat. I was sure that the answer to my problem lay in learning to know Jesus Christ on a very intimate level. Somehow I had to find a way to expose this area of my life in a safe "God Present" environment. That meant exposing it to someone else other than just God. Up to now it was just His and my "little secret". I began to change my prayer and cry to God from, "heal me" to, "send someone in my life that can help me".
It was about this time last year that I determined in my heart that over the next year the most important thing in my life would be seeking that personal relationship with Jesus. I would begin my search in earnest and I began to show God that I was ready to do the things necessary to allow Him to come into the secret places of my heart and expose them as He saw fit. I knew I needed to trust Him completely. I began by giving up my position on the church board. I made an excuse by saying I was too busy. It was still not safe to give even my pastor and friend the real reason for declining, but I knew I could no longer fake my spirituality by remaining in church leadership. I was ready to give up anything that would keep me from my goal of getting real with God.
It was during this time that Jeff & Wendy Watros came to our church, shared their testimonies, and told us about Greater Hope Ministries. I knew that morning that God had answered my prayer of sending someone in my life to help and I decided that I would call to see if I could get in the upcoming Living Waters class. I went through the application process, and on November 9th of last year I started the Living Waters program.
One thing that Jeff emphasized in his teaching was to allow God access to the broken areas of our lives, to reveal the source of the hurt and pain that had caused us to attach ourselves to the idols that now controlled us. As I was studying for our 4th lesson I came across an awesome truth. In II Cor.5:21, I read "For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then, in exchange, he poured God's goodness into us." I knew immediately that was a great verse and I thought I understood what it meant. I pushed my lesson to the side and asked God to show me what that verse meant for me personally. As I closed my eyes, God started to give me an image. I began to take all my fantasies, the pornographic images as they came to my mind and put them in a box. When I thought the box was full I visualized myself going to the foot of the cross of Christ. He was hanging on that cross and I knelt there and presented my box of garbage at His feet. Then I became aware of His blood covering me until I was completely enveloped. I looked down and realized the box was gone!
For the first time I sensed purity in my life. The sinless Christ had absorbed my sin and the purity I experienced was the goodness of God. I've played that image over in my mind hundreds of times since and each time I've been willing to fill the box and take it to the cross He has proven himself faithful. Am I completely healed after 30 weeks of Living Waters? No but I'm in the process. I no longer feel helpless and hopeless and I'm now ok with the struggle. I'm ok with the struggle for a couple of reasons. First of all I know what to do with it. Whenever I'm tempted I simply have a decision to make. I can take my temptations; the images and the fantasies that come to my mind put them in my box and take them to the cross of Christ. If I do that my work is done. Everything else has already been done there and I can experience the goodness of God in my life. Or I can choose to linger just a little while with those thoughts. If I linger there to long I begin to set up the idols that would please the flesh and it always leads to a sense of guilt and shame. Secondly I'm ok with the struggle because I realize it's what drove me to seek that close personal intimate relationship with Christ and will probably keep me there because I realize my complete and utter dependence on Him in that area of my life.
There are many other things that I've learned over the last 30 weeks that I could share with you but space doesn't allow. My journey during this time is best described in John 3:19-21. "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who loves evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." I used to live in verses 19 and 20, now by the grace of God I'm living in verse 21.
What Living Waters did for me is this. It facilitated my journey to the foot of the cross of Christ. I'd like to thank Jeff and Wendy for the Greater Hope Ministry and for their leadership, their teaching, and their willingness to be transparent as they taught us during this time. I'd also like to thank all my new friends in Living Waters, especially the guys in small group for being open and honest and for providing that God present environment where we could share and get real with each other and God. But most of all I'd like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for loving me enough to die on my cross, and for providing me with hope and healing.