Becoming a Man of Integrity: Loving God More Than Anything or Anyone Else

Personal Lesson #2 from the movie Fireproof

Well, I promised a continuation of this series, so here goes. I apologize in advance if I'm too open or too honest in this post, I really don't know how to write unless I write what's in my heart. I won't be graphic about anything, just honest. Some of you may learn things about me that you didn't know before...other's already know a lot about the things I struggle with. Regardless, I hope you will choose to look beyond the things I struggle with and continue to see the person who continues to want to be your friend but who must first be the kind of man God is calling him to be regardless of the consequences. With that said, let me share with you the second lesson I learned from watching the movie Fireproof.

One of the things the movie deals with is the issue of addiction to pornography. It's done in a very tasteful and non-graphic way, but also a very powerful way at the same time. This is a topic that Christians all too often try to pretend doesn't exist; or at least that it is never a struggle for a Christian...or at least, not someone in their church, etc. It's one of those things that's difficult to talk about or deal with so we simply ignore it and hope that it will go away. The problem with that is, we have created a church environment where people who do struggle with these kinds of issues simply can't get any help because they assume since no one talks about it no one struggles with it except them and therefore it's something that no help is available for. Honestly, I don't know what the answer is for dealing with this more effectively in the church...but I do know what happens when you feel like the church can't help you.

The devil probably has no greater weapon with which to fight people than discouragement, and there's nothing that makes a person feel more discouraged than to believe that they are the only person around struggling with a particular issue and that the church either can't help them or isn't interested in helping them. One of the reasons I choose several years ago to start speaking out publicly about some of my own struggles is because I finally realized that I wasn't the only person out there who struggled and that other people need just what I needed when I thought I was struggling alone: someone to tell them they aren't alone. It's amazing what just that can do for a person. When discouragement is added to a feeling of isolation and aloneness, it's easy to give up and just let despair overwhelm you. I figured if my being open and talking about struggles in my life that I'd just as soon most people never knew about would help someone else find a way to conquer their own struggles and find victory, then it would be worth any personal shame or pain I had to endure in the process. I've second-guessed that decision a million times, just as I'll second-guess this post a million times as soon as I've posted it. Right or wrong, I only share these struggles with the hope that someone else out there facing similar battles in their own life will feel a little less alone and will realize if there's hope for me then there is hope for them also. If it weren't for that single goal, I'd be just as happy to never openly talk about my struggles again.

Anyone who knew me as a child or through my teen years, or even into my twenties, knows that I was painfully shy; often to the point where it was difficult for me to function in any kind of a normal way around people. If you talked to the people I graduated High School with, they could all tell you that I rarely said anything except in response to a question or comment by someone else directed to me. I just never initiated much of anything in the way of conversation or interaction with anyone. The reason was, I felt so insignificant and worthless that I just assumed no one wanted to hear from me and that most people would be relieved if I would just disappear. I spent a good deal of my childhood and youth wishing I could do just that: disappear. I felt like if ever there was a person born who didn't deserve to be on the planet or who God couldn't possibly love, it had to be me. I could always find a way for God to love everyone else, but I never could find a way that God could possibly love me. There are many factors that played into it, but the bottom line is, the devil told me a lie about myself and I choose to believe that lie. So I was, quite honestly, in my late twenties before I ever started to truly realize that God might really love me after all.

Oh, I heard all my life that God loved me and I even tried to believe it; but I never really did. It's not that I didn't want to be a Christian or even try to be a Christian many times; I just couldn't quite get beyond feeling like God didn't love me. More often than not, I believed that God, in fact, hated me and that so much of the struggle in my life that I couldn't seem to find a reason for must be God's punishment directed at me because He did hate me so much. Now, I realize that this is going to sound over the top to many of you...particularly those who know I was raised in church and in a good Christian home...but in a very real sense, perception is reality for a person, and my perception for a good part of my life was that God hated me and that was that.

You see, along with hearing that God loved everyone, I also "heard" that God hated people who were "gay." You will notice I put the word heard in quotes; that is because I don't know that I ever really heard someone say those words verbally, I just grew up believing that is how everyone felt and that it was true. The problem was, no matter how hard I tried to deny it or get away from it, I kept struggling with same-sex attractions. It wasn't something I consciously cultivated or wanted in my life, it was just there. I couldn't remember a time it wasn't there and I assumed there would never be a time it went away. And with that struggle, I assumed God hated me and had abandoned me. Another thing I "heard" whether it was said or not, was that being "gay" meant that you had so displeased God that He had given up on you and there was no hope for you. After awhile, I did the only thing that seemed reasonable to me at the time: I hated God back. From my perspective, I didn't choose to have these feelings and yet I had them and if that meant God hated me, why would I not hate Him in return? What kind of God would give me feelings like this and then hate me for it without my having ever chosen to feel this way? I now know that God didn't hate me at all...that it was just the devil telling me all these things; the devil who brought all these false ideas into my head causing me to think I was "gay" and that I was therefore hopeless and hated by God, etc. But it took me many years to reach that understanding about God and, in the meantime, I developed many wrong ideas about God and the church and many bad habits and actions and attitudes that I'm still struggling to overcome in many ways.

I guess that's why the song I mentioned in my last post meant so much to me. I often feel frustrated with the slowness of the recovery process and begin to feel anxious and upset that things aren't turning out the way I had hoped. Sometimes it seems that all I do is wait and wait and wait some more and see so little in the way of results. But I know that the answer isn't found in giving up. If I have to wait the rest of my life here on earth and never see any big changes in how I feel or where the circumstances of my life find me, then I will learn to wait...and I will learn to worship and serve and praise God while I wait; whether I feel like it or not!

Sorry for such a long bit of background, but I feel like it's important to who I am and the goals I'm trying to set for my future. Forgive me if any of it was unnecessary or laborious.

Needless to say, all of those wrong beliefs I had for so many years led me to incorporate a lot of other wrong things into my life. I do not make excuses for any of these things because I am well aware that I actively chose to do many things that caused all of my struggles to be much worse and, therefore, much more difficult to break free from than they should have been. It is these things that I must defeat in my life in order to become a man of integrity and, with God's help, I mean to destroy every one of them no matter how long it takes or how drastic the measure God's asks me to take in order to accomplish their defeat.

In Fireproof there is a scene where Caleb is struggling with whether to give in once again to his pornography addiction and he asks a question something along the lines of "why does this all have to be so hard?" Then, in a somewhat humorous scene, we find Caleb busting his computer and monitor to bits with a baseball bat. What that said to me was, you need to take whatever action, no matter how drastic it may seem to yourself or to others, in order to cut out of your life any and everything that could cause you to fall back into sin. This doesn't usually mean you have to destroy your computer, etc...but if it does mean that and God does ask that of me, I want to make sure I'm willing to do whatever it takes. Even though it seems like I couldn't live without a computer at this point in my life, I'm guessing I probably could if I absolutely had to.

What it does mean for me at this point is making sure I have strong accountability in any and all areas of weakness. That I don't try to pretend I'm strong enough to make it on my own all the time and that I do whatever I have to do to ensure my spiritual success. It means I currently use a program called Covenant Eyes on my computer and that I have three accountability partners (with plans to add one or two more at least) who can view all of my online activity at any time they choose. It also means that I'm in the process of evaluating everything I read, listen to or watch...and I'm asking God to show me what needs to change. At this point, I don't even know what all God may ask of me in these areas and, frankly, it scares me somewhat because I wonder how drastic God may ask me to be in certain areas of my life. But I've decided that I have to do whatever God asks. Maybe it will seem drastic to me in some cases now, but I have a feeling it won't seem that drastic at all when I make it to eternity and look back and see things from a different point of view.

In Fireproof, after Caleb destroys his computer, there is a scene in which you see a vase full of roses sitting on the table where the computer used to sit and a note to his wife that reads: "I love you more." For me, that is the point of those long, rambling post. Maybe it doesn't even make much sense...I don't know. I do know that however feeble, it has been my attempt to leave a note for God that says "I love you more." I want to say here and now that I will be a man of integrity in every aspect of my life...whatever it takes. And I will love God more than anything or anyone else, no matter what. My thanks to all of you out there who pray for me. I ask only that you will continue to pray and never let me forget my note to God.

Next in this series: Being a Man of Godly Influence

Until next time...

-Steven

Serving While Waiting

Personal Lesson #1 from the movie Fireproof

As my facebook friends know, I watched the movie Fireproof last night and loved it. I have to confess, though I figured I would like it in general, I wasn't sure it would have much application to my life personally since it has been advertised so heavily as a "marriage" movie and I'm not, nor have I ever been, married. As it turns out, it's so much more than that. I think just about anyone could watch this movie and find personal application regardless of whether you're married or single, have a "perfect" marriage or feel stuck in a marriage you wish you could get out of. I can't think of enough good things to say about this movie. It has the potential to be life-changing on so many levels and I came away from watching it with a strong desire to make changes in my own life. Since I can't possibly cover everything that's been running through my mind since seeing the movie in a single post, I'm planning to do a series of posts about the personal lessons I learned from the movie and how I'm going to take those lesson and actively allow them to change my life in the areas where it needs to change.

Faith = Serving While Waiting
The first lesson for me involves a new understanding of what faith really is. Faith is one of those terms that seem to have endless definitions but until you find one that is personal and makes sense to you it is likely that you will find faith to be a concept more than a reality in your life. For too long I've allowed faith to be a concept but struggled to appropriate it for myself in a way that makes my life different. Mid-way through the movie there is a series of scenes set to a song by John Waller called While I'm Waiting. For me, that was one of the most powerful points in the movie. For the first time in a long time I realized that one of the reasons my Christian journey can be described as mediocre at best is because I've never really lived a life of such total surrender and obedience to God that I choose to serve Him and do the right thing no matter what. It's time for that to change.

"While I’m waiting I will serve You
While I’m waiting I will worship
While I’m waiting I will not faint
I’ll be running the race
Even while I wait"
(from the song While I'm Waiting by John Waller; you can watch a music video of the song here: While I'm Waiting)

To one degree or another, I've nearly always wanted to live right and be the kind of person I thought God wanted me to be, but I seem to have made a life for myself that is better characterized by doubt and hesitation than it is by faith and unfailing obedience. Instead of serving while I'm waiting, I've all too often been waiting to serve. It's not that I've meant necessarily to be unfaithful or less than committed in my relationship with God, but I've allowed way too many things to come between myself and God and hinder me from walking in complete faith and surrender to God in every area of my life.

You see, there are things about my life that I don't particularly like. Struggles I've been given that I never chose for myself and wished a million times over I never had. I can't count the number of times I've found myself wondering "Why couldn't my life just have been normal? Why couldn't I be more like other guys I know? Why did God allow ME to struggle with THIS?!?" Sometimes I feel like I'd give just about anything if I could have just had a "normal" life. Why am I 36 and single when almost everyone I know has been married for years by the time they reach my age? Why am I still struggling to begin to figure out how to live life with God as He intended for me too when so many others seem to have figured this out years ago? Why couldn't I have just had "normal" struggles, grown up to be a normal guy who got married, had kids, found a place to serve in my local church and learned twenty years ago to live a life surrendered to God without any hesitation in my walk?

As one might imagine, there's a lot wrapped up into why none of those things happened, but the hesitation in my step and failure to trust God unconditionally can only be chalked up to my own unbelief. Somewhere along the line I bought into the line that it would be easier to surrender "tomorrow;" to trust God next week, next year, after I graduated from High School, College...as an adult... At every stage I found there was always another barrier to keep me from total surrender and complete faith. Oh, there were times when I thought I had gotten to that place; times when I did the best I knew how to serve God and walk in faith, but I always allowed the doubts to crowd out my faith eventually until I found myself once again taking more steps backward than forward.

Don't get me wrong, I don't believe faith is the absence of doubt. What I do believe is that faith is choosing to serve God and be obedient in spite of the doubt! That's where I've failed more often than I've succeeded. For too long I've tried to wrap my lack of obedience in all sorts of attractive (to me) wrapping and tied it all up with a pretty bow, believing that all my excuses and all my "putting off till tomorrow instead of getting serious about it today" attitudes were just fine...it didn't matter that much because, after all, I meant well and isn't that all that matters to God? Now I'm beginning to realize that I am where I am in life not because of the struggles I've had in life or because God has expected too much of me or been unfair to me by not allowing me to be "normal" in all the ways I long to be normal but because I simply haven't been willing to serve while I wait.

I figured, after all I've been through in the struggles I've faced God owes me something. So when that relationship with someone I wanted to turn out a certain way ends up not developing at all or develops in a way that's totally different than what I imaged or wanted it to be, I've been quick to blame God instead of surrendering to Him. I come up with all these grand ideas about my life and how things would be so much better "if only." The problem is, those "if onlys" rarely happen the way I would like them to. I find myself trying to cut deals with God: "Surely You can see that choice B is better than choice C, right God?" All the while He is patiently waiting for me to finally realize that He has a plan "A" that is so much better than any of the choices I've created for myself. It's time for me to give up all the plans I have and start letting God work out His plan in my life; whether I understand that plan or not.

Waiting is painful. We live in an age where everything is moving fast and nearly anything we can want or imagine is available to us almost instantly and when it's not we think something is seriously wrong. So when God fails to jump into my life, look at the map I've drawn up for Him about how my life should work from now on and instantly make everything right in my life I find myself wondering if He cares at all. For too long I've been living a life monopolized by my expectations of God instead of asking what His expectations are of me. It's time for that to change.

Do I expect that tomorrow I'll find my struggle with doubt to just evaporate because I watched a good movie and heard a good song that spoke to my heart? No. Most likely things will be tougher than ever because the devil will read this blog too and he'll make sure that the road ahead isn't easy. But it's time for me to believe that God reads my heart and that He has a better way for me, whether I see it or not. It's time for me to serve while I wait. And if I wait and wait and wait and nothing seems to change, just keep serving and worshiping; choosing to be obedient whether I feel like it or not. To all who read this, I ask for your prayers that this will be the start of a new life of faith for me and not just a blog post I write and then forget a soon as I wake up tomorrow.

Next in this series of posts: Becoming a Man of Integrity: Loving God More Than Anything or Anyone Else

Until next time...

-Steven

New Website Coming Soon!

I have decided to move all my blogging, etc, to my own website in the near future: http://www.stevenmatlock.com/ You won't find anything exciting there yet..but hopefully it won't take me too long to get it up and running. I'll let everyone know when the site goes live. :-)

Look Who's Blogging Again!

Well, perhaps it’s time for me to write a new blog. May 8th seems like a long time ago; a lot has happened since then. Too much, in fact, for me to blog about in one sitting. But I’ll start with a brief update and the promise to at least try to blog a little more consistently in the future. Please note that the key word in the preceding sentence is “try.” :-) I have tried to rearrange my schedule going forward so that hopefully I’ll have at least a little time to pursue things other than work and school. Things really started to catch up with me by the end of last semester and I felt like I was barely hanging on and hoping it would all be over soon. I suppose life is like that for all of us at times, but I have waited this long to finish my degree so what’s another semester or two. Which leads me to a quick update of my progress in that regard.

I have now completed a total of 100 hours of the 120 I need to complete my undergraduate degree. However, since I need a number of specific courses in order to complete all the degree requirements, I’m guessing I’m going to need more like 130 hours or so. Either way, 100 hours behind me seems like a significant milestone and I’m happy that I’ve made it this far.

I also have my first official certification with the American Association of Christian Counselors. I’ve successfully completed the requirements for certification in their Caring for People God’s Way program. Eventually I would like to complete the certification programs for counseling teens and children as well.

Also since I last posted a blog, I started a new job. After 13 months of unemployment, I finally found work as a book designer for Author Solutions in Bloomington. So, if I had to come up with an excuse for why I haven’t blogged for so long it’s because things have changed so much since I started the new job, I just haven’t had the time. Well, I haven’t taken the time anyway. :-)

Last semester was the first time I have ever tried to work full time and go to school full time simultaneously. I’m guessing that had a lot to do with why I felt so stressed by the end of the term. Perhaps I’m lazy, but I decided that I’d really rather take it a little slower and hopefully be able to enjoy the process a bit more. I could probably keep up the stressful pace long enough to complete my degree, but the minute I stopped enjoying the classes and just started hoping they would end I decided that wasn’t the kind of outcome I was aiming for. So, instead of 12 hours this semester, I’m only taking 9 and I’ve staggered the classes so that I only have about a seven week period where I’ll be taking more than one class at the same time. I’m hoping this pace will be relaxed enough to not only allow me to enjoy my classes more, but also allow me to focus on some other projects I’d like to work on this year (more on some of those later).

So, with that brief update, it can no longer be said that I haven’t blogged for 8 months and 3 days. The count begins again! :-)

PS – For all my friends who used to be listed here in my list of blogs, etc, I apologize that the list isn’t up currently. When I changed the look of my blog I ended up overwriting the code that would have been those lists. Anyway, I will try to get them all added back soon.