There Is Freedom — On the Journey

The first time I saw pornography I was in middle school. It instantly became a vice to me and followed me through high school and eventually into Bible college. I was riding a constant roller coaster. I wanted to be free. But no matter how hard I would try to break my addiction, my sobriety would only last a few days until I would be back to searching for explicit content and downloading all the dating apps to talk with girls. I felt so much shame. I was studying to be a pastor. I should have had a handle on my own struggles. How was I supposed to help lead other people into freedom when I was struggling so much myself?

When I came home from Bible college, I was so sick of the struggle and so sick of feeling like a hypocrite. I confided in a friend about my struggles and had him put parental locks on my devices so that I could no longer access porn or dating apps. This was the first time I really started to feel free. I finally had accountability in place to help me overcome the patterns of behavior that had kept me a prisoner. But was I really free? If left to my own devices I would fall right back into those old patterns. Was I really free if I had to have a friend babysit everything I did on the internet? Every morning when I would wake up the first thing that would come to mind was “You will always be a porn addict and you will always be a sex addict.” I realize now that these were lies from the enemy. I was plagued with anxiety. I was constantly overthinking. I was constantly filled with fear that others would see through me. Someone would give me an encouraging word and inside my mind would scream, “If they only knew who you truly were, they wouldn’t be saying this!”. The constant internal war that waged in my mind and my emotions were draining and I began losing hope that I would ever be the man I truly wanted to be.

In 2019, our Pastor made it a requirement for all of our staff to go through The School of Kingdom Ministry. I sat through most of these classes struggling to focus and feeling distracted by my own shortcomings and shame. I heard the teaching on identity but did I really believe it? It would stir up hope within me temporarily but the hope would be crushed by the enemy reminding me of my past. Through the beginning of the year, it was a struggle for me to even show up to class. But as the year progressed, the Holy Spirit really started chipping away at the lies I was believing. I was able to start seeing that I was, in fact, believing lies from the enemy and I was able to start distinguishing the difference between the enemy’s voice of condemnation over me and my own voice again. Every week the Holy Spirit showed up and met me exactly where I was at and started breaking down the walls I had up in my heart. By the end of the year, I was feeling such a transformation within myself that I wanted to teach the class in our church.

Well, we all know what a blur 2020 was and how nothing really went according to plan. We didn’t end up running SoKM at our church that year. Fast-forward to August 2021 and I find myself at the SoKM leader training, preparing to launch SoKM at our church, ready to be equipped. A lot of time had passed since I graduated from SoKM. Over that long stretch, the enemy found a way back in and started convincing me that I was not worthy. I had lost more battles than I had won in the season between graduating SoKM and showing up for leader training. I felt defeated. I felt hopeless.

The training was nothing short of excellent. But I struggled internally the entire time. On the final day of the training, during an afternoon worship set, Joanna, the SoKM locations manager, comes over to me and starts prophesying over me. As she prophesied over me I stood there in shock. She was speaking to me about things she could have known nothing about. The Lord was speaking right through her and my heart was being torn to shreds. Then she said, “The Lord wants you to stop talking to Him about a dead man.”. And I collapsed to the floor and began weeping. That’s all I ever did. That was my whole relationship with God. I was constantly telling God about how sorry I was for my past. My entire existence was made up of me trying to show God how sorry I was for my past while completely ignoring the new life and identity He was freely offering to me. As the worship set ended I was still in a puddle on the floor trying to process all that the Lord was saying to me. I spent some time telling Joanna and Daniel my story over the past few years and they asked me if I would be willing to be the demonstration participant for the healing lab portion of the training. The idea of it terrified me but I also knew that I would be miserable and continue struggling if I didn’t take this opportunity. So I agreed to it.

As soon as I agree the panic sets in instantaneously. My mind starts racing in a million different directions. I start questioning if I am just setting myself up for embarrassment. I am pacing through the church when another pastor (Samuel) approaches me, seeing me in visible distress. He calls out my anxiety and I instantly realize that the Lord isn’t going to let me put on a show anymore. I tell him about how I am about to go in to be the class example of deliverance and he encourages me that the anxiety I was feeling in that moment wasn’t my own, that it was the enemy freaking out because he knew his eviction notice was coming. His encouragement was what I needed to make it through to the demonstration without jumping in my vehicle and hightailing it out of there.

The time comes for the demonstration to begin. I am up on the stage with pastors on either side of me. They ask me to share some of my story, whatever I feel comfortable sharing with the class. As I am telling my story I see Daniel out of the corner of my eye crying and as I wrap up my story he encourages me by saying he can already feel the Father’s love for me. I felt so loved and supported in that moment that it gave me the courage I needed to fully surrender to the Lord. The team begins to pray for me and in an instant, it feels like all hell breaks loose inside of me. I realize that I am on the floor crying and screaming at the top of my lungs, commanding my own demons to leave. The team is praying over me and I honestly don’t even know what they prayed. A wave of peace flooded over me like I have never felt before and I laid there for what seemed like an eternity, oblivious to anything and everything, except the incredible peace and love I felt. I don’t remember every detail but I remember some key things they prayed over me. I remember Daniel putting his hands on my eyes and commanding for my eyes to be purified. I remember them putting their hands on my head commanding all the broken wires in my brain from pornography to be restored. They walked me through renouncing the lies I believed and repenting for believing them in the first place. Near the end, I remember Joanna coming up to me, kneeling on the ground with me, and telling me that I was forgiven. Then she said, “You’re going to have a daughter one day and you’re going to have a son one day and the blueprint is right in front of you on how to teach them to not fall into the things you went through.” When she told me that I lost it. For so long, I had felt that I didn’t deserve to have kids, let alone a wife because of all of the awful things I had done.

That day changed me. I am no longer taunted by the lies. For the first time, my mind is clear. I am confident in who I am and I am not constantly doubting myself or questioning if or when I will fall back into old patterns. A month after this experience I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to take a leap of faith and to propose to my girlfriend of 2 years. This was a big deal for me considering before my deliverance experience I doubted that I would ever get married because I felt so unworthy because of my past. She said YES! Every day I am reminded that the blood of Jesus truly does restore, redeem, heal, set free, and deliver whenever I look at my fiance and as we plan our future together. I am an engaged man today because I finally became free to step into the identity that Jesus paid for me to have. Who the Son sets free is free indeed.

If you are in the place I was in I want you to know that there is freedom. Know that God loves you and He wants you free. Know that your identity in Him is secure. Know that He loves you in your mess. Know that He delivers. There is hope and hope has a name; His name is Jesus. I pray that my freedom brings the person reading this freedom. This is my story, this is my testimony, if Jesus can do it for me, He can do it for you.