If it's Not Helping you Grow, It Needs to Go

     I've been thinking on a certain topic for a while, and trying to decide how to approach it. I have seen several others write on this same topic today, and really enjoyed their thoughts and perspectives on it, but I'm still struggling to articulate mine. What I am thinking about are those things that distract from God or His glory, those things that we sometimes put a head of Him, or that we have replaced Him with entirely. Some of us don't recognize these things, and some of us do, an easy way to tell if this thing or person is a problem in your relationship with God or not is to simply ask yourself, 'does this thing or person add to or subtract from my relationship with God?'
      If it's not helping you grow, it probably should go. I have things now that I realize I probably should let go of, it's hard to do, but I know there will be peace when I give it up. I have struggled in this way before and I know I will again. I want anyone reading this to understand, as enjoyable or comforting as that thing or that person you're holding onto is, it does not compare to the freedom of releasing it and allowing more room for God in your spirit. As I write this, I feel lead to share with you one of the things I gave up after I realized it was poisoning my relationship.
       I was a virgin before my spouse, and never 'fooled' around with another man, but lust was still a really big problem for me. I fantasized often about intimacy, and a big contributing factor as to why that was is I typically read erotic novels. From the time I was about 12 or 13, I read these romanticized, pornographic stories filling my mind with lustful thoughts. I didn't think it was a big deal though because I wasn't having sex or watching porn, I believed that it was okay to read these stories and fantasize all I wanted because I wasn't hurting anyone, I justified reading these books as a way to escape from the reality of feeling unloved, and undesirable.
        I read these types of stories until I was 21-22, but I realized long before then that they needed to go. I still remember the night I realized it, I was a youth leader then and our Pastor had wheeled a coffin into the sanctuary and gave one of the most impassioned sermons I had ever heard about dying to sin and living in Christ. I remember crying, as I knew in my heart that my desire to read and feed into my lust with those erotic novels was distracting me from reading and feeding into my love for God. I knew these books had become a problem for me, but I didn't want to give them up. For a long time the only place I had felt safe was between the covers of a book, and these books had become like friends in that aspect, giving me the opportunity to escape and hope that somewhere out there was a man who would want to love me. But it was a false hope, because so long as I was looking for a man like the one in my stories, I would never really know love. I would never understand what true love was or what a real relationship looked like.
       After the sermon, Pastor opened up the coffin and gave everyone there a death certificate, he asked us to write down the things we needed to die to, and place them in the coffin. He wanted this to symbolize our death to that sin, and when we left we were supposed to move forward from it. I didn't put down the novels that night on my death certificate though, I put down lying, and picked the books back up the next day, knowing to the depths of my soul I should have walked away from them that night. It wasn't until much later, after I had been dating my husband for a while that I finally let go for good.
    I said earlier in this post that I realized that it was false hope that these books really gave and that I wouldn't know real love until I let go of them for a couple of reasons; first these books are romanticized, they do not portray real men and create false expectations of what  relationships between men and women are really like or should be. Second, as long as I was looking for a man's love before God's I would not have peace in my soul, because what we are really craving is the Father's love, not mans.
      It took me over three years to finally let go of that sin and leave it in the past for good after the night that I realized I needed to let it go, but now I can say I haven't read a erotic novel in several years and instead choose to pick up the Bible when I need love, reassurance, hope, or comfort. Taking away the erotic novels allowed me to make more time for God, and my spouse, as well as let go of silly over romantic ideas of what a 'loving' relationship should looked like, instead I now look to Jesus for that example as we were meant to from the start. I still have a lot I could, should, and am trying to let go of, I am a work in progress, and with the Father's guidance one day I will get past these struggles and go home to Him, and you can too. It's difficult to let go, but not impossible, nothing is impossible when you have Jesus Christ in your heart and are focused on serving Him with a heart filled with love and obedience. Don't beat yourself up on the times you try and fail, focus on the end result, the end goal.

Exodus 34:14
14 You must worship no other gods, for the Lord, whose very name is Jealous, is a God who is jealous about his relationship with you.

Matthew 6:24
24 "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.