I recently read a blog on Dr. Dobson’s Family Talk I wanted to share with you. It is written to men, but I think it is good for us as wives to read as well and I would encourage you to share it with your husband.
5 Must-Haves to Porn-Proof our Marriages
1. Keeping God at the center of my life and my marriage. I must daily take in God’s truth and grace through His Word, knowing what I take in on a regular basis will define who I am and how I live. Christ must become my life foundation that upholds everything else.
2. Maintain an uncompromising love for God and my wife. Any form of immodesty that could lead toward lust must not be something I willingly put in front of my eyes. As important, I must protect my family from it as well. This certainly means that any form of porn, however loosely-defined, is something that I will not tolerate in my life. From a very practical standpoint, this will limit the entertainment in my life and the movies I will see. It is a small sacrifice to give up for the sake of my walk with God, my wife and my kids.
3. Total Transparency before God and my wife. My online activities are an open book for anyone to see – especially my wife. I must embrace the Coram Deo life, i.e. that I live my life before the ever presence of God within me (my life/body is His temple – 1 Cor. 6:19-20).
4. Keep the battle in front of us. I talk about this topic on a regular basis with my wife and children (age appropriate, of course). My teens and young adult children know that the online and entertainment world is a battlefront that requires the full armor of God. They know that like anything else in life, the battle-readiness starts with God Himself. He is our source of power in this battle. His grace and truth rule and provide us our greatest offense and defense.
5. Pulling together to fight the good fight. Going beyond my own family, we need to be addressing this issue at the “body” and church-wide level. Not only are marriages and families being destroyed, our witness for Christ is being greatly weakened. In Christ, we live in community. I pray that our pastors and men within our churches make this a regular topic of conversation. Resolved eyes must become a priority and a life-mission where we seek to protect what matters most. What are we saying if we don’t?
Wives and moms out there, we need you to fight the battle with us. We need your prayers, encouragement and help. If you’re a single-mom, reach out to a male relative, your pastor or other godly man that can assist you in building this life principle into the heart of your son. Every boy and man out there needs to have a mentor to stand alongside them in this battle. We can’t go it alone.
No doubt we have taken some serious hits and losses when it comes to pornography. However, the battle is not over. Regardless of our past, Christ calls us to walk with Him in the present. Like Daniel, we can resolve in our hearts not to defile ourselves before God. We can choose God, our wives and our children over this world and the lust of the eyes it will offer us. In Christ, we can have resolved eyes. “But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself…” Daniel 1:8
Click here to read the full blog on DrJamesDobson.org
Great article, and remember pastors or spouses can get pulled into this trap just like anyone else. In fact, if you or your husband or someone you know is struggling with this issue, a great tool for accountability and building trust that we recommend here at Care for Pastors is Covenant Eyes. If you’d like to learn more about what Covenant Eyes is or how to sign up, click here.
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