“In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship . . . is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you.” (David Foster Wallace, in a commencement speech he delivered at Kenyon College in 2005, entitled “This is Water”.)
Today I understand how pornography is self-worship. It is such a heartbreaking business, leading those involved to die a million deaths. Pornography is about me loving me. It’s the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I. It’s me doing something for me because I want to do it because it makes me feel really good right now! As I write these words, they cause me to stare into the mirror and want to vomit. What a loathsome condition! Me kneeling down before the altar of self; me not caring about anyone else but me. There is no joy there. No peace. No fulfillment. No satisfaction. Just a great big giant hole that’s getting bigger by the second. Looking in this mirror made me really, really scared. Participating in pornography is plunging headlong into the dark pit of no return.
I need and want genuine relationships and true intimacy. Of course, genuine love will require effort on my part. I will have to spend time with people, and sometimes they will not respond the way I want them to respond. But without a doubt, it’s more than worth the effort. Who wants a fake diamond when they can own the bona fide article? Who wants to cuddle up to a glossy photo when they could have a human in their life who cares about them and enjoys being with them?
A friend of mine says we all have what she terms “soul holes”. I’ve heard other people say we all have a God-shaped hole which only He can fill. In 1670, Blaise Pascal wrote:
“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words, by God himself.”
G. K. Chesterton said: “The man who knocks on the door of a brothel is seeking God.”
I don’t completely understand what led me to keep going back to pornography for all of those years. Obviously, I was trying to find something. I was using lust and excitement in an attempt to fill some kind of emptiness within my being. It certainly wasn’t working. Instead of quenching my thirst, I just kept getting thirstier!
In Confessions, Augustine of Hippo said succinctly: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.”
Only when I learn to die to my desires for false love can I truly live. Only as my heart longs for Jesus, will true love triumph over the tempter’s false promises. When I grow to value the Lord’s incalculable worth, offers of temporary pleasure will be seen for what they really are. The joy I feel as I experience Jesus’ love deep within me, will vaccinate me against the assaults of hollow thrills. To love pornography is to buy into the lie that lust is better than Jesus, fake is better than real, false is better than genuine and temporary is better than eternal.
In “The Weight of Glory” (p. 26), C.S. Lewis wrote:
“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
What a travesty to settle for mud puddles when we could enjoy a vacation by the sea!
The human soul was created to relish and savor the fullness of Christ. Nothing else is big enough to fill that hole in our souls the way God intended. Only the Lord is ample enough to cause lust to loosen its grip on my soul. The cure for our pitiful addictions is to be overwhelmed by the preeminence of Jesus in all things.
After he retired from his counseling career, Carl Jung was asked how he helped people get well. His response is quite enlightening:
“Most people came to me with an insurmountable problem. However, what happened was through our work together they discovered something more important than the problem and the problem lost its power and went away.”
Who is this something more important? You probably know and love the 23rd Psalm, one of the best-known passages in scripture: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” Or if we put it in the affirmative: “The Lord is my Shepherd; He gives me everything I need. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the quiet waters. He refreshes my soul. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Without Him I am empty. Without Him, it is all a farce. I don’t want imitation love. I don’t want a hole in my soul. Only He can make me whole. Complete. Satisfied. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life! Jesus isn’t just better; Jesus is the BEST!
See more in the book: Jesus Is Better Than Porn
Jesus Is Better 