The Christian and Healing Our Sexual Struggles - Part 2

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] e e e [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] he [Music] [Music] it is your brother from another mother. I am making my long journey arriving to wherever you are and whatever you're going through. We're going to do a part two today, addressing your questions, navigating the challenging road of all the sexual battles that people struggle with. And I'm going to roll up my sleeves and be willing to jump into places a lot of Christians are not willing to even address or or even bring up. And I'm going to do it today. So buckle up, get [Music] [Music] ready.

Welcome all of those of you that are joining this broadcast, whether it's live or you are listening, watching this later. Your brother from another mother is going to walk alongside a lot of struggles and battles regarding sex, sexuality, sexual struggles, sexual addictions, and how that relates to obsessive compulsiveness, how it relates to so many other facets of mental [Music] health. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the healing and freedom journey. I am your brother from another mother, bringing you insights along the way. I am all about mental, emotional, yes, and relationship health. And if you are too, you've arrived at a great place. And a big aspect of how we walk mentally, emotionally, and relationally healthy has to do with how we relate to our sexuality. And I have many questions. I have a stack of them here. I'm going to do my best to navigate through most, if not all, the ones that I have here in the pile. I'm going to get into looking at questions that are in the Super chats that come in. But if you would like to submit a question, go to Marasus.com/questions. You can submit it there. This is a part two. So you say, well, where's part one? I'm glad you asked because right in the description, you'll see where part one is. And in fact, I, as of this broadcast, we're in November. I did that last one, I think it was in January, I think. And that has now become a part one because now I'm going into part two. So there may be some things I repeat and go over because I don't remember everything I said in that one. But that kind of sets the stage for where we're going today.

So where I will be covering, and here's, I, I need to make some things clear up front. I am going to address some very difficult, hard-to-talk-about struggles. And I want to be able to go there because I, I'm fine talking about people's battlegrounds. I've been doing this for years. However, I want to do it with compassionate grace. But I also want to let you know too, some, some people are not comfortable. So if you're uncomfortable with certain terms or things or battlegrounds, you know, I don't know, um, you know, I'm just kind of giving you a heads up. Terms like masturbation and body parts. And if you're not, you're not okay hearing some of those kind of things. But I do think that even if you're somebody that's like nervous about the subject, I do think that we as believers need to gain a healthy perspective of sexuality. And so much of our battles are hidden in darkness, are hidden in shame. And we need to be able to look at them through the light of God's love, through his truth, through his word, and be able to navigate something that everybody has to work through in, in various forms. And many people in their battles think that they're alone or they're strange in what they're struggling with. You're not. And many other people, and a large percentage of people, have the same struggle. Yes, even down to the nitty-gritty pathway that it goes down.

So I'm going to talk into the battleground of sex, sexuality. We'll talk about things like pornography, masturbation. We'll talk about battlegrounds of married couples and singles. So there's going to be a mixture of that. There will be, uh, intrusive thoughts. I may get into some things like some, uh, sexually related OCD, like, uh, um, pedophile OCD, uh, uh, same-sex OCD thoughts. All that kind of stuff that's, that's in the pile there. So in order for me to do this, I, we have to be very aware of how shame, shame tags in with pretty much every sexual struggle. Because there's something about the sexual battles that we have, that they affect us in a visceral way. They affect our, our bodies. And, and the Bible even talks about this and the nature of how it impacts us. I, I think I've talked about that in, in part one. And so there's so much shame surrounding this. So who do you talk to? I look at a lot of these questions, and some of them are heart-wrenching to read in the sense of, I feel the battles that people are having. Who do you go and talk to about it? Especially when many of the thoughts are intrusive in nature, and you're trying to navigate how to work through them. And then you share them with somebody else, and then, then they're freaking out because they don't have experience in handling stuff. And I would love to see Christians have more equipping where they know how to handle sin, they know how to handle people's battlegrounds without freaking out. We not only have shame about sin, we have a fear of it. I'm not talking about a respect and honor and fear of the Lord. I'm talking about we have a phobia of people's battlegrounds. We have like this, "ick." You know, we sense somebody struggling in something, we don't know how to, how to look into it and be a help and be a support to people. And so a big part of shame is, shame creates hiding. It creates self-protecting mechanisms. And in the hiding, the battleground gets worse. And in the hiding, there's added confusion that comes along with it.

Now, as, as a Christian minister, I'm trying to help you to understand how to break free from shame. However, in the world, non-believing system, non-Christian, non-believing world, they're also teaching you how to get free from shame too. But in that, there can be like a switcheroo going on where it's challenging when you're, as a believer, trying to maintain a sense of right and wrong in your battlegrounds, while we're hearing from the echoes of the world system, "Break free from shame." It's like, hey, we as Christians, we want to break free from shame too. And then in the world system, like, "Well, explore these things." And explore these things that the Bible goes, "Oh, these things are, these are, are forbidden areas that are, are going to be damaging to you." And how you process sexuality, and how you process intimacy. You see, most all our sexual battles have a, a root system that goes back to intimacy. It goes back to connection. And the primary root of all mental health issues and struggles, not to create a silver bullet, this is a very, very big area, is a sense of disconnection, a sense of relational disconnection, disconnection from God. And boy, when there's a sexual struggle and battle, that shame hits that sense of disconnection from God, distance. I see a lot of the emails that being talked about, a sense of disconnection to God. Then there's a disconnection to self because you, you feel it, and sometimes it's hard to shower it off, so to speak. There's a dirtiness and an uncleanness. How do we, how do we work through that? Then it creates disconnect relationally. And so whether people are, uh, seeking to be married or, or are currently married, there's so many aspects of relationship disconnection. And God created sex to be this beautiful thing within the context of marriage, to be a fulfilling thing, to be something that we get to experience. And in that, we learn more about intimacy, connection with Jesus Christ and with our Father. And that concept is challenging. For example, my brothers in Christ, because guys don't use the term intimacy. You know, we, we don't, we don't really use it. And so when people from the platform say, you know, "We want to get, we want to, we want to have intimacy with Christ," honest men, deep down, they kind of go, "Okay, can we use another word here?" Because our reference for intimacy is sex. When I talk about intimacy, I'm not talking about using that as language for sex being intimate. I'm talking about the depth of really knowing somebody. The Old Testament used an expression that I used to laugh at when I was a teenager. You know, I read the Bible, and Adam knew his wife, Eve. And I remember when I was a teenager, I'd [Music] go, "He said 'knew'?" You know, it's just like, I was immature and just, you know, we knew what he really meant. But as you get older and you understand this, this knowing, it's, it's articulating what sex is really about. And it's very precious. But we have a war over intimate relationships. War. Many, many of us, in some form and fashion, carry a sense of damage and and wounds. And we bring this, and yet we're trying to experience deep connection. And then we have all these battles that we're working through.

So I, I also recognize that we're trying to get free of shame in the midst of shifting morals in society. So I want to be a brother from another mother that holds fast to God's word and standard for relationships, for sex, for marriage, for what that looks like. But yet also be able to bring a compassionate grace that gives you, I pray today, that some of you, even if it's just a few of you, get a sense where you can take a deep breath and go, "Okay, I got a journey. I got some things to work through. But this is possible. I'm not a lost cause. And this is not something that I'm hopeless." Because many Christians, honestly, they feel very hopeless in their struggles, their pornography struggles, their, um, where their affections go, the thoughts that hit them that are sexual in nature. In fact, uh, sexual thoughts are probably at the top of the list of intrusive thoughts that people experience. And I have been running into that since the beginning of my healing ministry, emphasis of Christians coming in, going, "I'm having these thoughts, and they're filthy. They're, what do I even do?" And I'll get, I'll get into that a bit. So welcome all those of you who are, who are here on the live. I'll do my best. And during some breaks, and we'll say, I don't know how long I'm going to go. I may go for a while here, as long as my mixer cooperates and technologically I don't have to have, you know, 20,000 headaches. But my wife, Melissa, is not here, but she is here because she is omnipresent. I know she's, uh, she's on her laptop and she's, uh, monitoring the chat and just helping me out with that. So she'll keep an eye on all things there. Um, so many of us don't have, where did you learn your sexual equipping from? Because many of us don't have much equipping. And I'm going to get into that because there's a, a survey. I'm going to, I'm going to show you some interesting material that's, that's recently come out that help us to give a little insight to, to our battlegrounds. But, but my approach with this, this is a scripture I was just reflecting on. And some of you others, you may take this scripture the wrong way. But I was reflecting on Ephesians 5. Because, um, Paul makes this statement here, and he's, he's addressing darkness. And he says, "For you were once darkness." In Ephesians 5:8, this is just something I'm reflecting on. If it lands with you, great. If not, because I was, I was considering, okay, like, how far do I talk about this stuff? Like, how far do I get into the details of it? I've never heard a pastor, uh, talk about some of these things. You know, having intrusive thoughts of seeing Jesus naked, or, you know, having pedophile thoughts. I, I've never heard that in church. I've never heard a pastor guy ever talk about these kind of things. Okay. But I was reflecting on the scripture where, where Paul says, "This is who you, who you are. You were once darkness." That's, that's what you were. "But now you are light in the world." In fact, it's interesting how Paul in his writing and John in his writing, they were very affirming and reminding people who they are. And those of you that struggle in reading the Bible, you need to pick up on the affirmations when they're there because you tend to read past them and you go to the disturbance and then you negate what's been affirmed over you. "You were once darkness, but now you are light in the world. Walk as children of light." For the fruit of the spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. Which is, this is interesting because in Galatians, he talks about what the fruit of the spirit is, lays that out. It's all relational. But here he talks about goodness, righteousness, and truth. "Other signs that we see the Spirit of God at work: finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them." And this is an interesting statement. "For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret." And I, this could make, you know, many people spiral. "Oh, I talked about this, then I, I violated God's word." Now, I think what he's saying here is that the stuff that goes on in, in darkness, the people that are practicing this, and he says, "Have no fellowship with them." Why? Because they, they participate in these things and they promote it. And those are the most dangerous people. Many of them can be in the narcissistic kind of category too. But hear me out. When, when the Bible is talking about the works of darkness, it's, it's not just a struggle. It's not just a one-time. It's not just a thing that you're battling with. This is a habitual lifestyle that has become acceptable. And it is also something that you encourage and promote to others. That's a, that's, you have to understand that. And many of you go, "I have a struggle, so that, you know, that disqualifies me." He's talking about, "Don't, don't make friends with the unfruitful works of darkness." And I, I feel that most of you in this community that, that attend this channel, that you are not people that are trying to make friends with this. And I say that with full confidence. You're, you're not trying to turn good evil, evil good. You're not trying to do the old switcheroo here. You want to do it right, but you struggle with a deep sense of shame over that. So it says, "It's even shameful to even speak of," because he says, you know, we can, people and society can get into talking so much about what happens behind closed doors, and it becomes, it becomes something that people feast over. And he's like, "Don't let that then start to hypnotize you into exchanging truth for a lie." And he says, "But all things are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever is manifest is light." And so he says, "Expose." Now, what I want to do is I want to expose the darkness. I'm not trying to shame you. And some people even wrote in their questions, you know, "Be easy on me when you address this." You know, and I understand, I get it. But what I want to do is I want to, um, in verse 14, he says, "Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light." In other passages of scripture, "Awake to righteousness and sin not." I want to, I want to shine the light, the light that is of his love, though, because he loves you and he wants to build a restoration of what it means to have meaningful connection.

So, but when I read this scripture, I, even over time, I wrestle with how much of this, you know, I have these questions. I get into a lot of details of battlegrounds. And my goal is to shine a light on it so that we can see where God's heart can have a work in our lives. Because many of you are struggling in deep shame over your battle. And to be a brother to awake you, awake you who sleep, rise from the dead, because a lot of our battlegrounds can cause us to get into a, a spiritual slumber, can cause us to go into a bit of a, a coma, because you get discouraged and you don't seem to have breakthrough. And one of the things that breaking off shame does is it lets you see with compassionate grace. When you have a lens of compassion and grace, you're, you're able to see more to the roots of so that you're not a symptom chaser. Christians are very much symptom chasers, too much. We go after chasing the symptoms. So we tell people, "Just pray more, read your Bible more, get an accountability partner." Those things are helpful. I am not saying they're not. But we don't get to the root of why we're battling. And what Jesus did in his ministry was, he was a no condemnation, no shame kind of approach to people, but yet he cut to the heart. And he could do it very quickly and getting to what the real issue is. The problem is, because we're so shame conditioned, we're afraid of that. A lot of Christians are simply just afraid of even clicking on a video I have because there's this shame sense of, "If I go there, what's going to happen? God's going to, you know, he stands at the door and knocks, and if he, if he enters in, he's going to just, you know, he's just going to beat me and, you know, just run me up and down of how much, how filthy of a person that I am." So anyways, that's, that's some of my goal in, in this process.

Now, there is a document that I got. You can, you can buy this, and I don't get any kickback of this by sharing this with you. But Barna just came out with, uh, some research that they did. And I watched, uh, Sean McDow, Josh McDow's son, he, he did a, a broadcast on it. And I went and looked this up myself. It's called "Beyond the Porn Phenomenon." And it gives a lot of insight and stats as, uh, large amount of Christians that were surveyed. And here's the battleground of what's going on. The battleground that they give out. First of all, they bring out pornography use is a growing problem to the point that today, three in five US adults, at 61%, report viewing pornography. And half of those who use porn say no one knows. So 61% and growing. And that, that's why I say a lot of times, this is a very intense statement, but it's not who struggles with porn, it's who doesn't, is what I'm looking at. Because it seems to be such a large percentage of people. Additionally, 84% of reported porn users say they don't have anyone in their life helping them avoid pornography. 84%. Common assumptions about porn use are, uh, proving to be untrue. For example, while pornography use is more prevalent among men and non-Christians, a significant proportion of women and Christians also view pornography. When I started off into the heart healing work, I call it mental health, emotional health, relation, it's, it's about working, healing, and freedom in the heart. Pornography is predominantly talking to men. Now, the majority of people that write to me about pornography struggles are females. Shifted. I talked last time about in part one, I believe, about the fantasy door. And I, I watched the trajectory of that take place in written material, in novels, uh, how that becomes a, um, an open door for for further usage in, in, in pornographic material. And, uh, got, I got into that in part one, I believe I did. Uh, so the ripple effects. There's a noticeable decline in mental health and well-being. And meanwhile, this is what's interesting, and this is what I want to bring out. 44% of US adults believe watching pornography has little impact on other aspects of their, of their life, of an individual's life. And over three in five Christians, so that 62%, told Barna they agree a person can regularly view pornography and live a sexually healthy life. 62% say you can watch porn and you can have a healthy sexual life. So this brings out the, the dilemma that I've been experiencing for a long time, which is the battlegrounds that people have with their sexual thoughts or sexual struggles or masturbation, the same-sex attraction, uh, fornication, adultery, all this stuff you're dealing with. One of my biggest, um, areas of struggle and grieving through is wanting to help, wanting to get to the root. But now there's just wave after wave after wave of going, "This stuff isn't even wrong." So that's a battle that's, that's there. It makes, it makes things just even more challenging. And, um, but many congregants want their church to address pornography. And, um, I, I can, you can, you can look at this survey, uh, um, for yourself. But there's, there's a couple interesting things that I wanted to get into. Remember last time I talked about what was your, and if you didn't, you can go back. But I talked about how did you learn about sex? Who's the one that taught you? Who's the one that sat you down? And I'll, you know, I'll let the, I'll let the crickets remain as there's, there's not really a lot of input from family. Maybe they sat you down, read you a book, maybe you had "the talk," whatever that means. But this is in the survey, how adults learn about sex. Number one, number one, uh, overwhelmingly is from friends. Top of the list, friends. Number two, television or movies. Television or movies is number two. And how people, how adults say in their journey, they learned about sex. Number three, and this one's probably going to rise as, as the generations move along, internet research, using your search engine and just trying to figure things out. Now, I'm waiting for, I'm waiting for Dad and Mom to come into the picture, but it's not there yet. Number four is social media. Number five is the exposure to pornography itself. And if you're learning about sex through pornography, wow, that's going to set you up. This is something very precious. God designed it. It's very potent, very strong area. And when it gets, when it gets engaged, think about when your first awareness of sexual attraction was. That's a whole episode in itself, right? Number six is Mom. So Mom is tracking in at number six in all US adults. Then after Mom is not Dad. Number seven is books, getting it from a book. And number eight is not Dad. He's not involved yet, which unfortunately is a big part of the problem. Number eight, before your Dad, a doctor's, physician, a doctor or a physician. And then at number nine is Dad. Then it goes down to people like religious leaders and things like that. Whereas our parents, both parents, should be people that talk about something that's a big part of their life and give you language, give you understanding, and give you perspective. And so then the church is in constant panic reaction when we need to set the stage for equipping.

Then there's, there's, there's more stuff here about where should teens learn about sex and where do they, where do they, um, when, when people say, "Oh, when people surveyed, where should you hear it from?" Remember I said number, number, number nine was Dad. When they were surveyed and asked, "Who should be number one?" Dad, 89% said Dad needs to be right up there. But we live in a pandemic of passive fathers, distant fathers, emotionally distant. And an emotionally distant, passive father will leave a massive vortex for sexual temptation of all kinds. Whether you are a woman or a man, you name it, that's the main one. The main ingredient you need is a passive, unengaged father, who's also be not equipping you. Here's the interesting thing that I need to, I need to push back on. Fix my cable here. Is we have this, this, this mindset. Many say of, "I've got this sexual struggle, whatever it is." And they'll go, "But my family was so loving." So they, they create this, "My family was so loving." And 100% of the time, 100% of the time, when a clinician or somebody, myself, dives into their loving family, it's like, "We got some, we got some stuff here." Because you only had your family that you grew up with. So you, you often don't know what was, what was healthy, what was needed, till way later in life. There's this dilemma. And I see writers, other addiction writers, talk about this. The amount of people with massive sexual issues that go, "My family was good and healthy." Like, it doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. Now, if you don't see it, you just have to open up your heart. God, show me. Over time, this is not something that you have to, Indiana Jones, seek it out. But, going back to this, number one, Dad. Number two, Mom. Number three, church or pastor. So that's what people surveyed or said where we should get this from. You may have an occasional sermon about your pastor saying, "Hey, you need to stay away from sexual sin." You know, but anything deeper than that. Interestingly enough, a high percentage of pastors are struggling with porn themselves. So that may be contributing to the issue as well too. Because maybe deep down inside, they're going, "I, I don't know what to tell you because I'm struggling with it myself."

Now, what's working? Let's talk about what's working. Because I want to, and, you know, I think this is like 20, 30 bucks if you want to get it. I think get a downloader. You can order it. "Beyond the Porn Phenomena" is what it's called. I found it interesting, and I'm going to keep going through it. I just pulled out the stats for this for this episode. When, when people were surveyed, they said, "What's working?" Okay, let's talk about what's working. What's helping? Instead of making this like all the problems, all the bad, what's working and what's helping? Um, the right off the top, they said personal counseling, 55%. So that made it at the top. Number two was mentors. Number three was prayer. Number four was accountability groups and partners. Okay. So the top four, here's the common thread of the top four. They're all relational. It's having a relationship with someone where you're connecting and there's, there's help being brought. Because all our wounds and all our struggles are relationally rooted. All your battles have at their origin, relationship origin and disconnect. Do you know what was at the bottom of the list? List 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. Number 11 at the bottom to being very effective. Because they gave very effective, somewhat effective, not very effective, not at all, not very effective, not at all effective. At the bottom of the list, workshops or seminars, which is interesting. So kind of goes into what I'm doing here, right? So going to a seminar or going to some, something, hearing information doesn't necessarily bring the life change. So what I'm doing here, what I believe will be helpful is two things: to cut into insight, a shame-free, compassionate grace insight into it, give you some things you can begin pursuing. But then the avenue of healing is relational. It's the restoration of our hearts, which is rooted in the gospel. The gospel carries with it healing to the broken heart.

Now, um, for individuals that were seeking to stop pornography use, for example, um, here are some of the factors, um, that, that, that meant a lot. And you can go look at this. Number one, that my life has purpose. It seems that a sense of purpose in your life, not having it, and not having it, can increase your sexual battles and sexual temptations and struggles. Two was somebody believing in me. Oh, that's a big deal right there. That is a big deal. I, I, in my experience, somebody believing in you has nuclear power, nuclear power to it. Like, life. I remember back in my journey, I remember even my high school coach, I really looked up to him. And I remember, I'll remember with vivid detail, the moments he said something just empowering to me. I, I remember them, the vividly. I can't remember a lot of things, but I remember these certain moments made such a big difference in my life. And be, same be for you. It's just, have somebody believe in you, give you that. Now, these are relational. Purpose is relational. Someone believing in you. Three, being deeply cared for by those around me. Having a sense of relationship connection with people. Because loneliness perpetuates sexual addictions and sexual struggles. Having a sense of deep care. Now, I, I need to make this clear. Those who have addict, uh, tendencies, that have addictions, many of them can be surrounded by loving people, but still have a resistance to receiving. Very, very important. You can have an intervention with somebody, love on them for three hours, and they go out that night and use whatever their addiction is. There is a self-rejecting, self-hating battleground that they, that they are in, that resists love when it arrives to them. So you have to recognize that when it comes to those who are addicts, whether it's somebody you know who's an addict or you yourself, the ability to give, but also receive love when it's given to you. How many of you, somebody loves you and says, "Hey, you know what? You did great. I appreciate you. I love you." You know, your eyes go down, get goofy, get awkward, right? Because we're not used to being loved. And so the father of lies comes in and goes, "Here, I'll give you a pathway where you'll feel loved." And what you feel is, you feel a chemical difference momentarily that does a bunch of things. It programs you to chase that as though that's love. Meanwhile, you disconnect from yourself and your pain. You disconnect from love. And then you deal with the shame cycle, and it keeps you in that loop, right? So all the remedies, they're talking about here are relational. And the fourth one is has to do with equipping, being prepared for everyday life. Interesting, because many people go into marriages feeling ill-prepared. When I was, when I was younger, and when I say younger, in my teen years, there was a huge emphasis on purity and making a making a dedication to purity. There are many today who say, "Well, that purity culture, you talk purity culture, and they talk negatively about it." It wasn't necessarily my experience. Uh, I didn't, we, we engaged in that. Even when I was a youth pastor, we, um, encouraged that and we would talk about it. But what I noticed is many would dedicate themselves to purity and they would enter into marriage, but there was never any discussions or things about how to handle your sex drive, how to handle attraction, how to handle the thoughts and waves of a sexual pull that gets thrown your way. When meanwhile, we do this all the time in the sense of like, we're, we're being pulled by these thoughts constantly. So the lack of equipping is something that I think is really, really important that we all recognize. And so, see, I saw many couples entering into marriage, and maybe they, they saved themselves for marriage, awesome, wonderful. And they get into marriage, and they're like, sexually, like, "We have no idea what we're doing." It's struggling, it's frustration, right? So it's not just about, "Don't do this." It's also equipping, having conversations, having safe interactions to be able to talk about your sex drive in a way where you know what to do with it, and you know how to, to, to navigate it, and you have some equipping.

So anyway, without further ado, I have, let's see, too many to count questions. I'm going to get into, I'm going to first start with a married person, then I'm going to get into a single person, then back to a married person. We're going to kind of bounce around between topics. And again, like I said, as I get into this, I'm going to weave and chart and go some tangents and I'll come back again. And this is, this is a helpful way that I can address these issues in these, and these battlegrounds. So let me get into the first one here, because my heart goes out to this sister, because in, in her marriage, she's starting to have, um, she's, she's having fantasy thoughts, and she's having lustful thoughts and desires, and all the stuff that's going on. She writes, "I've been happily married for over 20 years." Awesome, by the way. Hey, this is great. All right, hey, we'll wrap this up and, uh, have a nice day. And we both have a strong faith in Jesus. Can I just say, I'm just so happy to read that sentence right there. However, two years ago, we began to experience opposition in our friendships, finances, ministry roles, and in our marriage. So just in that sentence, I am feeling the stress because Melissa and I could sit down and talk to you about experiencing this as well too. Changes in friendship, relationship changes, in church, changes in where we live, changes in our life, financial struggles, parenting, all these things rise. The pain comes in. Often times, the pain wants to do this: push two couples apart, get you busy in your own lane, get you just kind of trying to figure things out, whereas God's recipe in the midst of pain is to actually draw the two of you closer together. But that takes work, doesn't it? Also, being in my late 40s, I've struggled with the fact that our lives aren't where I thought it would be. So also feeling a bit flat about our future. I've felt this. I felt this for many years. The journey was not going where I thought it was going to go at all. And it landed me into some, some deep valleys of depression, bewilderment, um, feeling disoriented, disillusioned of God. What happened? What's the deal? It takes a toll on your emotions, takes a toll on your, uh, your sense of confidence. And so that, that now me working through perfectionism has been a big part of my healing, because that expectation, that pressure, that compulsive, I got to, I got to make this happen and figure out, you know, what I got to do to fix all this, rather than just letting myself learn in the journey. I've always, I've always leaned on my husband and seen him as a knight in shining armor. That's, that's, I, I, I'm glad to hear that because I don't hear a lot of that. So I'm, I'm encouraged to hear that. However, after our trials, I began to lose faith in his ability and I saw his weakness, which I struggled with due to the fact that I always saw him as the strong one. So I'm getting the sense you look at him as your knight in shining armor. Pain comes, trial comes about, is taking a toll on you. And I'm guessing there's a perfectionistic influence that causes you to look at him now, nitpicky. For perfectionists, their stress response is, "We got to get things just right." Control kicks in. So don't be surprised during life when stress kicks up, you start nitpicking your spouse. You could nitpick your spouse how they act, you could nitpick how they look, you could nitpick their journey. So this is going to be a setup for then what's happening next with, with you in your journey. So you're shaming yourself that you're even nitpicking him or seeing you have these thoughts of looking down on him. I know this is incredibly unfair, but I'm being completely honest. Since this, I found myself having lustful thoughts, sexual desires, and even thoughts of running off and living my own life with another, even to the detriment of my family. So massive pain you're going through. And within that, there's this intensity where even you look at the one that you rely on, which is great, your buff husband, your knight in shining armor, but even now, there's like this, these thoughts of, of, of perfection, just right, expectation. So creates a sense of disdain, creates a sense of contempt right there. May be this, this, this spiritual battle to come in and put a wedge there in that. This is what's happening in the pain. Thoughts come in of escape. So one of the things that many Christians will do is they'll shame themselves for having these thoughts. And the, the reason I'm laughing, the reason I'm chuckling is my wife and I have a, um, we have a funny thing that we've done during seasons of difficulty and challenge in our life because we, you sometimes you have to, you have to take these thoughts and we have to lighten them to let them go through. Because it's understandable that you're having these kind of intrusive thoughts in the midst of your pain. Let's get to the root of it. You can get lost in the content of whatever lustful thought you, naked men, or or, uh, or some buff guy that you saw at the mall, or whatever. Does anyone go to the mall anymore? I don't think anyone goes to the mall anymore. Or whatever, or something you read, and you, you have this escape going on. You get lost in the content and shaming your, "Oh, this is so bad, so bad." What's at the heart of it? The heart of it is, I want to get away. I want to get away. I'll go back to Melissa, night, during, you know, difficult and challenging times, some, I'd make a joke and I'd go, "I got to go. I'm going to go get a coffee." We're going through something, something we're trying to, we're trying to figure out. Or she'd go out, say, "I'm going to go out for a little bit." All right. And I would say this statement, just, just a joke, so lighten up everybody. I would say, "Okay, go have fun. If you don't come back, I understand." Because there was this sense of, "I get it. This is hard." If you have thoughts of wanting to escape, who doesn't? This is, this is the thing that Christians need to do a better job of of not being, not, not having panic attacks because somebody had a thought. Because married couples, single people, married couples who lost their marriage, well, everybody has these, "I want to get away" kind of thoughts. Go to a seashore, go to a sea, maybe have thoughts of a, have a whole new family or a whole start over or, or whatever. And you begin to drift into those, and then you shame yourself for having them. But it doesn't do, you notice in that process, you never, your heart never gets ministered to. Your heart needs ministering to, sister. You can get lost in the content of your escape. Oh, that's terrible. It's, and I'm not saying, yeah, go with those thoughts, explore it. I'm going to tell you how to deal with those thoughts in just a moment. Basically, I felt like my teenage desires have returned after all these years. That's an interesting insight. Well done. You're seeing, and all of us, when we, in marriage, especially, we need to come to recognition of areas of our heart that need catchup, need healing, not ketchup, like ketchup and mustard, like catching up where there's still aspects of your heart that are still 12, there's still eight, still 10, still 15, at an immature stage. Immaturity needs healing, and maturity, healing, and maturity needs tender loving care, but also being brought up. And you'll notice in certain areas of pain in your life, now you're in your late 40s, this is where people have what's called midlife crisis. And this is where, you know, people, you know, they go into, um, drifting into, you know, "Maybe I need to be somewhere else," or you, you know, then someone goes and buys a sports car, or someone, you know, all of a sudden, you know, leaves their family or whatever, uh, because we, we don't know how to handle these seasons where the stuff that was ignored now needs to be addressed and needs to be healed. And that's what you're bumping up against. You have pain that needs healing through and working through and grieving and processing. And you have stuff from way back when that's kind of showing up. It's time to work through. Because I believe God's bringing your marriage to a new level of connection, of connectivity, of closeness, of oneness. I listened to many of your teachings, which have provided comfort, have definitely helped. But ultimately, I want to be completely free and totally devoted to my husband. I sense your intensity there. I appreciate it, but I feel like you, you got some pressure going on here. I feel ashamed over my thoughts and often confess to my husband due to my guilt. And so this is now moving into OCD category because you're taking these thoughts, they go, "I want to get away." Maybe that handsome buff guy, whoever it is, U Chris Hemsworth, or I, I don't know, right? You feel so terrible, and then guilt comes in, and you tell your husband. And that's not going to help him because on one hand, he's trying to be sympathetic and understanding. Like, wait a second, it's understandable. It's awkward for somebody to kind of process this over and over again. Obviously, this is hard for my husband to hear. So not overly helpful. So you write that in the next sentence, "Is it normal for people to struggle when they have had a strong marriage?" Yes, yes, absolutely. You don't just have a strong marriage and then you're just strong always. Growing, always healing, always learning. And that is my mindset. I'm always learning how to love. I'm going to stay in this, in this journey. Ultimately, how do I move forward? I've come a, I've come a long way, and I'm getting closer to this no longer being an issue, but it still lingers in the background and scares me. As I don't go through this again, I don't want to go through this again. And I definitely don't want to make any poor decisions that could cause me to lose my marriage. Okay, you're not going to make any decisions out of these thoughts. So, um, thank you for taking time to listening to my ramblings. Well, I'm glad to be able to address this.

So here's what I'm going to share with you. And, and, and I want all married couples to listen to me. Single people, hold on, we'll get to y'all in just a little bit, okay? With this kind of thought, I want you to apply the principles I apply in OCD, in intrusive thoughts, when I talk about the plane, when I talk about the gentle redirect. Because what happens is, we're going, "I need you to start learning to stop being afraid of these thoughts." They arise up. I don't care how filthy, how sexual they are, or whatever is in the content. I want to encourage you, the thought comes in, and you may even feel aroused. Oh, you feel things. A lot of people in writing their questions, they're feeling things. They feel things all over, right? You feel things in your groin, you feel things all over, you feel things in your neck, and you feel butterflies. You feel all kinds of stuff. The thought comes in, and you just let that thought pass through. And you redirect your heart towards affection to your spouse. And here's what I want to encourage everyone to do. Everyone who's married, pray this prayer: "God, I give my affection, attraction, and sexual drive. I not only give it to you, but I give it to my spouse." And I want to encourage you on a daily basis, not with force, not like a militant person, but as, as a, as a wife who's growing in love, to, to direct, "God, I give all my affection and attraction towards my spouse." And just keep feeding that. Keep feeding your appreciation for your husband. Focus on what he does that's wonderful. I am encouraging you to feed on what's attractive about him, feed on the things that are wonderful, and continue to do that. I have given 100% of my, and this is something I've just cultivated for years and years and years of my sense of attraction to my wife. And now, sister, you may see somebody who's attractive, more attractive than your husband. Yes, there are lots of people out there more attractive than your husband, more attractive in looks, more attractive in personality, more attractive in all kinds of ways. You notice it, and that guy's attractive, and you just redirect your heart back to your attraction to your husband and feed that. Feed it. Husbands, I want to encourage you on a daily basis, feed your attraction to your wife. Maybe she's, she's gotten her weight's gotten heavier, or, uh, things have changed, she's had kids now. You guys aren't, you may not have the energy you used to have, or whatever is going on. You just continually feed. Because the war comes over getting that steering wheel off into the into the ditches. And to, and, and we live in a world that's sexually stimulated all the time. It's very difficult to walk through a store, walk in life, go online, and without seeing some kind of visually charged kind of presentation. Don't be afraid of it. I don't.

believe that Jesus walked down the street and was going. Don't want to look. Don't want to look. I think he'd notice if there wasn't a very attractive person, and that's all it is. Our fear of it creates a big problem. Most of these questions here, the fear ramps it up. You're going through some things, and the need for escape comes up, and it goes into cont. That makes you feel shame. So we're going to, we're going to push that shame aside and go, "N, it's all right." Y, many other people in your situation have the very same thoughts. Don't be afraid of them. Don't feed them. Don't have them give more, more attention. Just redirect yourself back to where your true affection is, because it's going to teach you to lead your heart. There's differing opinions theologically on how to deal with the heart. You got people on one side that say the heart is De, deceitfully wicked above all things, who can know it? Believe it comes out of Jeremiah. Then there's the word that comes out in Ezekiel. It says, "I'll give you a new heart," right? And these two positions are always arguing with each other. And where I bring perspective to this, and my convictions on this, is I call every believer to lead your heart. Hey heart, this is where we're going. We're going to live from a healthy place. We're going to learn to live in love. We're going to keep our eyes up. We're not going to stare at our ourselves all day long. We're going to learn to stretch in what love means so that we don't fall into the traps of self-indulgence and, uh, and just allowing, allowing a lack of self-control to just take over. We don't want dopamine to become our master. We're going to learn how to love people and how to live in love so that we're getting the nutrients filled in our heart. I want you to practice that. Practice just, uh, married couples every day to meditate on what you appreciate about your spouse. We're so easily prone to things that we don't like or things that bug us. And the perfectionistic nitpicking, and when that comes up, and those of you with RD that battle with that even more intensely, you see that thought just floats right on through. "Oh, look at that goofy thought." And you redirect yourself back to feeding and directing your heart to love. What you feed grows. And that is a way that you can continue. I know that those things can become compulsive. So this isn't something I'm, I'm, you know, teaching you to do with militant pressure. Gentle. It's gentle redirect. "Oh, look at a goofy thought I have. Look at that thought." And redirect back to affection for your spouse. Okay, let me get into, let me get into a question on Singles and M. Masturbation. I did address masturbation a little bit in part one. I used, um, an old write-up that was given, I believe, by Dr. Dobson years ago. There was a lot of helpful thoughts there that I, I found. I, I don't think that they posted on their website at all. So I had to go find it in an obscure, obscure page. So you can, you can go listen to me read that and, and, and talk about that. But I got, uh, again, a lot of females writing to me about pornography and writing to me about masturbation. "Could you please address how single adults should handle their sexual urges? I'm in my early 60s, have never been married. The only way I can keep my sanity with sexual desire when sexual desire hits is with masturbation." So the feedback I'm going to give you is not going to just resolve this and just make this all go away. Because here's the tough truth. That sense of sexual urge and sexual drive is put in us to take a journey to get married. It's a sense of like, "Yep, Paul said, 'I'd be happier if you were all just single, but it's better to marry than to burn with lust.'" And all of us married folks are like, "Yep, sign me up." In that. So, so sometimes when we're looking for help in this, we're looking for this to just go away. And we're not going to put, we're not going to numb this whole thing out. You're in your 60s, and I get the impression you have a desire to be married. I don't know where you're at in your relational world, if that's, you know, who, who you're meeting, and what that's, that's possible with. Some of it might be your journey of disappointment where marriage didn't happen, you hoped it would happen, and all those things. So there's, there's, there's pain that's rising up. And masturbation is, is not rooted in a lust thing. Masturbation is rooted in a pain and a stress release. It goes back to your childhood. It goes back to, uh, your how you respond to pain in your life and in your journey. You said Christians are all over the place on the subject, and I end up going through cycles of guilt and shame. When then I convince myself that it's okay if I don't fantasize. Okay, I get what you're saying there. You're, you're right. There's a lot of poor Christian advice when it comes to masturbation. And I'll be blunt with you. I read through some of them, and I'm saying to myself, this, this, this advice doesn't even make sense. Because a lot of it is, is masturbation a sin? And I talked about this where I, where I will say sin is engaged is when, is when masturbation is connected with pornography. I am, um, very much anti-pornography being a part of your life. I'm anti-pornography being part of married couples's lives. I do not believe it is healthy to bring this into the marriage. Some couples have said, "Well, you know, we need some spice to get it going." I say, "Flex the muscles and find other ways that you can shake things up and have some spice. Don't bring outside people." Because what's happening, bring outside people into this because it will open a door because lust requires more. It requires amplification. It has to keep increasing more and more and more. So those are, uh, those are, those are, those are avenues as far as, as far as married people. Let me get back to single people before I lose my, my train of thought. Um, could there be room for masturbation being simply just a sexual release? Yes. There, there's just some problems though. That masturbation becomes very habitual. When you do it, there's something about masturbating versus actual sexual intercourse where you then have this pull and desire to repeat it again. It becomes a very habitual pattern. Those, that's one of, one of the concerns. Another concern is you're escaping pain. It's a sexual version of you eating a whole tub of ice cream. You, you get this hit, but you never actually really dealt with your pain. Okay. So I'm not going to condemn you for trying to have a sexual, you have this release going on. Now, other people may have a differing opinion. I'm in the real world of helping people here, okay? So I'd like to say to those people, "How many people have you sat down and actually worked with and helped along the way?" Because chronic masturbation is everywhere. Just letting you all know, it is everywhere. So I, I, I empathize with your, with, with your struggle and where you're at because I sense a lot of legalism. You have a lot of like, I can sense it's like perfectionistic religious legalism. Then there's this outlet to find release, relief, and then you feel shame afterwards. You say you, you want to honor God. You're in a guilt and shame cycle. And then I usually end up getting angry at God. Okay. And this is the thing I'm trying to teach about shame. Help people understand what it does. Right. Angry at God. What are you angry at God about? Probably, "I'm 60 something years old, I'm a woman serving you, God. I want to be married and I've got these urges and I'm not married." To gun it. That's painful. There's a lot of combustion in that. And so what I want to encourage you is, um, hey, don't avoid, avoid the pain and emptiness of this. The anger, the anger is signaling things that need to be grieved through. Now, all my single brothers and sisters, look for ways you can expand your relational world. Look for new opportunities to meet people. Don't go around going, "I'm looking for a spouse, looking for a spouse, looking for a spouse." That's too much pressure. But make yourself available to being busy about helping others, the Lord's work, just serving. If you're single and two, making new relationship connections, that is is incredibly important because within that arena, it gives room. Now, many of us, we pray, "God, bring me a spouse," but it's like we want God to have a UPS truck deliver a spouse to us. It's a combination of openness, but yet, um, being in places where you have the opportunity to meet people. I don't see any reason why in your 60s you couldn't meet somebody. Plenty of people I've seen get married later in life. It can happen. So we don't want to just shut the door on the on the possibilities of this. Okay. So, yeah, you wrote. So, yeah, that's not a prod, a productive thought pattern. Thank you so much for everything you posted on YouTube. I listen to you religiously every week. And you started about three years ago. I would encourage you, get into relationship connection where you can. And the person who's writing this, I think I remember, um, speaking with you. Maybe we even did some work together if I remember. And if I, if I'm, if I'm landing this plane correctly, you came out of a lot of religious legalism, even cult-like, spiritually abusive kind of stuff. And so getting into relationship can be scary after being through something like that. And so I encourage you, when those urges hit, okay, before you, it's kind, it's kind of similar advice I give to somebody who has, um, has eating disorders, you know, issues like in the sense of like eating crap food or overeating. If you can practice some mindfulness, as psychology would call it, the urges rise up, and instead of just going to the masturbation, give yourself some room and space to feel what's underneath. Where am I feeling disconnected? Where's my longing for connection? How have I been doing my longing for connection? How, how is that being connected with? Because what we get programmed to do is we rush to the drug, whatever the drug is. And so those of you that have struggle with, um, you know, habitual masturbating, a way that it's, you know, in pornography that's taken over your journey, and you see it, and you're, you're wanting to work on it, allow yourself just to pause. "God, I invite you into this place of pain before I do that, before I even entertain that." And so what this is going to do is going to help lead you into more self-control where you delay gratification. One of the big things in life is learning how to delay gratification. And we live in such a convenient world. You can have any food you want right now. You can have any kind of sexual experience that you want right now. We live in a, we live in a society where you don't really have to fight for anything to work and have reward. The work of relationship, even even in marriage, we become programmed that sex should just be, "Hey baby, let's just, you know." No, it's relational work. It takes work. It takes effort. And so I encourage everyone to give God room to be in those places. What we do is we often push them away. We're angry, we're frustrated, and we're disconnected, and we go into hiding, and we practice whatever our addictions are. I encourage you all, give space to go, "What am I feeling? What's going on? How can I be loving to myself and what I need and what I'm going through? What do I really need right now?" And your brain goes, "You need sex." We need to learn to have a greater depth of emotional self-awareness. Okay, so let me get into fetishes because that's what this next one, this next one gets into. And I get a number of people, people that have a sexual fetishes battle. And a common thing is they feel very strange. They feel like they're the only ones struggling with it, and they don't know how to, how to navigate through it. So let me see if I can provide some feedback here. "Hello, brother Mark. This is a sister in Christ writing to me. Your resources have been so helpful as I've been walking through my journey. This question will deal with more explicit topics. I hope that's okay. I have a problem with repetitive sexual sin that is keeping me in bondage and keeping me distant from God and from my husband. You see that, that shame thing that takes place. I have a sexual fetish. It's so prolific, I'm not able to have a normal intimate life with my husband without picturing something related to this fetish. I've struggled to get help in this area, as most resources for paraph paraphilic disorders are geared towards men." And, and like I said, maybe that's true. But in my world, I, a lot of, uh, I have a higher percentage of women now, believe it or not. In every area of sexual struggle, high percentage of women writing to me asking for help. "I walk in a constant state of condemnation. Oh, paraphilic, by the way, if I understand this, it's like, it's like atypical kind of sexual, uh, attraction or arousal. Might be like, not the typical things like, you know, like to her, like, like a man's body. It might be specific body parts in an atypical way, or it could be objects, it could be, uh, act, you, certain places, scenarios, and stuff like that." So I did something with this question because it's a little awkward. And I wrote saying, "Listen, you don't have to get a lot of details, but it would help me if you could give me a little bit more as to what this is." And, uh, gratefully, she wrote back and did give more content because it helped me to, but I understand if people, you know, they just don't want to even, they don't even bother. But sometimes you need a little more information. And let me finish the first that, that she wrote. "I feel like I'm growing further." "Okay, can you advise me? I walk in a state of condemnation whenever I commit the sin, and the shame and guilt drive me to commit it more often. Can you please advise me on how to break this pattern? I feel like I'm growing further and further from God by the day." You see the sense of dis, it's, it's increasing sense of disconnection. "When I got saved earlier this year, which is awesome, you got saved this year, that's that's so great. I was able to resist this, this temptation much more. But now I feel trapped in a pattern of willful sexual sin. I have many other struggles with scrupulosity, but this is a huge stumbling block that keeps me from moving forward. I feel so ashamed to be asking this. Love to you and Melissa. Thank you for all you do." So anyways, I wrote back, said, "Can you give me a little bit more, more? Because you just wrote, 'fetish, paraphilic.' Can you give me a little bit of understanding?" And this actually helped me. She wrote back, "I apologize for my slow response. I've been thinking really hard about how to explain this. It's a great source of shame for me, so it's very difficult. I would like to be as candid as possible because I realize that hiding in shame will not help. I hope that this is not inappropriate." And by the way, what you wrote is fine. Everything that you wrote to me, and I, and I appreciate that you wrote this. "I become sexually aroused by seeing or picturing people under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Sometimes I can spend hours fantasizing about this, and it can lead to sexual impurity in the form of masturbation or even thinking about it when I'm intimate with my husband. This makes me feel like I am committing adultery and betraying God and my husband, even though I usually don't think about any specific person, just vague concepts." Yeah, and there, there are just like intrusive thoughts. And just like OCD, there are endless fetishes out there that people could have. Uh, you know, and don't go and research it, but you could find it. Earlier this year, I experienced a mental breakdown due to scrupulosity struggles. I then joined a church and became born again. I was raised Catholic, but I joined a Pentecostal Church. Yeah, some of what you wrote sounded Catholic with the, like the willful sin, you know, some of that language has a lot of Catholic influence. Before this, I hid from God doing to feel, due to feeling condemned. Now, at this point, I feel like I've slipped so far back into sinful thought patterns that I'm convinced I cannot be redeemed. So this is where OCD takes you. And, and, and you, you need my OCD resources to help you in how you're interpreting this. I feel like I'm going to be cast out because there's no way for me to be pure. I feel lost and hopeless. I hope this was enough information. Thank you so much for getting back to me. God bless you and you and your family." Well, I pray what I share can be helpful to you. First of all, I want to take the, the condemning shame that's over you in this, as though because you're having these thoughts, something is greatly wrong with you. You're hopeless. No, this actually happens more often than most people realize. The only reason you don't realize a lot of people are struggling with this is because it's not really talked about that much. And I'm not saying that we should all go around cheering the intrusive thoughts that we have, especially the ones that come up while you're having sex with your husband. So, and it makes sense though, in intimacy, that these thoughts would rise up. It's very, very common. Why? Because the sexual moment is important. It's vulnerable. Can be somewhat stressful, or a lot stressful. Many people write to me, "I'm married, I'm married now, and I'm super stressed about having sex." Right, right. So within that environment, that is a setup for intrusive thoughts to happen that will then, and this is what happens, it creates fear, added fear, a sense of shame, and then here's what happens. Your sex drive can drop, and now you're not interested in having sex. Now, the sense of, right, intrusive thoughts are a big libido dropper, right? So you're being intimate with, with your husband, and all of a sudden you're thinking of drunk people. And, and whether you're with him or you're by yourself, this triggers arousal. I want to encourage all of you to not get lost in what triggers arousal and giving high, high levels of meaning to it. Now, when it comes to like fetishes or certain attraction things, there is some truth to the pathway that turned you on that's dysfunctional or out of place. It can have a connection to a root system of why it goes there. I get that. There's some writers out there who talk about that, emphasize that. There is a point. I deal with a lot of obsessors though, and I see where that concept can get way out of control. So, for example, uh, somebody like, if a guy is obsessed with breasts, is there potential he's got like mother issues? Right? Because the breast is the symbol of nurture, and yes, that could certainly be, be in play. Uh, if someone has, if someone has, uh, very strong pulls to same-sex attraction, it's a lot of times tied to a distant father. Many times in homosexual same-sex attraction, there's often, it's a combination, just not just one thing. A passive, disconnected father, overbearing, controlling mother. You get that combination, there's like an ungodly order structure in the home. It adds to the confusion. For men, there's a place in their journey where you have to, um, you, you, you leave that little boy connection with your mother and you have a man connection with your father. And sometimes that transition is never made because the father wasn't that, the father was distant, wasn't connected. Then you add onto it trauma and exposure. Okay, I'm getting, I'm getting off subject. So, um, could there be, if you have, if you get turned on by violent sex, right? Could there be a sense of abuse? Yes. Could it be a sense of a need for power, a need for control? Like, yes. But I also want to bring something out, and I want to, I want to say this in the, the clearest way I know how. Sexual attraction can happen and not have a, a, a meaning to it. So someone could be in a, in a place where they're more likely to be aroused, and you could be around, you know, somebody else's spouse, and you're like, "Oh my goodness." You just happened to have a meeting of your arousal getting ready to rise up to what you were around. So all, okay, my point being is a fetish can be formed simply by a stimulus of engagement of a, of a dopamine imprint. That's why, um, trauma is a big part of it. That's why I ask, "How are you introduced to sex? What was, what was some of the content that was there?" And then there's vulnerable exposure to something that then hits dopamine, and dopamine's had its first imprint. Let me, let me, let me correlate this to to another dop, and that's cocaine. Typically, when people talk about cocaine addiction, they talk about that first hit. When they take cocaine, it's like there's a massive dump, an excessive, over-the-top dump of dopamine in their system in a way that it wasn't intended to be. And so they end up in the addiction cycle, now chasing that that high, and they never get it. So then they have to add to it. So with sex, it, you could, you know, whether, whether it's, you have a, a fetish over a certain body part or violence, or, or you have like this person, right, drunk people. I don't know that you being turned on by seeing people drunk has a specific meaning to you in your history, specifically, other than you're in a vulnerable state, you saw it either in person or you saw it, and you happened to be, it caught the, you know, the arousal, and it leaves a mark. So that then when that's brought up again, it stimulates that. Does that make sense? So what I want you to do is I want you to no longer feed the fear and shame of this. You're going to need some rounds where these thoughts and this arousal hit out, but you don't serve it, but you learn. And this is the, the beautiful thing is you're married, and you want to feel closer to your husband. Is apply the same thing I applied at the beginning when I talked about the other lady, uh, the other sister who wrote to me. Gently redirect yourself back to God. I, this, this stirring up, I give to my husband. I want to direct it to him so that my S, and this is going to take time. This is going to take practice. This is not going to be done in legalism. This is not going to be done in beating yourself up. God, I give you, I give the affection of who I am fully to my spouse. The Bible makes this interesting statement. The Bible says, Paul talked about this where he said, "You know, a husband's body is not his, it's his wife's." Wow. "The wife's body is not hers, it's her husband's." Wow. That's a journey. I don't, I don't know that I see that as something you get married and boom, it's all, you've fully given yourself over. I, most couples would say that's, that's not our experience. It's over time. Letting yourself go. That's a very vulnerable place. And with that, intrusive thoughts will show up. And you got scrupulosity. So content's going to come through, and you're going to have to learn how to redirect and stay present with your husband. Or even if you're not with your husband, learn to just practice, "God, I give that affection to my husband. I feel aroused right now, and this content's coming through. I don't have to feed the content." So the principles of OCD actually apply to sexual temptation because you're redirecting this very potent urge that has the power to get directed into channels that are not healthy, that are not good. But usually, we get lost in the shame of whatever it happens to be. And so then now within marriage, this is now the two of you working at. And and husband and wife, the journey of intimacy is learning how to connect in pleasure and enjoyment with each other. That takes communication. It takes learning. It takes not being in a mindset of lust where I just want to take, right? Because a lot of times people can enter into that. They just want to, they just want to take. Learning how to love, learning how to be self, learning how to communicate. Paul makes this interesting statement in Corinthians where he says, "You know, the body's not yours, you know, his is hers, blah, blah, blah." And he says, "Don't deprive each other." Right? Many marriages are in sexless marriages, which is, um, revealing deeper issues of intimacy and things that need to be worked through. "Don't deprive each other unless you both decide to fast." I'm like, "I've never heard, I, I've never met anyone who does that. Hey, we're fasting sex right now." For most couples, it's the battleground is, "Hey, we need to get in a routine. We need to get into a place where it's happening more and happening more fruitfully." There's a word that he uses there. Can give me a second to pull this up? Uh, let's see. Um, yeah, I got to hear First Corinthians seven. Wiz it? Okay, this just, this just, it's just this. I like to pay attention to words. Okay. Uh, "Let the husband render his wife the affection to her, likewise the wife to her husband." That was what I was trying to say there. "The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. And likewise, the husband does not." Very interesting. This is, this is the one flesh journey that we're on. "Don't deprive one another except with consent for a time that you give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." Yeah, this is the word that sticks out. I go, I like to pause there. That word, consent. So what he's saying is, don't deprive each other unless you both consent. So this word consent is the growing journey in marriage of learning what is pleasurable for the other person, what's pleasurable for you, but it's not something that is being forced in. Now, when I'm saying consent, I'm not talking about you sign a, a document and write this all out and, you know, say to this recorder, "You consent." I'm talking about learning to communicate and understand, right? What is, what makes the other person feel great pleasure and intimacy, you know, together. Now, the Bible talks about the marriage bed being, you know, undefiled. That there's there's freedom in that for you to, you know, explore each other sexually. And like I said, I think there's, there's a couple, couple boundaries in there. One is, I, I don't advise, I have a conviction against pornography. I would say a conviction against, um, sodomy. Conviction against, you know, having bringing somebody else into it, of any kind. This is not an exhausted list. That's just off the top of my top, off the top of my head. But I add to this a sense of consent because there may be something you want to enjoy, but your spouse, for whatever reason, doesn't find that comfortable. Okay? You're on a growing journey together in this. And this is what Jesus is wanting to do with us. We get married, and it's like, "Okay, now you have to actually work on your issues. Now you have to actually work on how you communicate." Now the world tells you in movies and TV shows that you just get a burst, and then you two of you just go at it. That's just, that's just not how that looks long term in the context of marriage. I think we've set many, uh, single couples up for an inaccurate expectation. Okay. So let me, let me get, I think I think I've addressed this a bit already, but I'll get into another pornography, masturbation question. "I'm a 41-year-old male who first looked at pornography, I'll call it adult content AC, at age 8." That's early. "I'm trying to remember the first time I saw pornographic content. The first memory that, that I have is I think I mentioned this in one of my broadcasts was being in, I think it was first grade, second grade, and a magazine was being passed around. I was in public school, and it was just, I don't even know who started it. It just arrived at me. It was like, 'Whoa.'" And what happens is there's a fearful print at first, like anxiety hits you. "What was that?" And then as that subsides, it turns into, "What was that?" And it's too many. We've, we've had an introduction that wasn't healthy, wasn't good. At age 8, 33 years later, you're in your 40s, I still struggle with, though not like I used to struggle when I would look at it and gratify myself physically three times a day. So if, if you're, you're looking at pornography and you're masturbating three times a day, which that's that's a lot. And I don't say that with shame, I say that in a sense of compassion because I want to give you a hug. That is a, a deep, deep, deep cry for needing to be loved, needing to be comforted, needing to be nurtured. That is, um, the signal that, that the comes out of this. About 6 years ago, I did a fast from it for about 54 days. I willingly avoided looking for it. The fast helped me immensely. So what it, what it, what that probably did for you is it can help reboot self-control, help reboot your, your chemical levels too, because in that kind of, um, that kind of pattern, you're abusing dopamine as well too, not to mention all the other things that, you know, pornography brings into play. And I, I, I, I, I think that you know that because you mention here, "And during that time, God showed me how I was hurting the people involved in the content, how self-gratification was both fake and selfish, that I could please myself without God or anyone's help." That's a very interesting thought. "I can please myself without God and without anyone else." Some, there's some interesting pathways of insight that that could bring, whereas God provides freedom for us to be real and selfless in loving and serving him and others, which in turn causes the greatest satisfaction. You've learned some insights here, brother. The issue I still have, I still have failures. If I'm tempted to look at content and fall into it, I feel miserable about it, but it still happens. Used to be thrice daily, now it's maybe once weekly or bi-weekly. To me, this is victory. This is progress. Like, I, like, like I'm impressed with with your journey already. This is where, this is where OCD years go. Because the next sentence, "The fear is that I've become Esau who seeks repentance and cannot find it." There's one of the common rocd, not rocd, scrupulosity. When I say rocd, sometimes I mean religious OCD. Is this OCD or am I in legitimate danger of falling away? No, that's OCD. That's exactly what it, what it is. Because you're still struggling does not mean there's no repentance for you. That's not a, that's not like, "Oh, I'm still struggling." That's not an indicator. Oh, because no repentance is available for you. That, that Esau thing gets into hardness of heart, absolute turning away, a lifestyle of absolute, uh, disregard, rebellion for God. OCDs commonly put themselves in the most catastrophic scenario, and it takes you out of what you really need. So in your, in your times where you act out, it's going to be important. The feelings of shame arise. What you don't want to do is you don't want to try to just get rid of it. That's what we try to do. I want to feel better. So we confess, or we do something, or we go serve, or we read our Bible, or we repent a bunch of times. You got to let yourself sit soberly in this feeling to let yourself really connect to a, "Okay, what's going on?" Because we rush to compulsive fixing of our feelings. We just want to feel better. Christians are always chasing trying to feel better out of their shame. Instead, don't go diving into shame and self-loathing. Stay sober. "God, I want to honor my body more." Oh, by the way, I, I forgot to mention this. Can I take a random tangent? Because it came back to me. It's funny where things come back to me. When I was talking about the feedback that's given online about masturbation, I was like, "You got to be kidding me." People were talking about honor, you know, honoring your body. You know, is this, is this something that honors your body? And, and some of them said, "How would, how would you feel recognizing Jesus is watching?" I go, "Jesus is watching?" Like, that's, you named me one couple, one married couple that during sex, if they went, "Hey, Jesus is watching us." That's weird. That's a weird picture to bring into this, into any of this. Toing to bring a Jesus watching kind of thing. Does God know and God see? Yes. But that's not something that's helpful for people, even in a pure where sex is happening in marriage, in, in a place it's supposed to be. So why are we using that as, as a way to talk about masturbation? I, I, my call is, let's get to the root of the stress and the pain that's going on there to usher in healing. So seek sobriety is my, my feedback to this. Okay. Um, let me, let me get into, let me take a break. I'm have a drink of water. Come back, and I'm going to get into some, uh, an ROCD question, uh, self-harm and masturbation, and then we're going to get into some intrusive thoughts. We're going to get into a bunch of them spinning about your sexual history, and, yeah, PD and some other stuff. We'll see how far, we'll see how far we can get. All righty, I'll be back in just a moment. [Music] He [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] N [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] He [Music] [Applause] [Music] No [Music] [Music] [Music] All right, bringing up some super chats here. Want to acknowledge y'all that put in the super chats. Let me bring this over here so I can read it a little bit easier. Uh, bunny, I see your question there. "Hey Melissa and Mark, how do you navigate romance and intimacy as a a Christian couple who gave up sex?" You mean with each other? You saying like, you were, you were sleeping around and now you're like, "Okay, we want to, we want to, we want to stop and wait till marriage." I'm assuming that's kind of what you're saying. Or, um, you're saying, "We give up sex period forever." What I would say is, if you're a couple who's dating and you're struggling with, uh, with sex in the sense of like, you know, you're tempted, I would suggest make your, your wedding date as soon as possible. There were couples in my church that were struggling, and I'd have, I'd had a, you know, I'd have a sit down and go, "Hey, let's just, no pressure, but we got this wedding date way out. Do we need to just move this up so, you know, you've got the urge to merge? Can we, you know, not make this something that you have to live in shame about and, and begin to, um, you know, move it, move it closer?" So that's, you know, if that's, if that's the context that, you know, is helpful for you. Lucas depression, thank you for your, uh, your super chat there. "Before we got married, my wife and me confessed each other our darkest sexual sins and forgave each other. Just love and grace broke years of shame." I feel that. Melissa and I've, I've had, um, the kind of relationship where I feel free to share anything. However, you have to be aware compulsives out there where that can become a, a pattern that is then feeding a cycle where you're compulsively confessing things. You get into a guilt, confession kind of cycle. So it's just something to be aware of. "Any advice for being sex repulsed and asexual?" Asexual meaning that you don't have any sexual desire. Being repulsed by sex, that's not something I have a, like a point blank answer. That would take learning and working in counsel to, to get an understanding of what influenced your sexual drive, lack thereof, or your sense of what you're saying is feelings of asexual, meaning just kind of that that would be, um, something that has that would need to be worked through. Thank you for the super chat there, swagu. And all those who are in the comments, great to have you guys live here. Okay, so I'll keep an eye out for that and then some. And let me get into some of the stuff I'm going to get into are, um, OCD related. A lot of this is OCD related, so it's just giving you guys a heads up of where I'm going and where I'm heading with this. This is an ROCD, meaning relationship OCD. "Hi, I only recently discovered your videos and they help me to confront the truth in my struggles in love and make steps toward overcoming them. I'd like to ask your opinion on a situation where two people in love agree in front of God to be married and make the promise between each other, but it isn't done in a church or officially, and then they have sex. I done this, but then went back out of guilt and even being confused about the truth. It then led to a breakup." Okay, so you guys are like, "We consider ourselves married, but we haven't had a ceremony yet." Then you slept together, and then you broke up. Okay, I think I'm following so far. "Even if the two people had good intentions, but God saw this as sin, would he condemn the relationship itself?" No, no. It's just, you, you, okay, it happened. Receive God's forgiveness and let's get the marriage ceremony. How about tomorrow? Tomorrow's a good day. Go down to the town hall, make it happen. Make it happen, captain. And then have a celebration with, uh, everybody. People go, "Well, no, I want to do the invitations and all that." Okay, you can do that. You have a formal thing, then, but do something. Do something now. The reason that I am, I'm a, I'm a big believer and have the official moment is because we want to recognize covenant. This is, I'm making covenant here till death do us part. There's, there is something official. Now, I know the government has come in and they say, you know, we need official papers and stuff so you're recognized for tax purposes, for, you know, accounting purposes, whatever, right? It's before God. I get that. But there is a recognition that I think is in my conviction that is helpful of being able to do that, uh, in community. So, and having that official, like, "This is a covenant commitment that I declare," and the people attending bear witness. So whether you have two people or 200 people, doesn't matter how many people you invite, but they're a witness to this because the, whenever I do a ceremony, I would say, you know, "We're all witnessing this, and we're here to support you and be in prayer for you." It's a tribal, tribal connection that that we're, we're also engaging in. Okay. So, um, but that doesn't mean if you, if you're engaged to somebody, you're dating, you want to get married, and you sleep together, is all of a sudden, "I'll condemn the relationship. You need to break up." That's an RD kind of thing. "I keep ruminating about this. Have bad OCD regarding the sexual sin. What is even marriage and so on? Appreciate your insights." That's my insight for that. I think, uh, Melissa saying, "I missed a, missed a super chat." You know, I'll check, I'll check it in just a moment, and I'll, if I miss any, I'll get back to it. Let me, uh, mention reply to a question about sex and I mean, SE, uh, masturbation and self-harm. Something I've seen very little discussion on is self-harm done in conjunction with sex or masturbation. What do you mean? Discussion on it like online, like articles or things like that? What do you know about this? And why this connection might form? Well, self-harm and masturbation are both responses to pain, emptiness, longing for connection, and working through, uh, brokenness. They both have that in common. And it is common that pain can be combined with pleasure. And so that's, that's where some people can get into like fetishes of of violence in, in sex, or, you know, like violent kinds of things, or, you know, hurtful things. They, they, they associate pain with pleasure, and it, it goes into the self-hate kind of world. That's where, um, like when I, when I would address the subject of tattoos, where like when you get a, get a tattoo, I'm not here to argue about tattoos, or I'm just talking about the, the principle of a needle's hitting and it's painful. It's like a, it's like a low-level pain that's taking place. It's repetitive. So it, it, it can, it can have an aspect of pain, but then it can also then be associated with pleasure. It's like a pain, it's like, like cutting yourself and that kind of thing. It becomes something you go back to, even though it's destructive, right? Because it creates this dysfunctional relationship with pleasure. That's why people who often get tattoos rarely ever get one, especially when their tattoos are are rooted in pain, which a lot of tattoos are, they're rooted in pain. So they often go and they get multiple ones and more and more and more, and it, it becomes something they, they keep returning to. So it is very common that, uh, masturbation also. So the masturbation can then become something that you're doing so much that you're even damaging tissue on your body because you're doing it so excessively. And it could also be combined with other harmful activities that, um, come into play. And I, I've, I've worked with people who they've, they've injured themselves, all kinds of things, you know, kind of stuff takes place because these things. But they're both, they're both rooted in a disconnect to self, a sense of self-hate. So how do you work through this? The same thing you, you, that I've been talking about the whole time is learning to practice love, learning to become aware of pain, having productive ways of working through. So if you're lonely, having productive ways of learning, these escapes, they cause us to escape, and we leave ourselves hanging. You're in pain, we go to this, this rush, and what do we never do? We never address the pain. You leave yourself to escape into the world of this, um, these habits. So anyway, anyways, you wrote, "I know they're both coping mechanisms to comfort and release, sexual release, internal pressure. How can the association between the two be broken and a healthy sexual template developed?" The same I've been talking about in, in, in all my other, um, questions I've been addressing. I would highly recommend, "God loves me and love myself," and practice working through, learning to experience love, receive love. And because that self-hate thing will, is very intrusive and wants to prevent love from being received. Okay, got another one. This is, uh, sexually intrusive thoughts about Jesus. Do you know this is a very common one? So if you've had this or battle with this, "I never used to have them until recently. I'm on a new journey with Christ, and I was reading the Gospels, and when they put Jesus on the cross naked, I imagined, I imagined what his P looked like." They actually just wrote the word "p." It freaked me out. In the journey, I was already feeling guilty of my past of being addicted to porn, and was always pleasing myself because my urges were always so high. So then it led me to question my salvation and trying to be right with God. After viewing your content, it made me realize I was OCD, very much so. I suffered for a whole month of these images of p. So when people do this, they're, they're afraid of it. They're, they're so highly afraid of it. And many people that write to me can't write the word penis. Right? Plus associating that word with our spiritual devotion, it's like, "Oh my goodness, this feels so blasphemous to even mention it." So I understand it. But a lot of people write and they write in code. They write things out in code, and it signifies the fear over the subject. Okay, uh, images of p. Every time I, I suffered for a whole month. Sometimes I have to jump around people's typos, and I suffered for a for months of these images of p. Every

time I looked, uh, of men or having sex with same-sex women, it gave me fear because those images were never a problem for me. Yeah, you had intrusive thoughts coming in. That's what happened. You have intrusive thoughts coming in. And so, in the early days of me doing one-on-one work with people, and back in the, in the 2006, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, a lot of my work was more deliverance-based. I do a lot of, um, I do some teaching, and then I would, we would do some renouncement prayers, that kind of thing. And there's a lot of good to it. There's a lot of help to it. I saw some, some freedom of it in my life. However, I did see where it gets out of hand and it distorts and it makes obsessors worse, makes them more obsessive.

But do you know one of the common, like, things that kept showing up? People were scheduling sessions with me. "Hey Mark, I hear you, I hear you work with people and I hear good things about it. Can I come?" They'd come and me, and they'd sheepishly go, "I'm, I'm, uh, spending time in prayer and I'm, I'm, I'm imagining Jesus naked." Oh my goodness, and they're, they're in torment about it. So they're coming to me going, "I need a special, I need a special demon cast out of me. It's like a lust. I got to get this spirit out of me." And what I found was helpful to them was when they told me this, I wasn't like, "You have what thought?" That was like, "All right, I think that's what's helped Melissa and I when in helping people over the years, whether it was when I was an official pastoring position or just when I, when I had people coming to my office or doing now virtual meets with people." There's a sense of just not being afraid of thoughts and not being afraid of sin and not being afraid of the devil. That's taken work, but that's one of the things I want to teach and train you all do is to just not be afraid of it. That takes practice.

So then I saw this happening a lot and, and I realized that not reacting with shame and just teaching them to be gentler with their thoughts, I was discovering in these sessions many things that I would learn and teach that more and more today. Then people were coming from all different streams because I seem to have a grace for understanding Pentecostals as well as Baptists, charismatics as well as even Mennonites or fundamental Baptists, Southern Baptists, what have you, people that have been, uh, Oneness Pentecostals, whatever. And then even Catholics. Catholics were contacting me, doing sessions with me, going, "I'm seeing, I'm, I'm having intrusive thoughts of the Saints and Mary naked." I'm like, "Man, everyone's just, everyone's just getting naked. You got to laugh a little bit." People, or your, these thoughts are just going to, they're going to, they're going to send you into places of absolute hopelessness and despair. But yeah, and you know, people wanting to go into the monastery and they're like, "I don't know what to do. I'm having these intrusive thoughts." And, and each, each realm of faith has their problems in dealing with it. So the priest would go, "Okay, you got to do these things, you got to do these things, you got to do these things," adding this burden. The charismatics would go, "We got to figure out this demon. There's a special demon." The Baptists would go, "You're, well, you're just not really saved." And I'm going, "Hey, it's none of [Laughter] that. These are intrusive, goofy thoughts that everybody has at some point and some degree. But there's people who have struggles with it in a way that creates a lot of disturbance."

So anyway, I appreciate your videos. Have helped me these past couple days. I get the feeling you're new to my channel too, so I encourage you, keep. So, so you go to pray. Oh, that picture of Jesus. Just let it, let the plane pass through. Gently redirect yourself back to your prayer. And then there's a thought again. Oh, you just, you let it. We have to let ourselves work through our fears. You have to ride the fear without feeding the fear. Which, which I'm going to, this is going to kind of be a, um, a domino to a bunch of the, the, the other thoughts. I'll get to the super chats that are there in just a moment because another one that came in is homosexuality OCD. A very, very common intrusive thought. I've made some amazing progress throughout the years. I've overcome panic disorder, agoraphobia, pretty much every, every OCD subtype except for the HD1. Okay. So now there's a couple things in your statement. "I've overcome this." Like, "I am, it's behind me. I'm never struggling again." I, I push back sometimes on that mentality because if any of those battles you've had before pop up again, then what it's going to tell you is you've not overcome. And that's not true. You're on a journey, and these things often happen in layers. Um, and then we're now creating sexuality OCD in this like special category that it's the worst of the subsets of OCD, which every OCD believes that theirs is the worst. And if they could just overcome that one topic, their life would be so much better. It's a common, it's a common myth that gets believed.

"I've looked through your stuff, can't find any info on it." Well, I'm going to make sure to tag this and put it there. I'm not sure how much tags come up in searching, though. So that, that's something I'm still looking at because I don't, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll search things myself that I know I've talked and tagged, and I don't always see them arriving in the, in the search feed. But my problem has never been just the fear of being gay. There was action involved. Okay. So maybe you, you were aroused, you had a thought, or something, and you masturbated. It's usually that. When when Christians say there was action involved, they're talking about masturbating. Usually, usually when people say, "I'm struggling with sin," it's, it's pornography and masturbation. It's usually, it's usually what it is. Okay. Um, sometimes I feel some kind of desire. So this is where, like, confusion. Because because I had an arousal, meet subtype of stimulus, it must mean something. We create that connection. I do not want to be gay. Religiously, personally, I believe it's wrong. Sometimes I can't tell if I'm struggling with OCD, addiction, or both. Well, OCD and addictions can kind of cross over a little bit because many OCDs get, have addictions as well too, to try to find a place of relief. But, um, your question is really, "Is this OCD or am I gay?" And can, can we, can we, can we, let me, let me just indulge you for a second. Either way, the thoughts aren't you. These thoughts aren't you. God did not design you. And I know that goes against the whole system out there, this world, whatever. All I, all I can stand on is is God's word. So, um, regardless whether there's this, this, uh, maybe I am, but either way, treat it like you treat any thought. Any thought like an OCD thought. And this is what I mean by it. Any thought that comes your way, treat it gently, treat it slowly, and don't impulsively or compulsively react to it. All thoughts, just let them float through. And over time, the good thoughts, you'll start to notice over time, you know what? That's a good thought that I need to keep feeding on. Right, right. And what you, what, what the key here is, um, it's the fear. Here you say it's not just the fear, but that's really the, if you, if the fear isn't there, you let this float through. So I was aroused. So I had a feeling. I had a, I had a, uh, sensation. Okay. It doesn't have to mean something. Any help? If you can point me in a great direction, really, I think that, um, some exposure therapy would be great. In real life, develop healthy relationships with men. Be around them like brothers. And sometimes those thoughts will pop up while you're with them, and you just let those thoughts pass through. It's a very common thing that men have had, by the way, intrusive thought, especially when you get close to a man. And in the, in the old days, sometimes a lot of times, I'm just being honest, what men would express, they go, "You know, like if you hug, what's matter with you? You gay?" You know, there was that, the sense of being uncomfortable with male connection, which is something that you can grow in, and it doesn't have to turn sexual.

Okay, let me, um, my wife said I missed a Super Chat. I got that one. I got that one. Let me see. Let me pull this up here. Oh, I see they're at the top. I think the, the idea of fetishes and nudism cause spinning. Any thoughts? Thank you for all you do, but I hope that what I shared, uh, be helpful. But, um, whatever the topic of the fetish is, I've, I've basically heard quite a list. People that, yeah, like nuded kind of fantasies, stuff like that too. Yeah. Anyway. All right. Let me get into this. This one's, uh, spinning about your sexual history. I hope you're getting a lot out of this, and I pray it's benefiting your journey. Keeping an eye on technical things. Everything's looking good. So this sister has, um, she, she's got, she's spinning about her sexual history, big time. And the, the guy she's engaged to, or maybe engaged to, and his sexual history. All right, let's jump in.

"Hi Mark and Melissa, first, I'm so grateful for the work you do. Your content has brought a lot of peace to my life, considering I deal with OCD in almost everything." That's important to know because that's going to infiltrate pretty much everything you write in your question. "As the, as the title says, which in the title it was possibly being positive for HPV, which is the human, human Papal, Papal, Papal, human Papal, Papal virus. It's kind of a weird word. Papal, Papal. As the title says, for some reason, I won't get too detailed about, I believe I have HPV. I have the physical symptoms, and though it is common, I feel tremendous guilt, shame, and fear surrounding it. I'm 26, and from ages 7, 19 to 24, I was in the midst of many struggles, including addiction and being promiscuous because I was in a blackout state so often. I don't really know how many people I've been with, only that it's less than 20. In 2022, I spent seven months at Teen Challenge. I would like to know how helpful was the Teen Challenge program for you? I would like you write to me and let me know, mark@markus.com, send me a follow-up. I'd like to hear what, what was helpful from the program." Um, but I, I, whereas that may help you with sobriety of your drug of choice, but there's also working through shame, working through your history, and also working through OCD. That's going to be next steps in your, in your journey. You spent seven months there. Now, was that the length of the program? Because I pretty sure usually programs go longer than that. Did you kind of quit, get out? Anyways, lots of questions I have. And while I was there, I got, okay, while you're at Teen Challenge, you got tested for STDs. The doctor said you were fine. So, okay. But I'm taking it that wasn't good enough.

Fast forward to today. I have been in a relationship with a wonderful man for just over a year now. He is saved as well, but unfortunately has had struggles with bipolar disorder in his past. He's medicated and now stable. Well, I pray that he's doing the work too, because bipolars in their manic state can often go into addictions, intense. So I don't know if that's him, but that, that's one of the things that happens in that manic kind of state. He's, he's been with around 14 women. The both of us have abstained and haven't had sex yet, despite not being virgins. We want to try to do things right this time and wait until marriage, which we are planning, but we're not engaged yet because of money. Okay, many, many people in history have gotten married so broke. Don't let money. There's this thing where we need to have this amazing wedding and have all this money. Meanwhile, you're struggling. Now, get some counsel, get some premarital counseling, see if we could find a way to get y'all's married. Now, there's a lot of work. You're going to, you're going to need to have, you both have a lot of history. So I want to be sober about it. We all have history coming into marriage. We all have our stuff. I'm not as concerned about what the history is. I am more concerned about what is your attitude about working through it. I could have have a couple where one of them has a squeaky clean history, but is not hard to work with, has got pride issues. I would way rather work with somebody who has a history of some of stuff, but has a humble heart and teachable heart and wants to be well. That is the key for healthy marriage. It's that, "Hey, I want to grow with God. I want to work on my stuff. I want to be humble. I want to be teachable. I want to deal with issues as they arise. I want to grow." So it creates humility. It creates a great attitude for that. And if you both have that, get some counsel and start working together on what your future can be. Okay.

But you say you're not engaged because of money. Let's, let's cut through that. That, that's not an obstacle. I even, I remember my parents. My my parents got married at Teen Challenge, by the way. My dad had to borrow his, his jacket from, I think he put it on layaway at Sears or something like that. Remember Sears? Is Sears still around? I don't think it is. But you, they borrowed this, they borrowed that. You know, so I think, I think we add way too much to, we need to have this beautiful thing. Okay. If you can, when you can afford it, do that. Have a celebration down the road. But let's get the covenant kicked in and then do life together. Now you're working as one. I'm spinning over the guilt and sadness I, I feel thinking I have potentially ruined my body. So this is a sober thing. Yes, you've, you've done some things against your body. Yeah. Okay. We're going to see it soberly. But God is here to do a renewal work in your life. And I believe that as you work through it, your story can actually be empowering to not only bring strength to your marriage, but be encouragement to others in the message that you bring to other people. So, um, but I think you go back into spinning about HPV. "I don't know how I will ever have sex again, even in marriage, without the possibility of infecting my future husband or, God forbid, infecting my future children." Well, like you said, you got tested and they said there's nothing there. You know, if, if you were sexually active since the last testing, then maybe test one last time. And just look, look and go, "So many people are afraid of doctors. We're afraid of doctors, afraid of blood, afraid of, of getting blood taken, afraid of, you know, facing that." Go do it. And then soberly work through it. "It makes me feel like this is a punishment for my past rebellion." And this isn't about God punishing you. Yes, there are consequences and things that happen with our choices. He's not condemning you. There is a new day today. Now is the time. Today is the day. It's a new opportunity to take new steps. You're going to need, um, because sexual, sexual sin has an uncleanness factor that we have to work through of, of healing through shame, learning to see ourselves compassionate and lovingly. Many of the people I've worked with, whether it's through trauma or they've been promiscuous, the shame gets in and it, it just, it just makes everything panic-ridden and condemned. And, and God wants to enter in and do some, some gentle healing of your heart and res, and restoring of how you view sexuality. He can do that.

"Oh, so then you go, my only choice is to be single and childless." Okay, you're really going the catastrophe route. "And let my boyfriend find someone healthier." So out of this sense of unloving, you're like, "Go away because I'm unlovable. There's no cure." And I'm terrified to get tested or have it be for certain or find out if I have other STDs as well. Go get tested. That's going to be the big, that's going to be the big step right now. Go get tested. Don't be, and don't let fear win. And you'll be nervous and all that. Go ahead and get tested. Face it. You say, "I, I'm pretty sure I have it because, as I said, I have physical symptoms in my privates." As someone who struggles the most with health OCD, oh, I'm definitely seeing the health OCD and relationship OCD. "I feel like I am in hell. During years of addiction, I was sexually consulted." Okay, so now you got a lot of trauma here too. I mentioned trauma. Your traumatic history contributes a lot to how you view sex. And many of us have a lack of equipping and or trauma that we bring into. So then we think of marriage and sex, sex in marriage, it feels like a very big struggle. But you can do this. You can face this. But it's going to be walking through the valley of shame, walking through the valley of fear. As David said, "I will not fear because you are with me." Um, "You were sexually assaulted three different times." I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. My heart aches thinking that it was possibly one of those people who infected me, and makes the sting of being assaulted a thousand times worse. I don't know if there's any solution to this, but you give sound biblical wisdom and just want to know what your thoughts were. Thank you. A lot. I pray that my words will be an encouragement to you. Yes, it's possible for you to to move in better steps, better journey. I recommend facing this fear of getting tested. And I would recommend any kind of resource that helps you to work through the trauma that you've experienced. That's because, um, OCD is taking over and now it's causing you to spin about, you know, you know, you're never going to have children, you're never going to have this, and it just, it's catastrophizing everything. So it's, it's going to cause you to lose context. So I hope that helps. Write, write to me and let me know how the Teen Challenge things going though.

"This person has a, what would people think about me if they really knew about my sex?" It's a sexually related OCD kind of spin out. It says, "No, please use a different name." Well, I don't use any name, so don't, don't worry about it. "I have several of your books and listen to your podcast sometimes. I was diagnosed years ago with OCD and particularly struggled with sexual orientation OCD." So, so, um, I'm assuming that intrusive thoughts over you having same-sex attraction. "I thought I'd healed from it." Okay. And, um, this is the thing I always encourage is not to try to have this, like, "I thought I was healed from it. Like, I'm never going to deal with it again." That can create a setup for discouragement because then if the thought pops up again, then we feel like we haven't, we haven't been making progress. I have gone through so much healing over the past number of years, and now I work as a life coach. That's awesome. So I'm curious, and you don't have to write me back, but I am curious if, do you do life coaching in, in these areas like intrusive thoughts, OCD, or is it more just like life coaching in general? Uh, but you say helping others to heal. But you said, "I was triggered the other day, whereas I used to OCD about the topic of sexual orientation. Now I struggle with the shame of my story, but it hasn't bothered me for years. For years, I could say, it doesn't matter about my story. I know my story, and it's not shaming anymore. It's simply OCD." But for some reason, this recent trigger has pulled me into the, "What if they knew?" spin again. And it has put me into a spin where I vacillate between shame, anxiety, depression. And part of me that is desperate to fix myself, but unknowingly how, I guess. My question is, how do I deal with the shame of my story? It's not the fear of anymore of sexual orientation. It's the fear of what people knew.

I'm going to be honest with you, which I try to be in everything I share. Yeah, I've had my rounds with this too. I do Q&As every single week. My wife and I, we get on, we be ourselves. We really try to just be ourselves and not be, I try not to be super pastor guy or whatever that means, have all the right answers, have all the, you know, clinical kind of things, but just talk in plain English, be myself, have a few laughs, do a couple voices, things like that. I, I, I, I don't know that people understand the challenge of that journey. Don't get the impression that because I flow and talk like this, it's really easy. That I don't have a sense. Like even going into today, it's like, um, talking about, I've never heard somebody talk about, you know, thoughts of seeing Jesus naked, or, you know, these, these kind of things. And, um, certainly that fear will want to rise up. And I share my story. I got a book coming out on ROCD, and it's another round of me sharing my story. And there are people who hear my story and they don't respond exactly great. Now, the majority of you, you're awesome, you're very supportive, you're very encouraging. But there's always those people you get that, you know, you share a certain vulnerability, and there's an arrow they throw right in that place. I admire that you coach other people. You've taken your journey, you coach other people. It does have with it this sense of of risk, like, "What if people know?" So I've, this is the way that I encourage people to look at it. When you're helping others, don't feel the pressure that you have to arrive. That you, I am not going to position myself as someone who's arrived with OCD and I don't have any struggles with it, and I'm here to help you because I'm the expert. Now, I consider myself an, an expert in knowing a lot of this battleground, but it's come out of my own journey and my own story, and I'm continuing in that. There is rounds, like even with the ROCD book, there's, there's aspects I share in that book that I go, "That was embarrassing the way I was thinking back then." And with, like you have your, your, your thoughts, the intrusive thoughts, the OCD thoughts are about your sexuality. There is an aspect of, "I got to know who I'm sharing this with," because they may not know how to respond in a healthy way. Right. So I encourage you, be yourself. Don't have the pressure to have to have this perfect kind of thing in your work. But also, it's okay. So even in my life, it's okay to go, "So, um, I want to know, I want to know in wisdom where to share." And I'm not just going to share everything everywhere because there is an aspect of, "Don't share your pearls before swine." Meaning that, is that mean people who are not good to share with are swine? And call them, "Hey, you swine?" No, the principle though, swine doesn't know what to do with a pearl, so it just gets trampled. Right. So when you share your journey, just practice, like, "Is this a safe place to do?" I go back to safe environments. Right now, I have taken a step of vulnerability to share a lot of my journey and what I've struggled for the sake of helping other people. But that took time too, and practice, and me getting comfortable with myself, and me having even exposure therapy of, "If people don't like me, if they think differently of me, or if they think this, they think that, okay." I, I experience that anxiety. I feel that shame. I feel that pain. And just like an intrusive thought, I let it roll through me. And the next time it happens, let it roll through me without trying to fix it, trying to respond to it. But sometimes it can be, you know, there's days where I go, "You know, people can be rough." Because this is the work of people, and people are not control. You can't control people. You can't control how everyone's going to be. But I do think you can honor your story and honor your journey. And you can go, "You don't have to share it with everybody." Right. It's like people who, uh, struggle with pornography. I don't encourage you to get up in front of church and go, "Hey, I have a struggle with porn." Not everybody there can handle that. Now, if you go on YouTube and you want to share, that's up to you. But just know that there are people that aren't nice. The funny thing is, I've told my story to many people, but I seem to have amnesia. Yeah, I get that. I'm stuck in my head. I'm so discouraged to be in this place again. That's your perfectionism talking. What are you doing in this place? You should be just right. You made progress. You haven't made progress. No, you're, you haven't gone back. You're going deeper. You're going through another round. Uh, so when you feel that shame attack, because that's what this is, it's a shame attack. Be kind to yourself. Be gentle to yourself. It's okay. Ride through it. Don't feed it. Don't feed the urge to fix. That's what I have to say about that.

I'll do a couple more. These have to do with, um, intrusive thoughts about, uh, like, like POCD, like pedophile stuff. Um, bodily sensations. They, they all kind of have a similar thing. "Hello Mark, I'm thankful for you. The work you do, the content has been very helpful in this confusing and tough season of my life. After overcoming years of lust and porn, I've developed a toxic relationship with my thoughts. I have intrusive thoughts and images of being attracted to children, and when they come to mind or when I see a child, it causes major disturbance. It has made me question myself and causes me to avoid situations that in the past I wouldn't even have thought about." Correct. This is what intrusive thoughts do. And what makes this challenging is you try to share with your everyday friend of yours, they might go, you know, OCD attacks the high-risk arenas, salvation, sexuality, purity, morality. So pedophile OCD is a very common one. Thought comes in, creates disturbance. "Oh my, what if?" Then avoidance. And what you'll have to learn to do is you'll have to learn to be in situations where that arises and you don't feed the avoidance to get out of there. You walk in through a coffee shop and there's a mom with her children, and you feel that anxiousness rise up, and you don't do anything different than you normally would do. Now, I'm not telling you walk around and go, "I, I need exposure therapy. Are there any kids?" You know, that's weird. Don't do [Laughter] that. But you live your normal life. And when those things arise, you don't feed the things you normally do. The anxiety rises up, the "what if" rises up. "What if this thought?" You don't, you don't, um, feed it. You don't try to argue and debate with it. You, you don't give anything back to this thought and to what it's trying to communicate to you, because it, it creates avoidance. It's the biggest thing it does. "It has made me question myself and caused me to avoid situations that in the past I wouldn't even have thought about." I can't seem to accept any uncertainty around this subject. I'm going to tell you something. It's not just this subject. It's in other areas too. I know we think it's just this subject. This one's center stage. But OCDs have an uncertainty issue in general. There's things that they, they don't like it hanging in limbo. So the thought comes in to accuse you of being a pedophile. You have to leave it and not fight back. Don't argue with it. You have to leave it in that, that limbo state and not feed the fear and ride through it. Uh, I know people who've, you know, uh, like even when you know, people used to read magazines. No one reads magazines anymore. You go through the magazine section, there'd be an article about a sex offender. And normally, under other circumstances, you'd look and go, "Okay, you notice that. Oh, somebody in town or whatever," and you kind of move on. Under OCD, you go, "Oh, right." That avoidance. So what you got to do is you got to go, "Stay calm. Okay." And you look at it like you normally would. "Oh, there's somebody in town." The anxiety's cranking up, cranking up. Now it's going even stronger, and you're sweating. What we want to do is we want to help you to overcome the fear of these thoughts so that then they can flow through and move on. But this takes practice. But your, your uncertainty kicks in because you, you fight back with this is, this is the compulsion. I got to find certainty that I'm not a pedophile. So then you might go ask around, "Hey, hey, you might start looking for reassurance. You're going to go online, go, 'Top signs of pedophiles.'" Mhm. I know, I know how this works. I know where the articles go. I know where people go with this. And what that does is that makes the obsession grow.

"How should I think or respond to these mental images or thoughts that suggest I'm attractive to children? All I want to do is be a good father and husband for my family." Yep. And, and I wouldn't be surprised too, if those thoughts, um, sometimes rise up when you're around your kids. Again, highest stakes stuff. Oh, right. It's made, I, I've seen many parents, they are distraught, and they're like, "My life is over." It's like, "Nope, you're not, you're not a sexual deviant. This, there's a thing called intrusive thoughts that you need equipping on how to handle it." Your heart, your heart wants to be a good father. But you're under pressure too. You're under pressure. "I got to be a good dad." Okay. So practice those precepts. These, these other ones get into very, very similar ones.

"Hello Mark, hope you're doing well. I've emailed you before regarding this, but I feel like I can't wrap my head around it. I mentioned before I'm struggling with sexuality OCD. I struggle with pedop, pedophile, homosexuality, and even in, I think you mean incest intrusive thoughts." Yeah, whatever the, the high stakes, worst-case scenarios, those are often the content that gets utilized. "My concerns are not the thoughts. It's, it's definitely the interpretation that comes with the thoughts. It sends me in a spiral." Yeah, you got to fire your interpreter. "I've been dealing with several different emotions and feelings internally. The feeling of being turned on." Yes, don't let the turn-on be a dictator for interpretation in your life because I'm turned on in this moment, in this scenario, that means I'm this. And even if you're not OCD, you don't have to let that dictate your life. You can, and people say it's impossible. You're attracted to who you're attracted to. You're attracted to. There is an element of that. You know, you like brunettes, you like blondes, you, you know, whatever. You know, there's an extent to that. But beware of that becoming a dictator. No attraction. God can bring healing to it. You can, but it takes gentle work. It takes our work on intimacy. Anyways, I'm getting, I'm getting distracted because you're in, you're, um, okay, interpretation sending me to spiral. How can I be, oh, the turned-on part. That's what I was, I'm wanting to know. Are these feelings OCD symptoms? Yes. Yeah. Or am I dealing with some sort of sexual confusion? Okay, again, I'll indulge you. Either way, you respond the same way. Oh, okay. That aroused will happen. Redirect. I don't have to feed that. I feel aroused right now. I don't have to feed that. Now, if you're married, um, uh, let, let this sense of arousal be directed towards your spouse. Like practice that. If you're not married, God, give me strength to learn how to use the energy I have to look for a spouse. Be open to a spouse. B, use this energy to serve other people. I want to stay busy serving other people in a good way and helping others. I'm finding opportunities and growing in relationships. Right, because you've got this, this, you know, sexual energy. It creates a drive. You know, men call it the testosterone drive. It's the go conquer kind of thing. That's going, that, you know, going after something. And many men struggle with severe temptation issues because they have nothing that they're going after, nothing of pursuit. And, um, they're locked in very often very boring lives and, and, uh, no sense of adventure in their life anymore. Okay.

"These feelings first started when I had intense intrusive pedophile thought. I went on a spiral." So in the spiral, if you go on a spiral, the pedophile thought goes, "Ah, I got you." It's going to grow bigger. When we respond in fear, it causes it to grow. So, so, so then I wanted to see if the thoughts that came into my mind matched how I felt. Now you did a checking thing. You want to check if you're a pedophile. So you're like, "How did I feel in my groin?" So you paid attention to my body in the genital area. As I focused on it, the sensation started to happen. Okay. So then it creates this equation. And I, I sometimes think, um, we forgot what it's like. Remember when you were teenagers and you could have arousals all the time? I mean, without getting into too much detail, you know, in high school, we would kind of joke around as guys that you just, you have these moments like, you just, stuff's happening. Think we forgot how sex drive can just happen. But with OCDs, especially, they connect to whatever stimulus happens to be present in that wave. Okay. Um, when I spiral, so you're compulsively checking your body to see if it lines up. And as you focus on the sensation, started to happen. That set me to a world of disaster. It's as if you think about pain in a certain area, you start feeling the pain. Right? The feeling that comes, it's like a tingling with a numbing sensation with a painful sensation around the area. It's not pleasurable at all. It's almost like a reaction of fear. When the thought arrives, or even seeing a child, women, or a family member. But I'm interpreting it as being turned on. I don't know what the feeling of being turned on feels like since I'm not sexually active. I'm associating the sensation I feel as being turned on into the sexual thought. You feel the sensation. Don't feed the interpreter. Let it ride through. Redirect yourself to something in front of you, that, uh, the person you're talking to, the task at hand. Gently to redirect yourself. It can be done. It can be done. We're going to create a new response and a new practice. This, I'm writing this because I want to know how to deal with it. Do I take it as a feeling? I let it float on by, or something else I need to pay attention to? I think I, I answered that well.

All right, I think I got one more. And then I think I'm going to start to land this plane. Two and a half hours, not bad. It's a good amount of, good amount of content here. This is kind of similar, but I'll just read it for the sake of, I, I want many of you to get a sense of acknowledgement to these very shame-filled, you know, battlegrounds. "Dear Mark, first of all, having a Christian share openly on mental health topics like OCD has made me feel less alone. Thank you for your ministry. I struggle a lot with thoughts that accuse me of inappropriately touching kids, and I teach junior high students. Recently, my obsession was so bad, I had the thought, 'I wish I could just be accused of something else so I could be free of this obsession.'" That's a common OCD thing. "A student walked by after this, and I had thoughts accuse me of touching her inappropriately, basically because I hoped for something else to feel guilt for, to give me relief." My mind equated that with actually doing something to make that happen. That's called thought-action fusion. You look that up, and it'll help you explain what that means. "One part of me feels immense guilt. The part, one part of me thinks, 'Well, no one reacted. I'm not even sure I did this.'" So then you went into compulsive, "Maybe I did do it. Is that what happened?" The confession compulsion kicks in where I want to go to the student and their family to get reassurance that this terrible sin did not occur. Right. Don't feed that compulsion. Don't feed any of these compulsions. It sounds like you're a, like a school teacher, or you're in, like, ministry, like student ministry. So what, this, this email tells me about you is you value students, you value helping them, but you're, you're, you're OCD and you're under a lot of pressure. So under that pressure cooker, these thoughts come in and they sabotage your ability to just be yourself. And you're going to have to go through rounds of these thoughts arising, and you don't feed them. You don't go be by yourself and like pray. You don't go ask for reassurance from somebody. It's going to create more problems for you. The thoughts come in, you let them float on by. You stay present in the moment. You feel anxious, but you don't feed it. Okay. "Obviously, I can't do that." My pastor and counselor both concur. Good job, pastor and counselor. So I ended up just kind of sitting with the guilt and confusion. Yes, that's going to take practice. Sit with it without feeding it. That's the part that needs next level. Not feeding it. The cycle continues. I have thoughts accuse me of inappropriate touching a student, so like in past tense. I sit in the confusion. Then once that one ends, the next trigger comes by. I sit in terror that I'm not right with others or right with God unless I confess. Right, that's the compulsion now kicking up. It's pitching a fit because you're not responding to it. So now it's like, you're lying. You have sin in your life. You're a deviant. It's going to, it's going to, it's going to kick it up a notch. "Have you worked with anyone with this form of OCD before?" For, yes, lots. And usually it's one-on-one, but lots of it. "What advice would you give me?" What I gave you today. "I'm afraid I'll have to quit ministry." No, you don't have to quit ministry. You're actually, you're actually your ministry is going to be more effective because you're going to be less perfectionistic too. That's the good thing about working through OCD, working through perfectionism. More grace, more compassion. If you feel compassion and grace from me, okay. Guess what? Working through OCD and perfectionism has been the journey of it. It's done a tremendous work in that in my life. And you're going to, you're going to make it, and you're going to work through this. And you want to be a present husband and a good teacher. And your heart has, your heart is good in that. But you're under pressure, and you're going to have to learn to walk through these fears without the added pressure on yourself. So work through my distortions. Get a copy. Everyone who wrote to me, get a copy of The OCD Healing Journey. And those of you that want to go deeper, I did complete the course on it in the Healing and Freedom Community. Again, there's no pressure for this because I've got, I've got all kinds of free materials. In fact, before you even consider the Healing and Freedom Community, go to the free resources, ocdelmarkus.com, ocdel. Many of you are brand new to my channel, and so take time to get to know me. Don't just jump in, "Hey, I want to join the Healing and Freedom Community or I want to sign up for coaching." Can we kick it down and not, and I know things are tough, things, but you got to get some teaching into your system. So, uh, you can use that page. But for those of you that say, uh, "I'd like to be able to interact in some of your Q&As that you host and get into course that's structured that I can have regular learning." This, the Healing and Freedom Community is a school of learning. I'm developing that. This, this is my long-term passion project that I want to develop to help people in that area. Do me a favor, click the like button and subscribe. And if you appreciate these videos, would you do me a favor? You can support by going to the donate button over at markus.com. You can become a regular supporter in that way. Another way you can support, many of you, you become, uh, supporters in the YouTube channel, uh, by using one of the options there, using super chats, all that kind of stuff helps. Buying the books and all those things that helps. I'm a no pressure kind of guy, and many of you have been very, very generous and appreciate that. Very, very grateful. I'll do one last check. Um, is my wife here? Melissa, are you there, or you having to go pick up Abby? Let me do one more check. Yeah, let me take a quick dance break and I'll come right back and close. [Music] He [Music] Hey [Music] [Applause] You know, one of the meaningful comments I see here is, um, Marty. And I appreciate you, Marty. You've been, uh, you've been a regular, uh, tuner-in person that's been in the live feed so much. But you wrote, "I wish I had your advice during my teenage years." Yeah, me too. "I just want to applaud you for talking about sexual intimacy. I've never heard a Christian pastor talk about the subject before. Thank you." Well, that, that comment there means a lot to me. Really appreciate the encouragement. Encouragement goes a long way. So thank you for that. This is great. Uh, I didn't see any other, um, super chats, uh, or any other questions here showing up. I've covered a lot of ground today, and I try to, I try to at times dig in and get into the battles and subjects that, that we struggle with. So looking forward to seeing you again next time, Lord willing, and the creek don't rise. This is your brother from another mother, and your sister from another. And I will be back with more insights for your healing and freedom journey. In the meantime, I'm out. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]