CRISP BOUNDARIES
After over three decades of failure, I finally learned that what seems hard is what makes this easy. A half-hearted approach to a new life will never work. Filthy or impure thoughts cannot be toyed with. Only a fool tries to see how close he can get to the edge of the slippery slope before sliding down all the way to the bottom. The best way to head off feelings of lust is to nip them in the bud. Act quickly, vigorously, and decisively. Be radical.
Another way to describe what I’m talking about would be a zero tolerance policy. A friend I met on this path to recovery affirmed that we must establish and follow what he termed “crisp boundaries”. Crisp boundaries are rules we create to protect ourselves from anything which will lead us to acting out.
Crisp boundaries will mean eliminating most TV shows these days, as well as most movies. You will want to dwell on things that are edifying and beneficial. I discovered I had to avoid any kind of Google search for images, as well as YouTube. I always make sure to use Safe Search on these search engines. Now I always go to bed at the same time as my wife; no more late nights flipping through those TV channels.
If I aim at only avoiding the really bad stuff, but remain content to allow my mind to dwell on “normal” provocative thoughts, I will never find freedom. The beast of lust must be starved to death. I cannot continue to ogle women, look at promiscuous photos, or coddle impure images in my mind and hope to find freedom.
This is what made this attempt at freedom different from all previous attempts. In the past, I would allow myself the “luxury” of looking when women were technically “clothed”.
In reality, there are at least two things wrong with this kind of thinking:
I was still lusting by ogling women’s bodies and degrading them as mere sex objects.
One thing leads to another, and I’d soon find myself at the bottom of a slippery slope.
Drinking one little sip of salt water won’t kill you. But it certainly will make you thirsty for more, and more, and more… For this reason, it is essential to eliminate every sexually impure thought. As Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus:
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.
Ephesians 5:3
If I asked you to stop a mighty river from flowing, you would find it impossible. But follow that same river up to its source, where a little spring comes bubbling up out of the ground and try to stop it now—much easier.
In the book Song of Solomon, verse 2:15 says:
Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.
The only way to develop clean and healthy thoughts is to ruthlessly eliminate every impure thought. This means changing the channel on the TV and turning off the laptop or my smartphone whenever I’m feeling vulnerable to lust. It means looking away and not looking back a second time when a woman catches my eye.
By avoiding the “little foxes”, things that most people would consider perfectly normal and okay, it is possible to avoid the slippery slope which leads to the slimy pit of sin. Of course, temptations will appear, but with God’s help, it is possible to quickly switch my thoughts to other things – good and helpful things.
Thank God I’ve learned that change is possible, even for someone like me who kept making the same mistakes, over and over again, for close to 40 years.
We are all so much alike. This idea of crisp boundaries applies to every one of us. Do you want to stop worrying, quit being controlled by your anger, or eliminate lies from your speech? You have to go to the source. Where does it all begin? Work out boundaries that will keep you on a good path. Look at people with good eyes. Jesus said in Matthew 6:22-23:
The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
The focus is: What am I going to allow into my mind? If I want to walk in the light, I have to seek the light. I can never permit myself to flirt with darkness, to see how close I can get to the fire without getting burned. The wise person knows that a guardrail on a highway is a good thing. Focusing my thoughts on good things by listening to Christian music, memorizing Bible verses, or just thinking about happy moments with my family is always a wise decision.
The instant an unwanted or unhealthy thought appears in my head, I drive it out by thinking about something noble and true. (Philippians 4:8) This was difficult for me in those first days and weeks. After years of allowing my mind to dwell on those pictures, those ruts had burrowed deeply into my brain. By working diligently at immediately controlling my thoughts, I slowly began to receive a great blessing from the Lord: I got my mind back! Those impure thoughts that had tortured me night and day slowly began to recede into the background, and I found hope for a new life and a new way of being.
Crisp boundaries mean setting up guidelines that I know will protect me and help me. Perhaps I will modify these boundaries someday, but for now, I know they are my lifeline. These guardrails are my friends who protect me from the slippery slope of doom. I ignore them at my own peril.
In regard to sin and seeking God, rigid rules and radical thinking are almost always our best course of action. In his book, The Purity Principle (pg. 53), Randy Alcorn puts it this way:
“When it comes to sexual temptation, it pays to be a coward. He who hesitates (and rationalizes) is lost. He who runs, lives.”
As Martin Luther wrote: “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” Now I understand that if particular thoughts have made their home in my brain, it is because I allowed them to roost there. In fact, they may actually be there because I invited them in and made them feel right at home.
This strategy of quickly and ruthlessly throwing certain thoughts in the trash and instantly replacing them with beautiful, worthwhile ideas has served me well. Like a kid learning to ride a bike, I fell down many times. But I would just dust off my pants and get back on my bike and start pedaling again. At the time it seemed like it was an endless task, and sometimes, it felt like I would never make it. But I just kept plodding forward. With God’s grace and mercy, I fought each battle in an attempt to win the war, and He helped me every step of the way.
The New Century Version translates Proverbs 4.23 like this:
“Be careful what you think because your thoughts run your life.”
Use crisp boundaries to begin your new life today!
From the book: Jesus Is Better Than Porn
