Is Counting Days Beneficial or Harmful?
Any and every step a person can take to turn their back on habitual sin and seek holiness is certainly a good thing. For the person who has been masturbating and looking at porn every day to spend 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 months without indulging in these harmful practices is a blessing.
Yet as a man who tried counting days for a few decades, I suggest that in the end this method is flawed. I vowed to try harder next time. I told God and myself that I would never go back and look at porn again. I managed to have many good streaks along the way. Yet failure always loomed around the corner. At some point, it always felt like this sin had an irresistible pull on my heart.
It’s been 18 years now since I began my recovery. I’ve talked with hundreds of guys who install apps on their phones and count their days of being porn free. But what I notice is that most of them seem to think that the longer they go, the harder it gets. They believe that there is a pressure cooker boiling inside of them and they will inevitably explode at some point. I believe this kind of thinking is totally off base.
For one thing your primary sex organ is not located between your legs. You will find it between your ears. Everything you and I do and say begins in our thoughts. Therefore the more we learn to control our thoughts by ruthlessly eliminating any and every impure thought before it can even come close to lodging in our brains, the closer we are to freedom. The more we do as Paul said and fill our minds with that which is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, excellent and worthy of praise, the closer we are to living a life that pleases God, a life worth living.
When we feed our minds with that which is holy and godly, each day this task gets easier, so much so that Jesus could say that his yoke is easy. What’s hard is to fill our minds with trash and filth, and then attempt to walk in purity. That really is impossible. If counting days means “white knuckling it” and resisting porn and masturbation on the outside while allowing lusty thoughts to inhabit our brains, then of course it will never work.
I remember reading a book about how to quit smoking. I was surprised when the author was totally against slowly cutting back on how many cigarettes a person smokes per day. He said that when a person cuts back, the result is that each cigarette becomes that much more important. They look forward to it so much that it becomes even harder to break the habit. His strategy was to see all the evils and consequences of smoking, as well as all the benefits of living without smoking, in order to finally kick the habit for good.
From my experience the best strategy for defeating any sin, especially habitual sin, is to give each minute, hour and day to Jesus. Focus on pleasing him right now. Memorize Bible verses that help you see what to do and what to avoid. Allow those words to marinate in your mind. Practice intentional living. Do the next right thing. When you make TODAY a day worth living, a day lived with Jesus, then you will never have to worry about tomorrow. You won’t need to count the days you no longer do something you don’t want to do, because you are too busy living for Jesus today.
Of course we will face hard days and difficult days. And yes, triggers are everywhere. But when we have a strategy of how to deal with these situations, how to turn our problems over to the Lord, how to ask a friend for help, etc, we will find healthy, godly solutions for each situation as it arises. God will give us strength for today. We can leave tomorrow in his hands.
Perhaps counting days can serve a purpose to help a person wake up and see that a new life is possible. But over the long haul, living a life worth living is more about making today count and focusing on using this moment for good.
When you and I simply do what Jesus said and love God more than any and everything and love our neighbor as ourselves, we will see that today is a marvelous present the Lord has given us. A day to be used to bless others and to give glory to the One who made us and gives us life.
Would you like to learn more about stepping out of the darkness and into the light? Take a look at my book: Jesus Is Better Than Porn
