Welcome to the husband material podcast where we help Christian men quit pornography so you can change your brain, heal your heart, and save your relationship. My name is drew boa and I'm here to show you how. Let's go. Today we're talking about levels of freedom. In 2014 I reached a new level of freedom when I went one year without masturbating. At the time I was leading a ministry of 200 students and I was writing this book called redeem sexuality. Maybe you've heard of it.
It was at that moment of success and being the victory story that people could point to that I had my worst season of relapse after relapse. I was like, God, why? I thought you were healing me. I thought porn was in the past and here I am back at the beginning, sexually acting out with porn and what is happening. The reality was I had reached a new level of freedom and I was up against new challenges too. I had just graduated college and many of you know that post-college transition sucks.
I lost my entire support system. I was overworked. I was stressed. My spiritual life, it slowed to a trickle and my best friend and ally moved away and got married in the same summer. Whew . I was going through a lot of emotional pain and this is what I tell guys all the time. If you have a relapse after years or months of freedom, listen, seasons of struggle and sexual sin do not invalidate the work of freedom and healing God has done in your life. He has changed you. He has grown you.
The level of challenge you're up against happens to be greater than the level of freedom you have right now. I believe there are four levels of freedom from porn. You want to know what they are? Level one is misery. When your desire to heal from porn is low or it changes and your knowledge about how to heal is also low when you are miserable, life sucks. No one describes this better than Charles Spurgeon. I have his quote here that I keep on my desk at all times.
He says, the half committed Christian is the most miserable person on earth. He's just enough in the world to be miserable in the presence of God and he's just enough into God to be miserable in the world. I would change it to say he's just enough into porn to be miserable in the presence of God and he's just enough in to God to be miserable when he uses porn. And that describes so many of you out there, you're miserable.
And in order to move to the next stage, you need to start dreaming to have a vision for your life, which is bigger than porn. Something that will inspire you and give you that desire to heal, that will take you to level two . Level two is motivation. When your desire to heal from porn is high, but your knowledge is still low, you've begun to dream and now it's time to start training. Usually you've hit some kind of rock bottom experience and so you're motivated, you're ready to go.
So start reading some of the awesome books out there like unwanted by Jay stringer, like redeem sexuality like Patrick Carnes, work like Ted. Robert's work like Marnie free Mark laser . There are so many resources to get started and you can watch our videos here on husband material. You need to get some training, you need to start moving so that you can learn what it takes to be free and when your desire to quit porn is high and your knowledge about how to be free is also high.
You reach level three. Level three is maturity and this is where I was in 2014 when your desire is high and your knowledge is high, you have a dream for your life that's bigger than pornography and you've been learning, reading, training about what it takes to be free. If you are at that place and you don't have the results yet in your behavior, that's okay. You've still come a long way. What you need now is support.
That's what I didn't have in 2014 I lost all my support and so the best way to get support I believe, is to get coaching. You can sign up for a free coaching session with me at drew [inaudible] dot com and I would love to help you strategize about getting the support you need and when you have the knowledge and you have the desire and you have the support, that's when you can start reaching high level results.
And when you get those high level results and you get freedom, not just from your behavior but from the battle itself, you reach level four. Level four is mastery. This is when you've taken action, you've received all the support you need and you have high level results.
This is what I see with the guys who graduate from the husband material coaching program and I give them the certification to be certified husband material because I know they're free, not just from the behavior of using porn, but from the battle itself. It's not just like, Oh yeah, I try not to do that anymore. It's like porn. That's not who I am anymore. I didn't just quit it. I outgrew it like a pacifier.
And when that happens, no matter what level of challenge you're facing in life, your level of freedom and healing is higher. And this is what I've experienced this last year. I went through something really, really hard. When my son died, he was born with something called anencephaly and he lived for four hours. That was so hard. The grief was horrific and only because I had reached level four healing mastery was I able to go through that without a relapse back into my old sexual behavior.
So these are the four levels of porn, misery, motivation, maturity, and mastery. My prayer for you, my desire for you is to get to that level of mastery so that no matter what happens in life, you know you're free and you know you're healed because you're a new person. Question of the day, what is your current level of freedom from pornography? If you're not comfortable sharing, that's okay.
And no matter what level you're at, miserable, motivated, and mature or a master, you are God's beloved son and you.