Lust blinds. God gives sight.

Casual sex is always driven by and founded on self-hate, at least for me. I know that every time I turn to it, self-harm is at the back of my head. Aletheia Luna said, "Sexual promiscuity is a reflection of inner feelings of ugliness and worthlessness." I couldn’t agree more. This woman isn’t a believer, and yet she supports this Truth. I never turn to hooking up coming from a good place. It’s always provoked by deep-seated issues of rejection. I found this a reality in the timeline of my life.

The past 2 weeks have been extremely tough, as the waves of consequences crashed over me—hard. It felt like the drug’s chokehold was too gripping and I was losing the breath of sanity and myself, and my sight was starting to dim. I haven’t been myself the past weeks, acting on impulse, begging for crumbs, going in circles like a desperate junkie looking for the next fix. I felt so low and cheap, I couldn't even recognize myself when I look in the mirror. But that’s what sex does outside of God’s container, doesn’t it? Placed within God’s boundaries, it is like a flame in a fireplace that warms the home. Take it out of there and it grows into a fiery monster, destroying everything that comes across its path. Also, simply put, lust makes you stupid. It hijacks the brain and clouds the sense of reason. It just does.

It's not all down the past weeks. I’ve had my good highs with God. By His Grace, He still gives glimpses of hope and heaven despite the storm. He moves me three steps forward, but instantly, I am dragged down by the enemy and the flesh 5 steps back. I’ve always believed that as I serve Him, I work for Him, but His word recently reminded me that He works for me, too. Isaiah 64:4 says that "God works for those who wait for him." Besides, He’s the best Worker there is, the type that never sleeps. 

As I hit my rockbottom yesterday and grieve at the insanity I’m spiraling down into, I press the pause button. I felt time stand still as I took a good look at my life, my choices, and who I was becoming. I didn’t like what I saw, but I still felt defeated by the intense pull of my carnal desires. In that moment, I prayed. It was a simple prayer, but I meant it with every fibre of my being.

“God, give me eyes to see.”

I’ve been trying to see this storm from my naked eyes but I needed spiritual goggles to see what I’m up against. Instantly, I felt the Holy Spirit say, “Make a timeline and see how God and the Enemy are working behind the scenes.”

I pick up my pen and journal and started taking inventory of my past month. The beginning point of my timeline was my last week in Sydney where I felt my healing began. Two days after arriving in Manila, something heartbreaking happened that hit my soul-wound so hard I started bleeding again. I kept writing and tracing back the soaring highs and ramming lows of my obedience and downfalls. My heart started racing as I saw the pattern so clearly. Every time God elevates me to a new level, a new devil appears. 

It sobered me, like cold water splashing on my face. I’m up against something spiritual here. I started reading verses on being set free and being bought for a price, then I blasted worship songs and sang my lungs out. I confessed. I praised. I cried. I begged. I felt the raging violence in my spirit calm down as God’s presence dawned on me like a warm embrace, like a Father hushing an injured child. It was such a sweet surrender. My soul has been exhausted from all the wandering, it’s about time I come back home.

Of course the Enemy wouldn’t let me go so easily. He hates people who love God and fight for His righteousness. As I slept last night, I was attacked through a dream. There was an imp disguised as a boy who kept reminding me of the rejection I went through, and started saying lies about my identity in his childlike demeanor. I didn’t know if I woke but it felt like it, and I couldn’t hear anything. Just dead silence, not even the deafening kind. I usually hear the ticking of my clock, but this time, there was nothing. I uttered the name of Jesus and closed my eyes, trying to reclaim peaceful slumber. I woke up after 2 hours and let my sight adjust to the dimness of the room. I get up, walk towards the curtains to draw them, and before I did, I shouted, “Let’s fight today, Lord!”

I whipped the curtains clear and the sun brightened the room in a flash. As I turned around, I saw my home in all of its colors and shapes, it felt like it was my first time seeing it. I blinked repeatedly and traced every corner and area with my eyes. My jaw dropped and I knew something supernatural was happening, I put my hand over my chest, took a giant breath, and started weeping profusely. I fell and sank into the beanbag, laid there, and wept harder. 

The scales of sin has fallen off from my soul’s eyes.

“God, I can see. You have given me my spiritual sight back. I can see. You are so, so good to me.”

This is such a divine experience. Unexplainable. It’s like wearing sunglasses for a long time that you get used to the grays, but the moment you lift it from your eyes you see everything vividly again. Textures. Hues. Gradients. 

I can see again. 

I can see the depravity of my heart and its desperate neediness for Jesus—that every time I operate apart from His boundaries and design, I end up stabbing myself. I can now see the man I last slept with for who he is and how lost he truly is, and how I took advantage of that in my wretchedness and sinfulness. I regret it. I'm atoning for it. I can now see that I have nothing to boast about, because as long as I live, I will always be in the mercy of God’s grace. I can see that God is my advocate, my good, good Father, the one who diffuses the ticking bomb of the consequences I put upon myself. He’s so good a Parent that He disciplines me and saves me—even from myself. 

I know the battle is only beginning, but the battle’s half won so long as I have a clear vision on how to fight. 

Ephesians 1:18

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, […]

Ephesians 5:8

[…] for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light.

—D