Protecting our children starts as our primary calling and then gradually gets eclipsed by Equipping them. Filters and restrictions can and should be used, but they are insufficient for equipping our kids to live in sexual wholeness in a morally bankrupt world...

The Courage Reclaimed Podcast, officially launching August 2nd, is my attempt at coming alongside my younger self, as a brother. I hope to share the lessons I have learned with vulnerability while continuing to seek growth and new knowledge in each season I am in.

Often, when I’m experiencing temptation, I’ll get up and go on a prayer walk. Because I leave all technology at home when I do, this one action serves to flee both the environment (sitting at my desk) and the opportunity (leaving all technology at home).

Listen to Matt’s interview with Skip Hall on “Game Plan for Life.”

“Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save!” Isaiah 59:1

Father, I am desperate for you to heal my marriage, to set my husband free from the sin that entangles him, and to mend my broken heart…

Father God,

l am not where I want to be.

I've always longed to be able to respect myself and to have a deep, loving relationship with my wife. I want to live a life I can be proud of.

But I am failing. I am hurting my wife, l am disrespecting myself, and though I don't often feel the full weight of it, I am sinning against You…

One day I read Jesus’ words in John 14:15: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought I did love Jesus, ask anyone! But if I was being honest with myself, I knew I definitely wasn’t keeping his commandments. So did that mean I didn’t actually love Jesus? 

Looking back at my ADHD diagnosis, I see I had no trouble focusing when watching porn or TV or while playing video games. But put a blank page of homework in front of me, and I felt helpless to concentrate.

For most of my life, instead of facing difficulty, I numbed the pain and therefore did not develop the skills, perspectives and maturity that trials offered me.

What does it look like to live in the reality that we have already been set free from the penalty of our sins, but we still wrestle with the power of sin over our lives?

My anxiety was once a trigger for me, but now it is a catalyst for deeper relationships.

If something “spiritual” can be explained by science, is God actually at work?

If addiction rewires my brain, is my acting out a biological or a spiritual problem?

You caught me viewing pornography.

I may seem emotionless, but I’m in shock. The truth is - I’m terrified.

It didn’t start this way…

The way of escape…

If God is so faithful, why does it feel like he has abandoned me when temptation is at its strongest? If he provides a way of escape, why do I feel so trapped and enslaved to my sexual sin?

Flywheel, n: A heavy wheel that stores kinetic energy as it rotates, resulting in perpetually increasing momentum and speed.

Addiction and recovery are not just haphazard, random things that happen to a person. Think of them, instead, as systems that can be understood. In fact, addiction and recovery act much like a flywheel which can rotate in opposite directions.

Everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God…

How can someone who is struggling with sexual sin read this passage and not be overcome with shame and condemnation? What hope is there for the Christian sex addict?