#012: Radical Honesty
Welcome to the Courage Reclaim podcast, where our mission is to help Christian men break free from what holds them back, fall madly in love with Jesus, and become the leaders he's called and created us to be.
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Every day, for over a decade, I wrestled with honesty. I desperately wanted to be honest with my parents, with my wife, with my friends, with God, about what I was wrestling with, what I had wrestled with, particularly with my wife. I wanted to be able to be honest with her about how I had effectively broken her trust, how I had betrayed her trust with my pornography addiction. But that's where the double bind comes in. In order to be honest with her, I thought I was going to be creating immense hurt for her. So I had to choose between do I love my wife and therefore not want to hurt her? Or do I hurt her and therefore come across as though I don't love my wife?
On top of that felt a sense of will God, will my wife, will my friends reject me? Will what love that I feel from them be taken away from me if I'm honest with them about my struggles? So this episode we're going to talk about radical honesty.
Honesty, simply put, is alignment with reality. If I act out, then saying I acted out is honest. If I add qualifiers, or if I add justification, or if I create a level of deception or ambiguity behind it, then I am not being honest because I am hiding the full extent of reality in one of the challenges and reasons that dishonesty is so detrimental is it deprives others from being able to live in reality.
If I let a lion into the house, and I am not honest with my wife, that I have let a lion in the house, then she can't live in the reality of that fact and protect herself. So there are real stakes in this matter. Now, as we're talking about hurt and honesty, I do want to create one distinction as we get going. If we are married, it is our acting out that creates the hurt, not the honest confession. My desire to keep everything in the dark, to manipulate words, to deceive, to lie, to avoid honesty like so many people do. That approach makes sense. There is a reason that for many of us, that is our tendency, and that is because if we have come to believe that there is no hope that our addiction will get any better, why wouldn't we want to retain what level of love we can?
But part of the reason this podcast exists, my friends, is because there is always hope. There is always freedom in Christ possible for those who love him. And in the Breaking Free course on the Courage Reclaimed website, we have a step by step how-to course in order to break free from pornography or sexual addiction. And I would encourage you to check it out. Again, it is completely free.
For so many of us, for myself, for over a decade, I found it easier to live a mediocre, low impact, low joy life than to live with integrity and to have honest relationships with other people, including my wife. So I'm going to talk for a few minutes about honesty in four different categories, starting with honesty with ourselves.
Honesty with Self
Self-deception is a real thing. For example, did I really lust in that context? I don't know, it was quick. I was just checking out the attire. I wasn't checking out her body. I wasn't lusting after her. It was just the attire. We are very capable of deceiving ourselves into thinking that our sin is not nearly as bad as it really is. And that's part of what keeps us trapped. For me, these footholds would draw me deeper and deeper into sin. And ultimately, it was hard to know. Okay, so at what point should I confess at what point do I need to be honest with other people about whether I lost it? At what point do I need to confess this to God? Friends, success for myself has come through confessing before there is a foothold. As soon as there is a foothold, it becomes incredibly difficult to root out that weed. Consequences are necessary to changing behavior, and I was not strong enough to be honest with myself and impose consequences. And that's part of why I highly recommend having internet filters that have screen monitoring, so that you can have assistance with understanding what reality is.
Have friends who are willing to call you out if they see you being disrespectful to your wife or your eyes wandering. If your wife asks if you let your eyes linger at the grocery store. Be honest. Yes, there are consequences, and part of those consequences will likely be significant hurt. But we cannot live in unity with God or with our spouse or others if we are not willing to be honest with those respective parties. If we are not honest with ourselves, it is impossible to be honest with God, with our spouse, or with our friends.
Honesty with God
It is imperative to our relationship with the Lord that we are honest with him. And I love Psalm 77, where Asaph starts out by crying out to God in distress, and even goes on to say that he doubts where God has been this whole time as he's been suffering, and then ultimately he comes back to remember. This is the God who delivered us out of Egypt. Who performs miracles. Who redeems his people. See, Asaph was honest with God in his times of doubt. And we can be honest with God in our struggles, even if we don't feel like God is showing up for us. As I felt for over a decade. Give God the specifics. God already knows, and this is a great way for you to connect deeply with God as you understand the depth of your sin and therefore are able to have a right relationship with him.
If we only talk in generalities. Hey God, sorry I messed up today. Then we won't fully appreciate the grace that he has given us. And for that reason, I cannot recommend highly enough. Praying on your knees. There's truly something that happens when you pray on your knees that you get out of your own head, you get out of your own pride, and you, your body, can feel a posture of submission before God. And for me, I found that this was really powerful to do with my wife, not as a means of showing her my relationship with God to brag, but rather letting her see my heart. The remorse that I had helped her understand what I was wrestling with helped me understand that I wasn't trying to hurt her, but rather I lacked control. I lacked the ability, as Paul talks about, to do what I wanted to do and what played a role in her, assuming a posture of support and encouragement toward me. That's not to say that it was all easy from there. There was still hurt caused, obviously, but it made a significant impact on our relationship for sure, as well as obviously my relationship with God. Now, praying on my knees is something that I've done intermittently since even childhood. Like I can remember, even in the midst of my addiction, spending time in the word every day and praying fervently, often on my knees to God at least 20 minutes a day, oftentimes that God would deliver me from the addiction. And while he didn't answer my miracle prayer like I asked that he would just let me wake up the next day without feeling any temptation going forward. I do firmly believe that my addiction would have gone much farther and much deeper if God's Spirit wasn't at work in my life. Proverbs 12:22 says, the Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy. Friends, if you have felt shut off from God, if you have felt like God is silent toward you like God is absent. This could be the reason. God loves people who are willing to be honest with him and with others. We are called to walk in the light. We are called to put on the new self.
Honesty with Spouse
Now let's talk a little bit about being honest with our spouse. For me, this is what I feared the most. Why? Because I felt like I had the most to lose. There was a sense in which I felt like God promises in Scripture that nothing can take me out of his hand. That it eternal life is just that it is eternal from the moment that we are saved. And so I personally felt the most fear in being honest with my wife when I messed up. I don't know what kind of response our wife is likely to have.
She could respond with significant hurt, or she could respond with incredible amounts of compassion toward us despite the hurt. As you grow in deeper connection and understanding for each other, the impact of honesty will start growing incredible depth in your relationship, and it is remarkably challenging to know how much should be disclosed versus how much will result in unnecessary hurt. And that is not a decision for you as the offender to make. That's where, as I discuss in the Breaking Free online course, the full disclosure is so incredibly important. And to do that with a Christian certified sex addiction therapist, because they will be able to help navigate how much to go into from the past as well as help you understand what level of detail to go into when you confess moving forward. Being able to be honest, brutally honest with my wife in the midst of this struggle has been the single biggest catalyst for growth, depth and intimacy in our relationship. Whereas before, when I would confess things to Sarah, our relationship would be off for days or weeks or longer. Now, when I need to confess, I let my eyes wander or something on those lines. Oftentimes, it leads to the deepest intimacy because God is capable of redeeming anything and anyone. A vital part of all of this, because it's not fair for us to expect that our wives will always respond with complete grace, and without any hurt.
Honesty with Others
When we have violated trust with them, when we have betrayed them. One thing that is of utmost importance is being able to be honest with close brothers in Christ. Part of why we stay trapped in addiction is oftentimes because we isolate. We are alone in it. But when the soul is laid bare, we need love and compassion and people that we can be real with without fear. We need deep friendships to help combat shame, to help us understand lies that we may believe, as well as to combat our own flesh. We have tendencies, we have bents, and having close friends who are able to call those out and encourage us and hold us accountable for making the changes necessary to be sanctified are of so much importance, and this is the exact goal of recovery groups is helping you understand with a group of guys why we struggle and shoulder to shoulder pursue freedom together in groups was the first time I really felt like I experienced the gospel in a deep way. I became a Christian at a very, very young age, but being in a context where I would share what I struggled with not only in the past, but I had struggled with that day and the guys in the group would love me even more for it, because that showed that I was willing to trust them with the deepest corners of my heart. It grew our relationships, and that's one of the incredible things about group is Typically, we develop deep relationships far more quickly than we do just going about our day to day life.
Additionally, by getting plugged into a group, we can realize that we are not alone, not as a justification to act out because everyone else is doing it, but because the shame that we feel around our sin oftentimes leads us to feel like we're the only one who struggles with this specific thing, or no one else would have done what I did, and therefore I'm a lost cause. Ephesians 4:25 reaffirms this when Paul says, therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. We are not made to walk alone. We cannot walk alone. Effectively, we will live in despair, depression and isolation. And it's through being honest and truthful with our brothers in Christ that we are able to put on the new self in Christ. Colossians 3:9 expands on this saying, do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices. And this is one of the things that I missed, as I would read the Bible for an hour a day growing up, just begging that God would break me free from addiction. I would pray to God like you say, you don't want me to act in a sexually immoral manner. What more can I be doing? And yet, in Scripture, it talks about putting off our old self and putting on the new self. And each time it talks about putting on the new self, it talks about living in honesty and transparency with other believers. If we are still isolating, we are still living in our old self. We are not leaning into the power of God's Spirit. And no wonder I remained trapped in sin for so long.
My friends, as I mentioned at the top, if there is no hope, if there is no resurrection, then there really is no point in being honest. But if Christ has risen, and if he brings hope and freedom, then absolutely it is worth it. The journey is incredibly difficult. You can't just turn a page and all of a sudden everyone knows all of your junk and sees you as an honest person. It takes time. It takes time of you being honest, radically honest, and people getting used to your honesty for you to be seen as an honest person. But imagine how much more loved you'll feel if you felt known to your core and loved even more because of it. Living in honesty will give you more and more clarity on your purpose on this earth, as well as help you more closely align with God's character. Finally, living in a place of radical honesty will promote intimacy with yourself, with God, with your spouse, and with those around you.
My friends, as always with Christ, there is always hope.
