Accountability

This was one area where it was just not possible for my wife to be a help-meet to me. Yet one area where I knew I needed someone to hold me accountable. I felt God reminding me of the scripture in James: Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another. I also felt Him suggest to me a person at church in whom to confide about this. Armed with a resolve to speak to him, I returned from holiday.

Oh, how hard it was to do what I'd agreed to do! For weeks, for months, I put it off; thinking I could stop on my own, which I couldn't. Preaching again in early January, with a message about when God speaks, we should be willing to obey, I found myself being the main object of my message. What a hypocrite! The very next day, I once again succumbed to the temptation of masturbation, and finally realised, I had to do what I had agreed with God to do. I went to see my friend and confessed this sin, asked him to pray for me and asked if he would allow me to be accountable to him in this area. He has permission to ask me at any time how I am doing and what successes or failures I am meeting with. I usually tell him anyway, without his needing to ask.

I arranged to see him in another 10 days, and wondered just how or if I could possibly manage 10 days without masturbating. When I became a Christian at the age of nineteen, I more or less cut masturbation down to once a day, but even now, 28 years later was still succumbing 3 or 4 times a week. 10 days seemed a huge target. In the event, it was to be 72 days before I finally gave way.