The Path to Freedom: 5 Steps to Porn-Free LivingSample

Step 3: Go on the Offense

Any sports fan knows that a good team needs a strong defense and a strong offense. It’s not enough for a team to simply stop their opponents from scoring with a good defensive plan. They need a strong offensive if they want to gain ground and score. Your first two steps—shutting the door to threats and closing loopholes—are great defensive measures. We’ll keep building those as we move forward, but now it’s time to develop proactive measures to help you go on the offense.

What this really boils down to is the things we’re saying no to and the things we’re saying yes to. We can’t just put a giant “NO” sign on our lives. The journey toward porn-free living requires you to have a clear vision for where you can’t go and where you can go instead. This is where the Relapse Prevention Tool, or more simply, “The Three Circles,” comes in.

For today’s action step, either draw out or use your imagination to picture “The Three Circles.” Start with three concentric circles, one inside of the other. The one in the middle is your Inner Circle, the one outside of that is your Middle Circle, and the last one is your Outer Circle.

· The Inner Circle is the “crash site,” where you can write in or mentally place the behaviors and actions that you are committing to stop and never do again. Things like pornography, masturbation, or sex outside of marriage. Anything that has been part of your negative pattern.

· The Middle Circle is the “guardrail” you need to put in place to avoid a “crash” (or avoid getting to the Inner Circle). If you think about highway systems, guardrails are put in places on the road to keep you from a destructive crash at the bottom of a ravine. This is what we want to do—create barriers that keep us further back from the cliff of our old patterns. Write in or mentally picture preventative measures you can take to keep from getting to the “crash site,” or the Inner Circle.

· The Outer Circle is the “YES” in your life. “Yeses” are the healthy things you can do to stay focused on the road to recovery. Write in or brainstorm healthy actions that add value to all aspects of your life—physical, relational, mental, and spiritual. You should have just as many healthy actions listed in your Outer Circle as you do guardrails in your Middle Circle. Concentrate on engaging in Outer Circle activities. The more you do this, the less likely you will be to veer toward relapse.

Thought of the Day: The life of freedom isn’t just about saying no. Today, I’m saying yes to all that God has for me!Yes to freedom, life, love, and purity in Jesus’name.