Overcome Porn: The 40 Day Challenge Sample

Day 39: Why he kept going back to porn

Today we want to share the story of Luke Gilkerson, a former slave to pornography and the original creator of this challenge.

Luke recognized his own porn use in the Israelites, just after they were delivered from Egypt. Only weeks after they watched God open the Red Sea, they wanted to go back to Egypt’s bread and meat (Exodus 16:1-3).

Hadn’t these same people groaned because of their slavery (Exodus 2:23)? Why did they forget the cruelty of Egypt—making bricks under the hot sun, the ruthless slaughter of their children—but remember the meat?

Luke recognized this pattern in his own porn use. He knew the pain and shame it caused. Even so, “Something in me wanted to be addicted.”

Why did he want to stay enslaved to sin?

Misplaced Trust

God promised Israel that if they trusted him, He would bring them out of slavery into a land of blessing. But “the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened” (Hebrews 4:2).

That generation died in the wilderness because they did not trust in God.

For Luke, slavery to porn was easier than trusting God. “Sure, I knew the cruelty of the slave master’s rod, but porn delivered predictable rations. In the wilderness of trust, however, I had to die to my selfish demands and enter the unpredictability of following God’s Spirit.”

Misplaced Longing

“When I felt totally inadequate and rejected,” Luke longed “for the ‘meat’ offered by pornography… When I felt pathetically lonely, sitting at home while all my friends were out on dates, [I desired] the temporary illusion of intimacy. But God was calling me to trust Him as I entered the risk of godly intimacy with real people.”

When he felt angry at God for not giving him the wife he “deserved,” God called him to stop acting like God “owed” him something, like the prodigal son’s older brother (Luke 15:29-31). Instead, God spoke gently into his spirit, saying, “Everything I have is yours.”

The only thing that cures a longing for Egypt is a longing for the Promised Land. God provides the manna of Christ’s body. He makes us hunger for the milk and honey of heaven. And He provides traveling companions that constantly remind us that we are on our way home.