It sounds kind of bad when you put it that way, doesn’t it?
Our culture has adopted lust, casual sex, and pornography as normal and expected behavior, as if there are no consequences attached. Meanwhile, each of us deals with the litany of consequences that these behaviors bring with them, both internally and affecting our society at large.
“My dad told me it’s okay to look, as long as you don’t touch,” a large, well-past-puberty 8th grader once told me with a smile.
This boy’s father passed on to him the idea that objectification doesn’t hurt anyone. This is a lie. It’s a lie the father had bought into and has now passed on to his son. It’s a lie from culture that many of us have bought into as well.
One could argue that it’s better to look and not touch than it is to give unwanted touches, which is obviously true. This is probably what this father was trying to teach his son. But the fact that unwanted touches bring great harm does not mean that “looking without touching” is a victimless crime, as this dad had led his son to believe.
When you think about all traps, the foundational lie that they sell is getting you to believe something is real that really isn’t. You’ve probably bought products you later regretted because the reality didn’t match what was promised by the advertisement. The classic is the beautiful real estate in Florida being sold for a great deal, only for the buyer to find out later it’s swampland that can’t be built on. The Proverbs 7 examples of animal traps would also match this, but in a deadly way. You put some bait in the trap, the animal walks in thinking it’s going to get a delicious meal. The delicious meal is the animal’s perceived reality. The cheese or peanut butter or chunk of meat looks and feels so real. In some ways it is real. But it’s a good thing placed in a destructive context. The true, ultimate reality, the only reality that actually matters, is death and destruction for this animal.
“…like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.” Proverbs 7:23
The bird would have never entered the snare if it knew it would die!
A lot of us who struggle with lust know this truth, yet continue to fall into its trap.
Read the rest of this article on the Covenant Eyes blog.
The “Lust Trap” can reel you in anytime, anywhere. Its strong pull brings you in like a sci-fi tractor beam. The graphic imagery of Proverbs 7 describes it like an ox going to slaughter, a deer walking into a noose, or a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.
Most of us can relate to these metaphors. One moment you are minding your own business
When you look at pornography, what you end up seeing is a long line of naked bodies. When you look at pornography for years, you end up seeing years and years’ worth of long lines of naked bodies.
I do a lot of work with guys who, in their past, looked at porn for years. They don’t look at porn anymore, but they have a very hard time controlling where their eyes go when real-life women approach them.
Episode 3 / 65 covers a question from the mailbag about lust vs. attraction. Noah talks about the Enneagram and a new book released this week by his friends Clare and Scott Loughrige, along with Adele and Doug Calhoun, Spiritual Rhythms for the Enneagram: A Handbook for Harmony and Transformation. Noah’s rant covers all the ways the map app will drive you bonkers, including talking to you while using a public restroom.
