Up until April, I woke up every morning thankful that I’d finally hacked this ‘following God’ thing that has always been a struggle. I’d been a mess all my life, struggling with addictions and lust. Several times I wanted to give up and just give in to the world fully or end my life, but there was always a still small voice deep down inside that told me I would get better one day.
When I started my new walk with God three years ago, I believed that voice was the spirit of God encouraging me to keep hoping I would get better at a later day. But lately, I’ve realized that probably isn’t true.
I could have become genuinely saved back then, instead of spending all that time wandering around and believing my true salvation would come sometime in the future. What if I had died in that period of wandering?
Anyway, back to April. It seemed like I’d reached the pinnacle of my spiritual life; I was praying in the spirit at least 20 hours a week (like, apart from my quiet time oh!) even though I had a full time job. I was hearing from Him on every single aspect of my life and I was obeying. Doing whatever He wanted me to do. It was beautiful, like heaven on earth.
And then my office headhunted Kenya. He was one of the top guys in our field and he was black too. I’d been the only black person in my office for many years, so I was excited to get an intelligent, black co-worker.
We got along pretty fast and he told me he had a solid freelance gig with several clients who regularly hired him to carry out well-paying projects on his own time. He asked if I was interested in working these side-gigs with him and offered me 40% of the commission. I could hardly resist.
If I added the money from these gigs to my salary, I would be able to finish paying off the total cost of my condo by the time I was 25! So I threw myself into the side gigs with Kenya. Sometimes we’d stay back at work after hours to work on these projects or go work in the public library nearby where we rented a semi-private space.
And sometimes we worked from my house because it was more comfortable and there was always food and snacks. I refused to go to his house because I felt it increased the chances of nasty stuff happening between us.
As Kenya and I worked on project after project, my private fellowship time with God was declining; from 20+ hours per week to 5 hours to sometimes less than 30 minutes in the morning. But I knew God understood that this project thing would only last for a while and was critical to me building up my portfolio.
With the insane amount of success we were having in our work, I would be able to rack up the experience I needed to leave my job and become a consultant way earlier than I expected. Once I became a consultant, I could spend 20 hours a day praying if I wanted. So ultimately, it was all to God’s glory.
I was still at the top of my game spiritually; I’d never known God as closely as I knew Him in that moment so I believed He’d protect me from the spirit of lust that had so plagued me in my younger years.
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The first time I made out with Kenya was in the semi-private space we rented in the library. The other people who used the room had cleared out one by one that night, and before I knew it, we were going at it on the table.
Afterwards, I ran to the bus stop and cried and prayed all night,telling God how sorry I was. At work the next day, I tried to avoid Kenya, but he finally cornered me in the supplies’ closet and demanded an explanation.
I told him how horrible the night before had been for me because I felt I’d disappointed God. He said he saw where I was coming from, although his own understanding of Christianity did not allow for him to feel such guilt since he knew God had forgiven his past, present and future sins.
But he said he understood and that nothing like that would ever happen again. So we continued working on the projects together.
We had sex two weeks later on my living room couch. I had never even had sex when I was ‘in the world’, but here I was, doing it during my alleged closer walk with God.
Of course, I cried like hell after. He tried to comfort me and I kicked him out of my house. We would make out on three more occasions (I’d stop it right before sex happened) before my idiotic brain realized I shouldn’t even be around this man anymore.
In fact, if I’d listened hard enough I’m pretty sure the Lord hadn’t wanted me to go into the side gigs with him in the first place. But I was too focused on making money and building my portfolio to hear that.
He also spoke to me quite audibly enough to cut him off after the first time we made out. But Kenya had promised it would never happen again, and I wanted to ‘help’ him, didn’t wanna leave him hanging with all the projects we had left and other stories that touch.
How did I feel in the period we were revelling in lust before I finally cut him off? Terrible, of course. Like I was failing God. You know how this feels if you’ve ever done something like this. But I guess I didn’t feel terrible enough to end it immediately it happened.
I cried every time we made out, but around the third time I started to laugh at myself. “You cry every time but yet you keep going back to the same thing? What a loser.” Anyway, I found another job sans Kenya and crawled my way back to the Lord, begging for Him to take me back. Of course He did. Never really left, did He?
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So I thought about two ways of ending this portion of my life’s story, before I finally settled on a third. I’d like to think He revealed the third one to me.
First ending (borne of my negative, purportedly realistic nature): I would love to end this story on a positive note; that I’ve been forgiven, restored and so on. I have been forgiven, but I don’t know about restoration. Since I ended things with Kenya, I’ve struggled with masturbation, an addiction I’ve had since I was a child. God took it away when I got genuinely saved 3 years ago. But after the thing with Kenya, I went back to it. I’ve tried to fight it. Sometimes I’d go 6 months without doing it, and then I’d fall right back into it again. So much for hacking this disciple thing o. But we move sha.
Second ending (less negative, but still quite pensive): I think I’ve got a real handle on this addiction and I’ve developed effective coping mechanisms to avoid it. But there’s this niggling fear at the back of my mind that at some weak point in my life, I’ll fall into it again. Or even end up messing around with another man. And so I hang on for dear life and throw myself into endless prayers every free time I’ve got.
Most of the believers around me have told me stories similar to mine and I’m like what’s happening? Why are we all broken like this? Can’t we live the First John lifestyle that Jesus Christ lived? No be the same born again Spirit and human flesh way Him get na im we get?
Third ending (full of positivity, His love shines through): I was laying in bed just tonight, wandering around Christian YouTube, and I came across a man of God who said something that struck me. He said one of the reasons why the fire of God dies in some people is that they worry too much that this fire will die; they envision a fire-less future and so it comes to pass, essentiallybecoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.
In my case, this means I’m so afraid of falling back into sin, that I’m increasing the chances that I’d fall back. What I gotta do is focus on Him and believe He’s got me. Amen!
PS: brothers and sisters, plix, this story is fiction. Don’t be sending me no messages offering unsolicited advice. Bless you.
housegeh 