FamilyLife Today®

Ann Wilson: Hey, we just wanted to give you a heads up before you listen to this next program, because today's conversation on FamilyLife covers some pretty sensitive but really important subjects that may not be suitable for younger ears, so just use some discretion when listening to this next broadcast.

Dave Wilson: And let me add this, and if you do listen with your kids, talk about it after with them.

Ann Wilson: Right. This is an important conversation to have with maybe older kids, just depending on what you're thinking, but we just wanted to give you a heads up.

Jacob Valk: A good core group, whether it was alcohol, meth, whatever it was, who were really fighting to stay sober. And I will tell you, I've also done a lot of accountability in there, and they're scarily similar: the guys trying to get off meth and the guys trying to get off porn.

Dave Wilson: Welcome to FamilyLife Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Dave Wilson.

Ann Wilson: And I'm Ann Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife Today.

Dave Wilson: We have Jacob Valk back with us today. He's the co-executive director and co-founder of Into the Light Ministries, and this conversation is going to go deep. It's going to be so helpful.

Ann Wilson: We're going to talk about porn, we're going to talk about your kids and how to protect them, and you don't want to miss it. You're going to want to share it with people, so let's go.

I talk to wives often and they say, "Oh, my husband would never look at porn. I've never struggled and my kids would never." I'm like, "Oh, you don't know what's going on in the world. You need to open your eyes because it could be your husband, your child, your daughter, it could be you." And so, just to open our eyes to say, "Yeah, it's our flesh. There's a battle going on and Satan is wanting to win."

Jacob Valk: I helped a little bit or at least was on the end of a research with Barna. So you can, if you don't believe me, you can go look at the research that Barna has put out, I think it's with Pure Life, on the state of pornography in the church right now.

Ann Wilson: They just quoted this at our church a couple of Sundays ago.

Jacob Valk: And am I right? Tell me the number.

Ann Wilson: It's terrifying.

Jacob Valk: It's terrifying. So the average age of exposure is about seven or eight years old for average. And that's across homeschooling, Christian schools, public schools. A massive portion of pastors are struggling on even a weekly or monthly basis.

The statistics are there, but it's really easy to ignore statistics, honestly, because they don't ring for us. I'll tell you in my experience, I've worked in college ministry, I've worked at seminary ministry, every guy I've talked to, bar one or two, has said, "Yeah, it started when I was about eight, nine, ten, maybe, when I first discovered it. And yeah, I was watching weekly for years and years and years."

I talked to one, I have one friend of mine. He has a little sister who's in high school. And his little sister was interested in a guy. And so my friend starts sleuthing this guy, just to understand a little bit more about him. Good older brother.

Dave Wilson: Good brother.

Jacob Valk: And he found this guy's TikTok and the people that this guy was following on TikTok and they were all softcore pornography. So he goes to his little sister, Christian high school, and says, "Hey sis, listen, this is not the kind of guy you want." And she looked at him and, I'm quoting: "All the guys in my class watch pornography. Who really cares?"

Ann Wilson: Now, you could say that's a unique situation. Fair enough. But this is a Christian, a really conservative Christian school. I don't think that's unusual. Do you?

Jacob Valk: No. From her point of view, maybe more pessimistic, but I trust her perspective from the trenches out, she would look around and say all the guys in my class. So parents, at least specifically, don't be naive. Because if it's not, it might be active watching, but it also might be stumbling on it, curiosity, a second look, a third look. And we totally underestimate how addictive pornography is.

Gary Wilson has an amazing book called Your Brain on Porn, and it's pretty graphic.

Ann Wilson: I've heard of it.

Jacob Valk: But he walks through how addictive... and he doesn't use that lightly. He doesn't just throw addiction around. He goes, "How can I prove or really work through the addictive nature?" And he does a lot, he goes through a lot of sociological stuff and biological stuff.

Dave Wilson: I went to a seminar.

Ann Wilson: I was going to ask, Dave, isn't that him?

Dave Wilson: Yeah, he sometimes does a workshop at Iron Sharpens Iron conferences. I speak at those, and I'm the keynote, I do this thing, and then I literally hear all the guys come up, "Here's the workshops you can pick." And I hear him and I'm like, "I've got to get ready for my next talk, but I've got to go see what this guy's doing." I sit in the back of the room, and it was mind-blowing.

Jacob Valk: Yeah.

Dave Wilson: Because he has literal images of your brain.

Jacob Valk: Yep.

Ann Wilson: I wanted to say before, I want you to get into that Dave, but Dave comes home late from this conference. I'm already in bed. It's super...

Dave Wilson: Like, "We've got to get him on FamilyLife Today for one thing."

Ann Wilson: He goes, "This thing that I just saw," and he shows these slides of a brain, was it a brain scan?

Dave Wilson: Yeah, he's showing brain scans on cocaine, on video games. I mean, it's just amazing what happens. Then he shows porn and it's worse than cocaine. It's worse than alcohol in terms of addictiveness, just what you said.

Ann Wilson: Because of the gray matter or something?

Dave Wilson: Gray matter and how long it takes to re-transform your brain back. Other things can take weeks; this takes months.

Jacob Valk: I spent three years on residence on staff at a drug rehab center. So I lived in and among the guys. We had an apartment, you get the idea, but I would eat with them.

Dave Wilson: Wow.

Ann Wilson: You've lived quite the life. You're not even 30 years old yet, dude.

Dave Wilson: That's amazing.

Jacob Valk: It was a lot of fun. This was my single years, so I was like, "Well, I was thinking like, you know what, redeem the time, do something useful." I'm like, "I can go right into the mess." And so I'm like, "Why don't I go live at a rehab center and help the guys with their struggles?"

Ann Wilson: He said "nobody ever."

Jacob Valk: It was a lot of fun, let me tell you. I enjoyed it so much. Because these guys, they're messy people. I met a lot of people who thought they were Jesus, that's for sure. Or there's plenty of spies, the CIA was on the roof a lot, let me tell you. But there were a lot of guys, a good core group, whether it was alcohol, meth, whatever it was, who were really fighting to stay sober.

And I will tell you, I've also done a lot of accountability in there, scarily similar. Scarily similar. The guys trying to get off meth and the guys trying to get off porn.

Dave Wilson: What's interesting, I think the study that I looked at said, and here's one, you can correct me if I'm wrong, I use the number seven out of ten. I think it might have been eight, but I just for being safe, I said to my church a couple of weeks ago, seven out of ten church-going men have looked at porn in the last 30 days.

Ann Wilson: Oh, I thought it was week.

Dave Wilson: It's 30 days. In the last month. And that's all you need to hear. It's like, so everybody sitting around the room right now, a lot of them... So in some ways what you're even saying as a dad stepping into his daughter or son's life, I think sometimes as dads we... or well, I'm just thinking of the dad, and this could be the mom.

Ann Wilson: Okay.

Dave Wilson: I think the dad is afraid to step in there because he's struggling. And it's his little secret. And he doesn't want to be a hypocrite, so he's just like, "If I don't say anything, it's better than trying to walk in and say, 'Hey, you should stop this,' when I can't." Do you see that?

Jacob Valk: I see a lot. I see it from both sides. So I mean, for the man who's struggling, brother, put your hand to the plow. Get after it. Get good accountability in your life. Don't be afraid to radically cut off access.

Ann Wilson: What about the guy or the woman who's like, "I've tried. I've tried, I just keep falling, falling, I ask for forgiveness, repentance, I can't get free"?

Jacob Valk: I really understand that. I resonate with that. I understand that feeling. I get it. It's also a lie. Because we don't serve a God who is content with us sitting in our sin. So we serve a God who paints us a picture with the Bible that's realistic. So James says if anyone says he is without sin, he's a liar. So sin will be a part of our lives until Kingdom come.

But God does not leave us just to wallow in sin and stay there. There is a pathway out. Garrett Kell has a great line where he says the Christian life is more about direction than perfection. That's a really great way of saying two steps forward, one step back is still two steps forward.

And the guys who I've known who have got hooked very early and struggled very long, what their struggle often looked like was forward a lot, falling back, wrestling, but there was always... it was characterized by a pattern of moving forward.

Ann Wilson: Pursuit.

Jacob Valk: Pursuit. Find new ways. I've guys who have started with one device, got a dumber device, got a dumber device, and eventually just abandoned the device altogether. Because they were serious. And they said to themselves, "You know what, is it worth it?" Jesus had really harsh words about what happens in Matthew 5 about...

Ann Wilson: "Cut it off."

Jacob Valk: "Cut it off, gouge it out." Why? Because hellfire is reserved for those who don't. And we have to speak with compassion and love, because Jesus also says that for those who are weary and downtrodden, a bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench. And he also says, "Put your sin to death."

And I think for the person who feels discouraged, I would say, go read the Sermon on the Mount again, because it will give you a lot of the best kick in the pants you could get, and it shows Jesus' heart for those who are broken and downtrodden. So he's with you in the battle.

Ann Wilson: And I would add this, too. I think we forget that when we are in Christ, when his Spirit lives within us, that is the power of the resurrection is within us. And so he's not going to just like, "Oh, it's too bad you can't make it." We've got the power of God in us, and he wants to bring us victory. He wants us to be free. He says, "I came so that you could be free."

One of the questions we get most often this time of year is, "What study should we do with our small group?"

Dave Wilson: I thought you were going to say, "Who's going to win the Super Bowl?"

Ann Wilson: No, I wasn't going to say that. And honestly, if you haven't done the new Art of Marriage, and I said it's a new Art of Marriage...

Dave Wilson: It's been refreshed, redone, and it is awesome.

Ann Wilson: You should do it. Give it a shot.

Dave Wilson: Yeah, you can do the Art of Marriage, and if you want, maybe you want to do a parenting study, we have the Art of Parenting or Vertical Marriage. They're all video studies and workbooks, and they're on sale right now through the end of August, 25% off.

So go to familylife.com/shop, pick out whichever small group study you want to do, and go watch God work in your life and even more importantly in the lives of those that you're leading. Familylife.com/shop.

How much do you even in the doc or in your own personal journey with men especially—and I know women struggle as well—but how much do you dive into not just the "fight it" and accountability, but the underneath...

Ann Wilson: The root.

Dave Wilson: ...root of there's something that's triggered maybe in your family history or something? Jay Stringer will dive into that. Obviously author and a counselor in this area, and he's always like... he even gets into, "What kind of porn are you drawn to?" There's a connection to... like, what?

You could get too psychobabble about it, but there's also there's something there that sometimes if you do all the right things, you get the restrictions and everything, but you never get to what's driving it, you win for a while. He calls it "splurge and purge." You'll purge for a while and then three months later, just went through three days or a week. "And I'm good for six months." Boom.

And most guys I talk to, that's their story. "I'm winning, I'm winning," and then you see them, they slip, and they had a night or a day, and then they'll go three more months. And he's like, "Is that the pattern you want, or do you want to win?" And he's like they haven't got to that. There's something driving that. How much do you do that at all?

Jacob Valk: Yep. And this is why these kind of conversations take a lot of time because you have to cover the theology of it all, both the sin and the design, which we could talk about.

Ann Wilson: I want to hit that, too.

Jacob Valk: And then you have practical steps, and that's the cutting off of the access. That's devices, that's the nitty-gritty of accountability. There's all that discussion. And then there's also the... all right, let's not pretend we can, like you said, like we can't white-knuckle through this.

So what he's getting at, and this has been so helpful, in the documentary a guy named Heath Lambert talks a lot about this. So he really gets into understanding your heart. And I've found it so helpful with guys. So let's say... I'll just use a guy, put girl in there, too.

You're at work and just the project is not going well and you don't feel respected or appreciated. So there's that good need there. It is good to want to feel respected and appreciated. That's a hole. And you're not getting that. You leave it and you feel... you end up kind of forgetting about your day, you just feel down.

And then the evening comes and all of a sudden you're hit with radical temptation, but you don't really have a game plan, and eventually you fight it a bit and then you just watch porn and you just feel awful and you call it a night. Well, what we can do, if I was in an accountability group with that guy, I'd be like, "Right there, by the way, you know that is so many men's stories."

Ann Wilson: Oh my goodness.

Jacob Valk: And I'm guessing women too.

Ann Wilson: Well, I usually just eat something. But it's the same idea.

Jacob Valk: Right. So you can reverse-engineer that and say, "All right. You don't feel respected, appreciated at work. Couple of things you could say. First of all, where are you finding the core of your identity? There's a lot of thinking you could do about, 'Hey, you're treasured and valued by the King of all creation.' Meditate on that. That should put a little bit of a spring in your step."

But let's not pretend this isn't real to be hurt at work. If you're going to carry that, a knowing beforehand, looking at yourself and knowing beforehand saying, "You know what I do when I feel this way? I usually end up going to porn." Have that in your mind four or five hours before that's likelihood at 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon instead of 9:00 or 10:00 at night.

Dave Wilson: That's good.

Jacob Valk: And go, "You know what I'm going to do? I've got to get a game plan for this." I'm going to put on... so what does that mean? I'm going to text my buddy and see if we can go play some ultimate Frisbee. Because I know I'm going to get a good old healthy, God-glorifying endorphin hit from going to play ultimate Frisbee with Jacob or Jared.

Right. And it's good. It helps. Or you're going to say, "You know what, I'm going to crack open my Bible and I'm going to start reading through the Psalms and re-root my identity in Christ." That's the putting on. And then the cutting off is, all right, it's usually my phone and it's usually as I'm doom-scrolling Instagram.

So I'm going to lock that thing in the kitchen cupboards at about 8:00 and go read The Lord of the Rings or something and get me away from that device and a better headspace. Thinking through these things beforehand gives you a game plan, anticipating that temptation will come. Waiting until temptation hits and then going, "Oh, what's happening?"

The devil, the thing is, it's so helpful having a good spiritual warfare cap is really helpful. The devil intentionally wants to keep us ignorant of these things. Doesn't want us to be wise and mature and thoughtful about it. Because what it does is we just start coming up with very clear, logical steps to fight sin.

That's a simple observation. What I think Jay Stringer would point out is some very helpful things where it can be years and much deeper hurt. And that can then certain professionals can be really helpful in really taking time to untangle that.

Dave Wilson: Really get underneath it a little bit. I mean, everything you just described is what an alcoholic would do. I can't have alcohol in the home, I can't go to a bar. But here's what we do. We're like, "Oh, I'm not that bad."

Jacob Valk: Exactly.

Dave Wilson: But we have to look in the mirror and go, "I am. If I'm going to a once every three months or whatever it is, you've got to look in the mirror and go, it's an issue." I don't want to call myself a pornoholic or whatever their word is, but I have to be that vigilant.

And if I'm not ready to name it and be that honest about it, like a little sin here and there's not that big a deal. Yeah, it is. Especially if you're married and it's going to be a legacy. It's like you've got to vigilante put on the camo and say, "I'm winning this sucker."

Ann Wilson: Well, how important is it to bring it into the light to tell somebody?

Jacob Valk: Totally. And what I think you said is so good about this is I don't want to be more—this is going to sound weird—I don't want to be more spiritual than Jesus.

Dave Wilson: Impossible.

Jacob Valk: Because when he came to the question of sexual sin, one of the major passages, Matthew 5, that's about adultery in the heart, what did he say? He didn't say go look at your history of origin, he didn't say all this stuff. He said, and weirdly, he didn't even give more spiritual advice like make sure you meditate on God. He said start cutting things off. Take radical measures.

Now, all those other things are good. I'm a big God of theology guy. Get your big God theology. But what's actually... what I've learned over the years is what's so brilliant about Jesus' advice is that one of the most clear ways you tell yourself what you value is by radical steps.

So here's a story about that, which is to what you were saying. I have this buddy of mine. Really dear friend. But I hadn't caught up with him in a long time by distance and time. So I was going for a walk with him and I asked him about where he was at with pornography. And he's like, "Yeah, you know, it's kind of rough, like it's not too bad, it's probably..." we started talking about it and it turns out he was about once a month.

And in his mind, it was bad, but it wasn't a disaster. And I told him, I said, "Brother..." Once I kind of really tried to get the story and he was being honest, I said, "Dude, your wife has a license to leave you. Maybe not divorce, but if you're every month for years now, and she's putting up with that, she could totally take a break and this is bad, dude. You're a porn addict."

And he kind of took a step back, he's like, "Whoa, whoa." And I'm like, "A pattern of repeated use, that's addiction." So he thought about it, he talked to me... we just kept talking. He was great. He was like, "Dude..." it was an hour-long conversation, but he said, "Dude, this is a Rubicon moment for me. Like, I have never put it as starkly as this before."

So I got really amped about it. I'm like, "Dude, you've got to cut things off, you've got to punch your phone, you've got to smash your phone." We had this big conversation. It was great. About a week later, he sends me a video on Facebook Messenger. And he wrote on the top, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend." It's a proverb.

And it was a video of him placing his phone on a block of cedar and blasting a nail through it.

Ann Wilson: Really?

Jacob Valk: And to this day, that phone, that block hangs over top of his dresser in his bedroom. Last time he ever watched porn. He just got to the point like... he was serious. But what was... what I love about that is it says so many things. He saw... started seeing his sin clearly. He saw that in relation to his wife who's hurting clearly.

We talked a lot about God and how God views us. He started seeing God's love for him and God's judgment towards sin clearly. And that's... it is good to be frightened of that. And he put that in action steps. So he told himself to the cost of a phone, "I'm going to tell myself something seriously, in an embodied real way." And he blew a nail through that phone, destroying it. And now every single night he can look at that thing and go, "Yeah, I'm serious about this."

Dave Wilson: And every single night his wife can look at that.

Jacob Valk: As a testimony.

Dave Wilson: And say, "You love me." And again, I'm not saying you're never going to struggle again or anything, but you have put to death one of the things that is the bridge to sin. Way to go.

Ann Wilson: Well, let me ask you guys, because both of you have shared your struggle. What's been different about your walk with God when you see people like your friend that just nailed his phone? What happens in your walk with God when you're free?

Jacob Valk: A guilty conscience weighs on every atom of your being. It weighs. It drags. It's hard to laugh, it's hard to sing when you just... a guilty conscience just nags you. Now, that's not to say, James, if we say we have no sin, we'll always have sin, we'll always have struggles. But there's something about a continual, repeated... and the knowledge that you'll probably do it again that weighs on you.

And so having a clean conscience, the freedom and deep-breathedness I've seen in guys when they're two, three, four months free and they just go, "Dude, I can go to church and sing and not feel like I'm a hypocrite." It's amazing.

It's so wonderful. Even the guys who, yeah, they watched pornography last week, but it was only one time. And you know what, two, three weeks ago it was almost every day. And then you can say glory to God because one time is a lot less mocking and insulting God's design for sexuality. And that's worth celebrating and worth getting really excited over.

Ann Wilson: And the thing I was thinking about, Dave, you just talked about this briefly in a sermon at church. And I'm looking around our church, there's a lot of men at our church and I'm watching these guys wiping tears off of their faces. And they feel the guilt, the shame, they know it and they want to be used by God, but they feel so unworthy. Women and men. But I'm listening to you, Jacob, like, "Man, there's hope."

Dave Wilson: Yeah, and I also think it's like that reaching for what I know I can have and I've had before but I'm just sort of blocked from it because I'm holding onto porn or whatever it is. I think the same thing happens right here in your marriage.

Ann Wilson: Oh.

Dave Wilson: Like the intimacy, not just sexual or physical, but the intimacy that she longs for is not attainable when you're hiding this secret from your spouse. But it's like, we have a good marriage but we don't have the marriage we could have if I would just deal with my porn thing.

Ann Wilson: Well, and I can attest to that because when we were first married Dave was struggling, but he never told me. I could feel something going on. Like, it feels like we're not together. What's going on?

Dave Wilson: And I'd lie. "We're good." And the second she said it I'm like, "It's this. I'm hiding. But there's no way I'm telling her. I'm going to win this battle all by myself."

Ann Wilson: But I could feel it. I bet I've asked you 20 times, "What's... like is there something I've done? What's happening? I can feel a separation between us." And that's what happens when you have a secret between you. You're one, and especially there's one of you that can a lot of times feel that.

Jacob Valk: Well, you guys with your story can say something so much more powerful than I could. I'm very newly married. In that, for the person who's struggling right now and they haven't told their wife or their husband, and they're like, "I'm just going to vaguely muscle through it," you guys can say, "Hey, there's hope on the other side of this and there's a vision for a really great marriage."

But it's not going to be easy. You don't get the easy way through this. You have to be honest and start muscling through it and take the pain that goes with honesty. But I have so many friends who have gone through this and their marriages are amazing on the other side of some difficult conversations.

Ann Wilson: This is so helpful. Oh, this conversation with Jacob Valk, I was taking notes during that whole thing because I feel like I want to know it, I want my kids to know how to access this to help their kids, but also friends. Like this is an area that everyone struggles with.

Dave Wilson: The conversation doesn't need to end here. Go to our website, familylifetoday.com, click on the link and get his resources which will help you as a parent navigate this with your kids.

Ann Wilson: We would love to pray for you. I would personally love to pray for you and we even have a team at FamilyLife that can pray for you. Just go to familylife.com/pray-for-me.

Dave Wilson: FamilyLife Today is a donor-supported production of FamilyLife, a Cru ministry. 50 years of helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.