Sometimes we need a wake-up call.

Let this information from the article, What Parents Need to Know About Porn and Their Kids take a moment to sink into your mind:

…according to statistics cited by the non-profit advocacy organization Enough Is Enough, the largest group of viewers of Internet pornography is children between the ages of 12 and 17. And there’s more. The average age of first exposure to Internet pornography is 11. Eighty percent of 15- to 17-year-olds have had multiple exposures to hardcore pornography. Nine out of ten children between the ages of 8 and 16 with Internet access have viewed pornographic websites, sometimes inadvertently in the course of looking up information for homework.

Now that you’re awake, go over and read the rest of the article. Don’t worry, we’ll all wait for you.

So what are we, as parents, going to do about this? How are we going to guard our children’s hearts and minds in this new era of easy access to some of the most vile, defiling images known to man?

Recently, I received an e-mail from someone who reads my blog, wondering if I could recommend a good internet filter for a Mac so her kids could play games online. She was concerned about allowing them Internet access, and rightly so! I had to admit that we don’t have any experience with filters. Since our children are very young (our oldest is only five), we have simply not allowed them to surf. We have bookmarked a few select sites that we allow them to go to. The computer is in plain sight in the living room, and I can monitor to make sure they are only going where they are supposed to. But, like I told the lady who wrote me, this is just a Bandaid. As they grow, our children are going to need a lot more than this to help them.

A filter is a good start, and I’d love to hear from those of you who use filters what you have and how it’s working for you. But, as my husband pointed out to me, all a filter is is a list of sites that the computer will not load if you click on them. There is no way that list is going to have every porn site on it. According to Enough is Enough’s statistics page, there are 420 million pornographic web pages, and every 39 minutes, a new pornographic video is made in the United States.  A friend of mine has a filter, and she says that some stuff still gets through. And furthermore, a filter is not going to stop the page title and description from coming up, so even if they can’t click on the page, our children still run the risk of reading about what’s on it.

A filter is fundamentally a sheltering tool, and as I pointed out in another post, sheltering isn’t enough. Our children need to be aware of what’s out there, how it’s likely to make them feel, and how dangerous and destructive it really is. Also, we must never let a filter lull us into a false sense of security. We still need to be diligent in checking our children’s browser histories and in asking the hard questions. And if you think your children don’t have a problem with pornography, ask yourself how you would know if they did.

Pornography addiction is rampant and skyrocketing. It affects men and women, young and old, and is a danger for both our sons and our daughters. I’d love to hear from you what your family is doing to protect your children and to teach them how to live lives of integrity online.

In a perfect world, men would always be gallant and godly leaders, like prophets in their homes, wise spiritual heads, making inspired decisions and piloting the family ship through the rough seas of a fallen world with masterful skill and insight. And we ladies, their adoring fans and help meets, would follow gladly with the utmost respect, trust, and adoration. Sounds great. Then there’s reality.

In reality, men sometimes make decisions that seem frustrating, stupid, or just plain sinful. They don’t always share our convictions. And we don’t always feel very respectful, trusting, or adoring about it. Sometimes, our men will let us go ahead and do what we feel we must, but we feel terribly the lack of unity and wish we were being “led” the way we so deeply believe is right.

Recently someone asked the following:

Do you have any advice for women whose husbands are OK with them being at home but seriously admire and respect women with high powered careers? And “allow” them to be at home for the children but have no respect for what they are doing at all? And I don’t mean that the wife is sitting around being irresponsible all day.

This really isn’t all that uncommon. In fact, I would bet that every wife faces something like this over one issue or another at some point in her marriage. I know there have been times when my convictions didn’t match my husband’s. So when disagreements come, what do we do?

Step 1: Search the Scriptures

If you are going to presume to disagree with the authority God has placed over you, then you’d better make sure that your opinion is truly a Biblical one and not just a deep and heartfelt preference. If it does turn out to be a preference, then we need to submit, die to ourselves, and let Christ live through us. OUCH! I’m not even going to pretend that this isn’t very, very hard. But it is God’s standard, and what a marvelous opportunity to glorify Him and to see His miraculous power in our lives!

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. –Ephesians 5:22-24

But what if, upon serious study and reflection, it still seems perfectly clear to you that following your husbands desires would be sin? Then, we must say with Peter and the other apostles,

We ought to obey God rather than men. –Acts 5:29

But how do we go about that? How do we remain sweet and submissive wives? How do we cope with our husbands’ lack of delight in us?

Step 2: Make sure you really understand your husband.

Talk about your feelings, not because you are trying to convince him that you are right, but because he is your leader, and he can’t lead you if he doesn’t know what’s going on inside you. Humbly, and that’s the operative word–remember “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble” (James 4:6), explain why you feel you cannot follow him on this issue, then tell him that it is your great desire to be able to follow him, and ask for his help as your spiritual head. Try to find out where he’s coming from. It is always possible for wives to misunderstand. In the case of the situation the commenter brought up, it is possible the husband really doesn’t have any respect or admiration for his wife, but it’s also possible that she’s not reading his signals the right way. This is where a calm, loving heart to heart is desperately needed, not a debate about the issue, but an attempt to have both husband and wife genuinely understand the other’s feelings and convictions.

If, after gently drawing your husband out, and talking through all that both of you are feeling, you are still in disagreement, then it’s time to look for all the things that you CAN do to please your husband. Are there ways that you could become more like his ideal, even if it does not include overstepping a certain bound? It’s also time to work very hard at loving, honoring, respecting, and admiring your husband despite your differences. Women tend to get bitter in situations like this. I know because I am guilty, guilty, guilty. It is vital that we tell ourselves over and over that this is the man God has given me to love, and follow, and complete, not anyone else, this man, and so it must be possible for me to do it.

Also, be very, very sure that you don’t air your disagreements to all sorts of people. Women love to talk to and connect with other women, to get sympathy, and to vent. When this venting is about people, the Bible calls it, “talebearing,” and has nothing good to say about it.

A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter. –Proverbs 11:13

The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly. –Proverbs 18:8

Honor your husband in every word you speak about him, and if you feel that you absolutely must get help and counsel, choose a godly, older woman, whom you know to be the model of discretion. Do your husband good and not evil all the days of your life (Proverbs 31: 12), including the days when you disagree.

Step 3: Pray like crazy

Never underestimate the power of prayer!

The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. –James 5:16b

When I was going through  a time of testing in this area, I prayed almost daily that the Lord would change the mind of whichever one of us was wrong. Praying that way enabled me to lift up the issue without becoming self-righteous about my “right” position. I also prayed in general for my husband to have wisdom to lead the family and about his walk with the Lord, his work, his fathering, our relationship, everything I could think of. I just prayed, and prayed, and prayed, and prayed. And you know what? The Lord worked it out. It took about four years, but we are now in complete agreement. The Lord did change the mind of the one of us who was wrong. It was a hard road, and some women walk it for a lot longer than four years, but having made it to the end of this one particular journey, I can see how the Lord has blessed us, strengthened our marriage, and is now even allowing us to help others who are facing similar issues.

For further reading, I highly recommend Kelly of Generation Cedar’s post, How Can a Wife Cope With an Unbelieving Husband. The comments are FULL of wise voices of experience that apply not just to this extreme example of conflict, but to lesser cases of disagreement as well.

This past weekend, our family spent the day flying home from visiting my parents and brother out in Oregon. Walking through the airports proved harrowing and grieving as we passed newsstand after newsstand dripping with filth. The worst was GQ magazine. Its cover featured a beautiful woman wearing a tie…

…and nothing else.

Her legs were crossed and hands strategically placed so her nipples weren’t exposed. But there she was, smiling at my children as we hurried past, she and her friends like the woman in Maxim, legs spread for the camera, oversized blouse just barely falling between them as well as falling off her top half.

I know that some people don’t see anything wrong with images like this, but I find them tragic. They divorce sexual excitement and fulfillment from the relationships that God designed those feelings to feed and cement. In short, they are robbing marriages. Bit by bit, they are slowly eating away at men’s enjoyment of and whole-hearted union with their wives. Rather than being a special, sacred glue that holds a man and wife together, sexual gratification becomes a free for all. Provide it for whomever. Get it from whomever. And it’s not just currently married men who are being damaged. Young men who become addicted to lust in their youth will carry their skewed version of sex into their future marriages, losing the depth of delight that God intended for them, and often leaving them sneaking around behind their wives’ backs collecting titillation from the same shallow, glossy sources they did in their single years.

Thankfully, my children were distracted by the airport tram and looking the other way. My three year old son probably isn’t struggling with lust too much yet anyway, but he is beginning to notice the world we live in. Just a few days before this miserable episode, as we sat at the lunch table, he pulled his sleeve down his arm, tucked his little baby cheek down on his bare shoulder, and looking up at me through his eyelashes asked, “Mommy, why do ladies in magazines look like this?”

The usual method for raising godly children in Smutland is sheltering. And sheltering is a good, good thing, both for our children and for ourselves, but you can only shelter so much. We don’t have a TV, we don’t get the newspaper (lingerie adds and all), we avoid most movies, we even stopped going to 7-eleven because of the “men’s” magazines under the counter right at children’s eye level. But we can’t protect our children from every sexual image. We can’t drive down the highway without seeing billboards. We can’t get through the check lane at the grocery store without seeing magazines. We can’t surf the Internet without seeing ads. And we can’t take our children on an airplane trip to see their grandparents without passing newsstands.

And while many parents seem to hope that their children are just oblivious, that there will always be that convenient tram, I’m way too jaded for that. Maybe as preschoolers they aren’t suffering too much, but the day is coming, and coming fast when every fiber of their being will be screaming at them to notice. The teen years will be here before I know it, years when their bodies will be fully functioning, ready to have babies, and not the least bit concerned with whether they’re through with their studies or well prepared for a stable financial future. They’ll be like dieting housewives with empty stomachs shopping for groceries on Saturday afternoon, free samples around every corner. “Would you like to try a mini cream puff?”

I’ve seen a lot of parents who find the idea of their children’s budding sexuality a little embarrassing and hope that as long as they don’t tell their kids too much or talk about the images and experiences the world is all too willing to offer, that their children won’t get involved. They blush and act squeamish when questions come up and are quick to emphasize that “that won’t matter for you until you’re much older.” This is a bit like acting squeamish and embarrassed about food. There’s nothing wrong or unnatural about liking food. As long as we’re eating the food the Lord has given us, food is a blessing. The problem comes when we’re stealing from other people’s lunch boxes. Pretending that food doesn’t exist, or that it isn’t an issue for our children is like pretending a starving man won’t notice your sandwich. A child who discovers that he likes the way food smells and looks may feel a bit ashamed of his fancy if it clearly embarrasses his parents, but he isn’t going to stop liking it. And if he doesn’t have his own lunch box yet, he’ll be all too happy to grab a chip here and a cookie there from the free sample stations that the world has set up at the end of every aisle. “Would you like to see what a woman looks like with her clothes off?”

If we expect our children to be able to win this battle, or even to fight in the first place, we need to prepare them for it. They need to know their enemy, and they need to know how to fight.

Proverbs chapters 5, 7, and 9 all contain detailed warnings to young men about harlots. I don’t think the modern day woman on the cover of GQ is all that different. After all, she’s giving away something that should only belong to a husband (the right to see and enjoy her body) for the sake of profit. So I think the Proverbs approach is probably a good one for helping our children learn to confront these kinds of temptations. These three chapters contain wonderful descriptions of the “enemy,” the women who are trying to trap them, as well as the consequences of going after these women. You may want to consider reading them frequently to your sons or having them memorize parts, but at the very least, go over them thoroughly. Here are a few highlights (and notice how this advice is addressed to “children;” this is not just advice for “adults,” it’s something that we need to teach our children before the temptations are assaulting them):

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them. Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed –Proverbs 5:3-11

For at the window of my house I looked through my casement,  And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night: And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart. (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.)…He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.  Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her.  Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.  –Provers 7:6-12, 22-27

A foolish woman is clamorous: she is simple, and knoweth nothing. For she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, To call passengers who go right on their ways:  Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: and as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.  But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell. –Proverbs 9:13-18

There’s a LOT we can learn from these passages, but some important things are these: the harlot is enticing, she is everywhere, and she is deadly. No man should think himself immune (“many strong men have been slain by her”), but it is the fool, the simpleton, the “young man void of understanding” that she calls in particular. Lets look at these one by one.

The harlot is enticing. Naked women and sexual release make men feel wonderful and go hand in hand. We must admit this or we will lose all credibility with our sons. They need to be warned that when they see a woman with “the attire of an harlot” that it’s going to be titillating, exciting, even empowering. Otherwise, we run the risk of having them reason, “Naked women make Mom feel squeamish, but she just doesn’t understand how much fun it is for me. I’ll keep this to myself. I know it’s probably wrong to keep looking at women this way, but it makes me feel so good I can’t stop.”

The harlot is everywhere. “Now she is without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.” We do all we can to avoid her, but there will be times we have to confront her. She’s just an innocent click away on the Internet, waiting around the corner on the billboard, or hanging from the department store ceiling under a sign reading “Intimate Apparel.”  Our sons need to know they have to be ready always and never let down their guard.

The harlot is deadly. This is where the sternest warning is needed.  For all her enticements, she has the power to destroy our sons’ souls, poison their marriages, cripple their futures. Solomon does not mince words, and neither should we. Our sons must know in no uncertain terms that “her guests are in the depths of hell.”

The harlot especially targets the simple and the foolish. Seeking genuine, biblical wisdom that starts with the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10) is a strong defense. After all, those who are walking in the spirit will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).

Once our sons know their enemy, they have to know how they’re going to fight. And it is up to parents to teach them these skills. Just knowing that lust is wrong is not enough. Our sons have absolutely no clue how to deal with it on their own, and they will fail unless they are shown a way out.

Their most powerful weapon is retreat. They need to run away, to “flee youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 2:22). And to be able to do that, they need to train their eyes not to get stuck on images they should be running from. Our sons need to understand that they have no right to let their eyes stay on a woman who is not their wife.

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. –Matthew 5:28

I made a covenant with mine eyes; why then should I think upon a maid?–Job 31:1

Like Job, our sons need to make a covenant with their eyes. They need to train their eyes to “bounce,” to borrow a term from the excellent book, Every Man’s Battle (which my husband strongly recommends). That simply means that if they see anything that even begins to titillate, they need to look instantly away. They can’t “think upon a maid,” either. That means no dwelling on what they’ve accidentally seen. Our sons need to simply acknowledge the unintentional charge they felt and let it go. It doesn’t belong to them. No long looks. No second looks. No lingering thoughts. It isn’t theirs. Tell the free sample lady you’re saving your appetite for the dinner your Father is preparing.

Our sons also need to be taught how to be careful not to go “nigh the door of her house,” in other words, they have to learn to shelter themselves when Mom and Dad can’t, to “make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:14). That means if they even see a newsstand up ahead, they should already be looking the other way before they catch a glimpse of GQ or Maxim. If they have to shop at the mall, they should plan a route that doesn’t take them past the larger than life posters of lingerie models at Victoria’s Secret. If they’re in a check lane, their eyes should be looking straight ahead before they see the woman on the cover of Cosmopolitan spilling her not so mini cream puffs out of her dress.

Last of all, our children need the accountability that can only come from a close relationship with the people the Lord has provided for their protection, their parents.

My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. –Proverbs 23:27, 28

When we have our children’s hearts, we have a much greater chance of having an open enough relationship with them that they will tell us about their struggles. However, we may need to ask! Don’t expect your children to come to you and talk about this sort of thing on their own, especially if you’ve had the attitude in the past that they couldn’t possibly be having trouble with lust at their “young” age. They may be all too happy not to shatter your good opinion of them and mistakenly believe that they can handle things on their own.

We need to take seriously the difficult position our children find themselves in today with sexual free samples available at every turn and a huge gap, often on the order of a decade or more between discovering how hungry they are and actually getting a legitimate meal. They are starving in a world of free samples, and if we want them to have a chance of saying no the smiling sample ladies, we had better get busy and prepare them for it before they get their first taste of mini cream puff.