I recently had a conversation with a friend that I have known for a while. I’ve never actually met this man in person, yet I’ve known him for 2 years.  I am going to post an edited and cleaned up version of this conversation.  I edited some of it because it is not mine to tell. I am responding to his request to be one of my MSN Messenger contacts.  This occurs after I post in my groups FE forum that I’m quitting FE.

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Me: So, I’m curious.  “amazed and shamed”  What do you mean?

Friend: I am amazed that you have the ability to keep it up, ashamed that I don’t.  I’m a classic backslider.  I’ve given up on games many, many, many times and still find myself back.

Me: Do you read?

Friend: As frequently as I can.

Me: What has been revealed to me, at least for myself, is that the sin I’ve been dealing with has been the sin of escapism. It is the sin of seeking pleasure and joy and meaning through the pages of books or the social aspects of the gaming world.  I have found myself retreating and reveling in the fictional world rather than living and reveling in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.  Because of that, it is a sin for me.

There is a competing idea going on in my head.  One, these things are fine in themselves and there is nothing inherently wrong in them.  Yet, for me, it IS wrong because of the way in which I use them and make them part of my life. So, it is very hard to give it up, because I don’t see anything wrong in it and I do greatly value them.

Friend: I get that completely.

Me: Yet, I’ve found that I’ve come to value living after and following Jesus more now. In order to make that stick, I had to renounce those things, break them off and ask for forgiveness of them.

Friend: My main problem is that many times, I’ll find a way to justify it even though I know it’s inherently wrong.  For a long while, there was a guy I played with who lived in Pakistan.  He was a Muslim and asked a lot of questions about Jesus and Christianity. I used to have long conversations with him, clearing up some mistaken ideas and the like all the while thinking… giving up everthing else is worth this conversation.

Me: Of course.  I did the same thing with FE (Fallen Earth). “If I can keep it to one day a week, it will be ok” is what I told myself.  What a lie that was for me.

Friend: But in truth those conversations, while they happened occasionally, were not the norm.  The sad part is a lot of the time it’s just an escape and only marginally enjoyable.

Me: Yes, I felt that way too. 

Genesis 4:7 … sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

This is conflicted with the reality that we are in bondage to sin, tied down to it.

Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Jesus came to set us free from not only the positional bondage of sin where it means death for us, but also the daily captivity of sin where it means we are ruled by our sin.  He also gave us the tools to do so and I did not know these tools for a long time.  On top of that, I was culturally a Christian rather than a Christian in reality till fairly recently.

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At this point I share a personal story with my friend, one that I don’t yet have the freedom to share in such a public venue.  A lot of important stuff is here about my personal conviction of the reality of Jesus Christ and the spiritual realm and I pray I do have the freedom to share this at some point.

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Friend: I’ve devoted myself to Christ several times in my life, usually to wind up slipping away for various reasons.  At the moment, unfortunately, I’m at one of my low points, not in my faith mind you, but in my living it.

Me: As I’ve grown and studied and basically gorged myself on reading the bible and reading other Christian books, I came to the realization that it was not myself that was driving me to backslide, it was the influence of an evil spirit that I had never gotten rid of that was driving me.

When I started this journey, I also was at a very low point.  I was addicted to pornography and masturbation.  I was enthralled with EVE and escaping from my failing reality.  I was angry, resentful, full of hate and fear and running away from it all.

In the midst of ALL that I cast a demon out of someone.  I bound it, barred it and cast it out in the name of Jesus Christ. – (Highly edited here, again not mine to tell yet)

That convinced me that there are evil spirits and there IS a Jesus and everything in there that I heard in Sunday school and didn’t care about is true.  I don’t think I was a Christian then, regardless of earlier professions. I was like the seed that was in the thorns consumed with daily life.

Now, of course, that didn’t stop the addiction to pornography or masturbation or escapism.

However, I ordered 3 books and started reading them.
•    Deliverance from Evil Spirits
•    Pigs in the Parlor
•    Healing

Friend:  Out of curiosity, what made you pick those books?

Me: My mom recommended them.
I ordered the books and waited over a month before reading them because I was shamed into not reading them.

A little over a month ago, I get in an argument with my wife and out of anger, start reading Pigs in the Parlor.  What I read in it rings so true to my ears and my life that it scared me, it gave me the shakes, but it started me down the road.  I try casting more demons out, but I try in ignorance and it doesn’t work.  I get frustrated and my mom encourages me and I finally realize after reading some more… What use is it to cast demons out of others when I do nothing for myself.  I’m the guy with the plank in the eye after all.

Friend: Ah yes, the invisible log.

Me: So one night. I ask God for grace, I ask for forgiveness. I verbally renounce pornography and masturbation (the obvious ones first here) and I say “I know your there and this is no longer your home.  In the name of Jesus Christ and by the authority he has granted me as his child and follower, Pornography, Masturbation, I cast you out”. Then I yawn real big for an extended period of time and I feel cleaner.

And the desire I gone, the pushing in the back of my head, the restlessness, the first initial impulse that you’ve followed so long you do it without thinking, it’s all gone!

I go a week like this and at the end of the week; I have a fight with my wife.

I accidentally bring up one of the sites that I know because it’s in the browser history and I haven’t taken any action, other than verbal, to protect myself from temptation.  Well, I’m mad and despondent.  I backslide for the weekend.  I avoid talking to my mom.  I’m miserable and just a plain lousy person to be with that weekend.  I make a decision to backslide because I was mad.

Unbeknown to me, my Mom feels a pressing need to pray for me all weekend while I avoid her.  So Monday comes around and its evening and I finally talk with her. I lie to her. Tuesday comes; I feel convicted but ignore it. Wednesday comes around and finally I confess, repent and ask for forgiveness. It immediately comes on me that I cannot continue to play with my faith. I have to go all out.

EVE Online pops into my head. Immediately I go and cancel my accounts, uninstall EVE.  I was talking to my Mom in IM when this came upon me and she asks what I’m doing.

“I’m quitting EVE” I write.

“Your game? Why?” she asks me.

“Because how can I follow Christ when I’m escaping into EVE every single night”

And that was my reason for quitting EVE.  Yet… I couldn’t give it up completely.  I continued to visit the forums, I continued to hang out at both the groups and the official EVE forums and give input or stay attuned, I kept that little bit of connection back to the world of escapism.

So, when Fried (the leader of our group of players) announces that he and a bunch of others were going to FE (Fallen Earth) I thought, “Hey, it’s not EVE, I can do that and I can just do it one night a weak”.

Well, that was obviously a lie to myself in retrospect.  How hard did I start playing FE, playing and posting and being involved?  It was more intense than EVE ever was.  However, God honored the quitting of EVE even though I chose different opium.  He blessed me with a growing desire for him. I bought a journaling bible, started doing quite time, praying, seeking, talking, thinking all the time about following him and growing in him.

All this happened while my evenings were spent escaping to FE, making art, etc…

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Again it’s not my story here but suffice it to say, my wife and I got into a fight.  Out of that fight I was convicted of my need to repent and quit FE.

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The next morning, I quite FE, posted my post on the forums and my blogger post.  That morning I also verbally renounced Escapism and cast it out and asked for forgiveness.

Now all of that was to get to this.

Demons are real. They can oppress you and drive your natural inclinations to be stronger to the point of irresistibility. However, Jesus gave us a means to fight them and the authority to fight them.

Mark 16:15 Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands and if they drink and deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick and they will recover.

So, Jesus gave us, as Christians the authority and power to cast out demons in his name.  We have the tools to fight our enemy and we have the grace to overcome our nature.  Now, of course, we are not always successful, the great commission there is a commission and doing the work is hard than knowing we have the tools to do the work. But we will always fail if we don’t use the tools given to us or fail to see that we have the tools.

Friend: I think that I was right to want to chat with you.  It’s time for me to stop making excuses myself.  I see a lot of parallels between you and I and I’m encouraged by your candor.

Me: Its simple yet profound.  Jesus says if you have the faith of a mustard see, you can tell this mountain to pick itself up and move over there.

Friend: yes I know.  The part that troubles me is that even his disciples, who lived and breathed with him, had trouble with that amount of faith.

Me: How much less faith does it take to call upon the name of Jesus, ask for forgiveness and then tell your enemies to get out!

Friend:  I went ahead and closed my accounts, its time.

Me: remember to renounce it, ask for forgiveness, and if you can cast it out of you and bar it from returning. Also, I would ask for grace from God to be upon you.

Friend: I got some strange looks from a guy who walked by my door. But I did that.

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This basically ended the conversation as we both had work that needed doing.  I talked with my friend again tonight and he said he experienced a weight lifting from him when he prayed and cast out.
In all things God bring blessings on us.

I was reading in MacNutt's Deliverance from Evil Spirits this morning while I was waiting for my laptop to boot up and all the programs that automatically start to finish starting.  He mentioned AA and one of the things that AA understands.

MacNutt Chapter 14, pages 197 & 198: We must become disciplined and take action for what we are responsible for. But in part we are helpless and need to turn to God for healing or deliverance. Alcoholics Anonymous has understood that message: You cannot stop drinking on your own.  If you are an alcoholic you must admit you cannot quit drinking simply by your own willpower; you need to turn to a power higher than yourself.

And while I can not and would not contend that my own addictions or demons that I deal with are of the severity of being an alcoholic, I think we all have our own alcohols that we wrestle with.  We all have our own place in our lives where we are weak and need the grace of God to be our strength. 

For me that weak spot is Online Gaming and the community I have become a part of.  Now don't get confused, this is not gambling this is being part of and play MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online) games.  I have a long and strong presence in the MMO community, especially Eve Online and to a lesser degree now Fallen Earth.  Now there is nothing wrong with these games in themselves, but for me they are a thing that draws my almost unmitigated attention.  Why?  Because there is a very real and personal connection with a group of players that I have been playing with for almost 2 years now. 

A month ago, God put it on me that I needed to break that connection to Eve Online, so after almost 3 years in that game, I canceled my accounts and haven't been back.  But a week later I am drawn back into online gaming with Fallen Earth with the lie to myself that I can limit myself to 1 night a week and it will be ok.  But, that's a lie.  You see, that attention draw of playing and having fun with that group of people in this stage of my walk is feeding the personal demon of Escapism that afflicts me.  That demon has many entrances into my life and just as canceling Eve Online was closing off that door for affliction, so was starting FE opening that door for me personally. I've now canceled that account as well.

There are some other doors that I need to close as well.  I love reading, I love it with a passion.  When I read the books come alive and they are filled with life, images reality.  They are not just words on a page telling a story, they are a movie, a play that is constructed in 3d reality within my head.  In honesty a book is more desirable to me than a movie or tv could ever be.  However, reading the novels I read (Science Fiction/Fantasy/etc..) is feeding that escapism.  I do not generally find anything wrong spiritually with most Science Fiction, and honestly I approach all fiction books with the knowledge that it is fiction regardless of the belief of the author. However for me, this is escapism, escaping the world and troubles of the world and ultimately at this time in my life and walk, escaping God whom I dearly desire now. 

So, I've made a decision that I am going to sell the majority of my fiction collection.  I don't have the freedom to sell all of it as some of it is not mine to sell.  However, I must renounce escapism and not allow it to rear its head and dominate my life.  It may be a mild domination and pleasurable for me, but it is not the domination of Jesus.  So, if your reading this, pray for me in this.  It is hard to give up what brings you pleasure, even if it is for the sake of a greater pleasure.

One thing I can thank God for is that my mind is voracious for the written word and I find myself voracious for the written word of God as well.  Once it came alive to me, it is easy to read, to pick up and continue reading and it is filled with a freshness that you can not find elsewhere.

Praise God.

CGlory52 says:
Dan, hi, you up?

Dan says:
yah, gmorning

CGlory52 says:
I read the dream..... very interesting!
What do you feel God is saying to you?

Dan says:
I really don't know but I get some feelings and imagery and some of it is kind of ... confusing and uknown to me
hmm... let me bring it up so I can walk through it with you

CGlory52 says:
Dad feels God has given him some interpretaton for some of the elements in dream

Dan says:
oh, what are they? or do you want to hear some of what I think first?

CGlory52 says:
yes

Dan says:
ok...
First thing that was weird to me was the degree in "Teacher" or Teaching
I don't have one, but I distinctly know that in my dream I did
The fish is of course symbolic of Jesus or faith or God or even all three I think.. this is my mind working on that and not an impression however
I don't understand the circular cuts but it is significant and I know that the inner red portion of the meat is Jesus, the middle portion is the Holy spirit and the outer portion I don't know what it is
The reactions of the students in the room where Eww and Gross and thats the reaction of our times.
Then the nibble and the chunck and my mouth being full and not being able to answer and the rest of it... I don't understand that, but I know it has something to do with faith and that it will overflow and I won't be able to hold it all but I will not lose any (the bowl)
the liver in the wrong part of my body is a mystery to me.
that is what came to me when I thought of it

CGlory52 says:
ok- the classroom represents the school of Christ..... Jesus, the H.S. is ofcourse, the Teacher - did the disciples have degrees in teaching? No, yet they taught multitudes.... as Jesus did....And also, what you have been sharing in your blogs is revelation to you from God and I feel you have taught me things I did not see before....also, God could be calling you into getting a teaching degree and you may end up being a bible teacher....
the fish represents the raw meat of the Word
tilapia is a common fish... the Word was intended for the common man
but most people don't want to eat it raw...that is straight from the revelation of the H.S.--they want it chewed up for them in terms of hearing it through a sermon or from someone else doing all the work of understanding it for them
the teacher (HS) then proceeds to cut layers... in other words you have to cut into the Word, go deep, layer by layer and dig out the meat of what God is saying through his Word
it gets messy, bloody, deep, raw
the deepest part is bloody..the blood of Christ???
most people don't want to do that ..it is too hard, distasteful so they go eewww.. I don't want to do all that work
cook it up for me!
you pull off a big huge chunk of it
you want it raw
you want to delve into it
God is calling you to eat the deeper things of the Word
and to you it tastes GOOD... like ice cream, not raw fish
which is yucky
you don't want to miss any of it so you put it all in bowls
so none of it is missed or wasted
I think it is a dream where God is calling you to go deep with him in discipleship
learn of Hi
Him
chew the meat up
"unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you have no part in me" Jesus said to his disciples
it was that invitation that he gave to the disciples but many turned away becasue they found the saying too hard for them... (John Chapter 6)
that is the interpretation God has given me and Dad for you.....
pray over it and see what God says
your mouth being too full right now to speak, but enjoying every morsel and not wanting to loose one bite is where you are right now. You are eating the Word up and you have a full mouth.. too full to speak right now, but just wanting to eat more
Yes, the dream is definately a prophetic dream to you from God
oh, where you describe the liver to be is where your heart is... the liver filters what is put into your body... God is filtering through your heart what He is putting into your Spirit
the circular motion is completeness. A circle has no beginning and no end... like God

Dan says:
what about the 3 cuts?

CGlory52 says:
that could be the different levels that people relate to God
some on an outer layer.... going deeper...the bloody part was in the deepest layer
as you went deeper into the cut, there was more precision in the cut
and as a cone the outer layer where most people relate to God is wide.. the inner small
few relate there
at that level
well, that is all I have
you make a circular layer around your liver (heart) area
you are telling God you want him to cut through to your heart to the deepest levels
I need to get to church now... but pray on all I have said and see what God says

I was entering a classroom and there was one spot left in a row of tables and chairs. It was a large classroom, brightly lit. The teacher was energetic and engaging. I sit down in the last seat available and listen to the teacher. There is a woman/girl sitting next to me or across from me and we start having a conversation, short because the teacher is starting his lecture. We talk about my history and I hear myself say I have two degrees, one degree in Computer Science and it’s a bachelor’s degree, the second degree is Teacher and it’s also a bachelor’s degree. The woman is amazed that I am back at school and still learning.

The conversation is interrupted by the teacher pulling down a picture of a fish that is skinned and raw. It is pulled down from the ceiling like a screen is pulled down for a projector. “This is tilapia, and most people will not eat fish raw” says the teacher, “However it can be eaten and is often eaten raw by some.” The teacher then proceeds to make 3 cuts in the fish on the screen and I realize the fish is real. The 3 cuts are circular cuts starting in the center with each cut surrounding the one before. The teacher takes a hold of the inner cut and pulls it off and I see 3 layers into the fish. The gray outer layer, thin and striated like meat, a pink thick middle layer that I think is also meat and a bloody red inner layer, thick like the middle layer but smaller due to the way the meat was cut. The cut was like a cone where the outer layer was the base of the cone and the inner most layer the peak.

The teacher places the meat on a plate as everyone in the room groans and says “Eww” and “Gross” for at first it does look gross and unappealing, but some take a nibble and some take a bite. I pull off a chunk and it’s large and I eat a nibble, finding it good I put the entire chunk in my mouth and start chewing. And the fish IS good, the fish IS VERY good.

The teacher then starts asking the students questions and answers come from a few and my mouth is full so I do not answer even though I know the answers. He then asks “Where is your liver Dan?” And my mouth is full so I can’t respond but I point to my left side near the bottom of my rib cage and make a circular motion there in response. “That is correct” said the teacher. (This doesn’t make sense to me now because I know my liver is somewhere else.)

Then I find that what I’m eating is a chocolate bar and it is also filling my mouth and there is more in my hand and I can’t respond and the Teacher is like a game show host because the feeling of the room is now one of being in a game show. A prize, the teacher hands me a prize, another Ice cream bar and it is vanilla, white and large and I hold it with two fingers because my mouth is still full and my other hand is also full and I don’t know what to do with it. And someone hands me a bowl and I put the ice cream bar in the bowl before it drips on the floor or I lose any of it.

As I dreamed this I remember thinking to myself, this is a Dream and I need to remember it.

And I wake up. Its 1:30 AM. I fall back asleep and dream again. I had a second dream, but I cannot remember it. I do remember that I again told myself to remember the first dream; I remember telling myself that while I dreamed the second dream, inside the second dream. I wake up at 4:30 and come out and write this.