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How can I control where my eyes wander...
Hey everyone,
I'm an average 14 year old kid (with average 14 year old feelings). Especially at this age, my eyes tend to wander places, and it causes me to do sin... I think you all know what I'm talking about now. How can I keep my eyes from wandering to places that won't please God? I really want some answers guys :-[
The weakest of All,
Je Nai Nan
I'm an average 14 year old kid (with average 14 year old feelings). Especially at this age, my eyes tend to wander places, and it causes me to do sin... I think you all know what I'm talking about now. How can I keep my eyes from wandering to places that won't please God? I really want some answers guys :-[
The weakest of All,
Je Nai Nan
Comments
My advice is to always pray the Jesus Prayer, pray it all the time, so that when you have the inclination to sin, you are immediately waken up.
Noticing these kinds of things is natural, particularly at your age when you first become attentive to them. There is nothing you can really do to avoid it, unless you lock yourself in your room and become a recluse. So when it does happen, recognise it immediately, and look away before the your brain starts with the thoughts.
If you school yourself in this at your age, it will become a good habit that you will keep for the rest of your life.
My Father of Confession always used to tell me: it isn't a sin to look at something pretty, its a sin if you stare.
Noticing these kinds of things is natural, particularly at your age when you first become attentive to them. There is nothing you can really do to avoid it, unless you lock yourself in your room and become a recluse. So when it does happen, recognise it immediately, and look away before the your brain starts with the thoughts.
If you school yourself in this at your age, it will become a good habit that you will keep for the rest of your life.
The thing is it's so hard to look away. It's so tempting, and as soon as my eyes look at something, it's like it's permanently in my mind, and ends up pushing on me to commit even worse sins. How can I defeat the thought of staring or looking more than once at "something", and immediately look away without a deadly thought put in my mind??
I would rather be blind than have my eyes wandering in unholy places... I mean I try as hard as I can, most times I win, but other times the devil wins and I commit sin :( Its so hard especially at this age with puberty and what not :P
I think what JG said is really on the money; you're at an age where you're going to become more aware of yourself as a suitor to the opposite sex and you start to notice and relate to them in different ways. Your heart will start to flutter and your eyes will be startled by beauty in ways they wouldn't have before. This might seem a little scary and I found in my experience that I used to think it was more sinful than it actually was because I was terrified at the idea of facing up to manhood and what it meant to be a man. I now know (albeit much later in life) that with the feelings and desires are okay so long as we are responsible when we are attracted and understand the effect it has on us as temples of the Holy Spirit and our relationships with our brothers and sisters around us.
Christ uses the male/female attraction and relationship as the most powerful example of His love for the Church. There is nothing sinful or evil about it when it is a reflection of this holy and spiritual relationship. The Church is the object of Christ's passionate affections and He went to the cross because of the burning love He had for her.
I think that the strong attraction which men have is a symbol of the passions of Christ in the Song of Solomon. The Beloved always wants to have a deeper more intimate relationship with the beloved be He has to constantly pull back from His desire because He knows that the beloved is too immature and not ready for the relationship yet. This makes the strong male attraction and the ease men are 'turned on' a spiritual symbol of the ease with which Christ sees beauty in us as the Church (His bride) and His strong passionate desire to spiritually be close to her in the most intimate way possible and yet realising at the same time that she isn't ready. The Beloved then has to restrain His desire out of love for her until she is ready much like we males must also do so that we preserve and honour our chastity and the chastity of our sisters around us.
You don't need to be scarred, just remember to always keep God in your thoughts and to do what ever we do in a way which is honourable and to His Glory.
Please pray for me,
LiD
[quote author=JG link=topic=12711.msg149254#msg149254 date=1324337272]
My Father of Confession always used to tell me: it isn't a sin to look at something pretty, its a sin if you stare.
Noticing these kinds of things is natural, particularly at your age when you first become attentive to them. There is nothing you can really do to avoid it, unless you lock yourself in your room and become a recluse. So when it does happen, recognise it immediately, and look away before the your brain starts with the thoughts.
If you school yourself in this at your age, it will become a good habit that you will keep for the rest of your life.
The thing is it's so hard to look away. It's so tempting, and as soon as my eyes look at something, it's like it's permanently in my mind, and ends up pushing on me to commit even worse sins. How can I defeat the thought of staring or looking more than once at "something", and immediately look away without a deadly thought put in my mind??
You're not going to be able to control it in that way; God designed you to do these things within spiritual bounds and for a spiritual purpose.
The trick is to understand where looking and feeling is chaste and when it isn't. Don't freak out this seems challenging because all of this takes time and experience. Just confess it to your father of confession frequently and try to keep God in your thoughts always.
Use the privilage properly, lest God takes it away.
"If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter intoo life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched." Mark 9:43
Tell your self its enough. Man up and put all your weight on God, and he will guide you, just do your part.
2) Tell Abouna, and be frank- again, and again and again.
3) Take the above advice- it's not the end of the world. It just needs to be handled properly so that it won't lead to an addiction, bad relationships, pervertedness etc.
4) Don't despair- ever- ever- ever.
He was talking about temptations that arise in life.
I'm assuming that you are talking about lustful issues with the opposite sex.
There is nothing wrong with being attracted to the opposite sex and even thanking God in your heart for his marvelous creation.
However, lust is not this. Lust is allowing the birds flying above you to build a nest on your head. You should not entertain these images or thoughts, but rather brush them away. You know that women are beautiful and you are attracted to them.
In the past, one priest gave me excellent advice which stuck with me: "Be hard on yourself and become aware of God's presence" While its not very deep, its straight to the point. Just as you'd be hard on your little brother if you knew that he was struggling with this, also be hard on yourself. Don't give yourself excuses.
This is very wise advice indeed. This is what helps me when I find myself falling into these situations. Especially when you remember that someone is always there and recording everything you do because there will come a day in which He will judge you for it.
Hey I understand what you are going through,
I have a friend who is an Arch Deacon probably soon to become a preist and he told me this used to be a problem for him, but you know how he controlled it?
He asked himself "If someone told me I will kill you if you believe in God would I submit to their wishes and deny God?"
his answer was that he hopes that he would not do this so he continued "If I look now at this woman, and fall into weakness, that means if someone were to persecute me for being Christian I would also fall into weakness and deny Christ"
you see, he correlated looking at the woman and denying Christ as the same in his mind. So he would say I will not deny my Lord Christ and it would help him to control his gaze when tempted to look at women.
Then when he began to become tempted to look in a certain direction that was not helpful to his spiritual life he would say I will not deny my Lord Christ.
Most of all He prayed and asked the Lord Christ for strength and God definitely helped him.
You have to remember though and not be like Peter who told God “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.” He ended up denying Christ 3 times just as Our Lord said he would do.
Why???? because he did not say " Christ, I know I am weak, strengthen me so that I do not fall into temptation and deny you" instead he said "I will never disown you" not acknowledging his own weakness and asking God for help. He ended up falling into temptation and denying Christ.
So when you do this, don't think it will be of your own strength, when you pray, pour your heart out to God, tell Him how much you want to be close to Him and how weak you are and that you need him to help you fight this. It will be Him who will fight for you when the devil comes with temptation.
Ask God to take it from you and help you overcome it. Have a Bible verse that you say every time you fight this temptation for example:
But my eyes are fixed on you, Sovereign LORD;
in you I take refuge—do not give me over to death - Psalm 141:8
The death is the sin of falling into temptations.
May God Help you and Bless you
"