Even though the devil tells me I’m a hypocrite every day of the week, I can say, “Yes, I am, Devil, but more importantly, I’m a child of the King.”
Darren Mulligan
In this one-of-a-kind Healing Out Loud video Darren from We Are Messengers not only vulnerably opens up about his battle with lust but also reminds us of God’s unwavering forgiveness for all of us.
View this video with We Are Messengers and other interviews with JOY FM artists videos on the JOY FM YouTube Channel.
Darren’s Healing Out Loud Transcript
I’ve struggled with alcohol, I’ve struggled with violence and blasphemy, and all kinds of things before Jesus, but the one that has lurked into my life with Jesus is lust. That’s the truth.
So I came to Jesus older in life. I was 27, and I suppose I bought into the idea that when I came to Jesus, everything old would be old and only the new would remain. And I think that is from a spiritual point of view but I’m a man and I’m flesh and blood and spirit.
So I think for me, the struggle in my life has been to put my flesh to death every day because it is strong willed and stubborn.
Before I came to Jesus, the lady that led me to Jesus, my wife Heidi, she had to forgive me of a great deal of things, adultery and sleeping around doing things I shouldn’t have been doing, and she did and I came to Jesus. I’ve been faithful to my wife in many ways.
I think one of the hardest things for Christian men to talk about, and Christian artists in particular, is, I guess, a struggle with lust. That doesn’t have to be some dark secret that you hide. It can be just as simple as not thinking about your wife, thinking about someone else or whatever.
I think in my life lust is not the problem. It is a deep sense of loneliness that I have no matter how wonderful my family and my friends and the people that I love are. There is something in me that is deeply lonely.
For me, it’s connection that I’m always chasing after.
About two years ago, I decided I was going to get clean, I was going to get sober from all forms of pornography and lust, and I was going to be careful of what I saw with my eyes, what I heard with my ears. For two years, I’ve been clean.
A difficult thing to talk about because immediately you have the holier thous judging you.
I’m okay with that.
The problem is when you keep stuff in the dark and you hide it, and then it festers and it grows and it consumes you.
But Jesus says, “Bring all those things into the light.” Into the light of His glory and his grace and so I’m seeing in my life what he does with the dark things. He just burns them up.
I’m realizing my part in all of this is trying to be faithful to him, to say no to my flesh, to my desires, to my sin, to say yes to him and to recognize that this side of eternity, I guess I’m always going to be a wee bit lonely. Until I’m with him, nothing’s ever going to feel quite right but I have to stop chasing connection in all the wrong places.
I will say this, in the last two years, having been clean for the most part, my relationship with my wife has been really beautiful. I can look at my kids in the eyes.
Even though the devil tells me I’m a hypocrite every day of the week, I can say, “Yes, I am, Devil, but more importantly, I’m a child of the King.”
See, I’d encourage you if you’re listening, if you’re wrestling, if you’re a man and you’re wrestling with loneliness and you’re looking for love in all the wrong places, it’s as simple as turning around. But turning around is really hard. I met someone at a show recently and they said, I had told them one day that all they had to do was turn around and Jesus would’ve been there. They thought it would have to be a big, long running back to Jesus thing and I thought that. I would have to run back to Jesus, continually tell him what a mistake I was, and then maybe someday he’d forgive me. But what I realized was it was as simple as turning around and saying, “Jesus, I’m sorry.” Yeah, and he does the same thing He always does. He puts his arms around me because he’s not like me. There’s never been a day he hasn’t forgiven me.
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