Listening Prayer for Addiction Healing: Bringing WLVS Together

Everything we've covered this week has been building to today. WLVS gives you a map. Listening prayer is the walk.

I know "listening prayer" might sound unfamiliar: some of you come from church traditions where that language doesn't get used much. I'm not talking about something weird.

What listening prayer actually is

At its core: you bring a specific wound to God in prayer, tell Him honestly what happened and how it made you feel, ask the Holy Spirit to show you what is true, and then you're quiet long enough to actually receive it. That's it. It's not about hearing an audible voice. It's not new revelation that goes beyond Scripture. It's about creating the conditions (quiet, honesty, expectation) for the Spirit to do what He promises to do: lead you into all truth.

"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth."

"...be transformed by the renewal of your mind."

The mind is renewed when a lie is replaced by truth. Truth comes from God, through His word, by His Spirit. Listening prayer creates the conditions for that renewal to actually happen, not just as a concept, but in the specific wound, about the specific lie, that has been driving this specific struggle.

The process

You can do this alone, but I encourage doing it with others too: your mentor, your accountability circle, your wife.

1. "Jesus, bring a memory back to me that you want me to think of about this." Be quiet. Let Him bring something to you. "I remember ___."
2. "Jesus, where were you in that situation?"
3. "Jesus, what lie did I start believing around that time? What did I think was true about me or about you?"
4. "What is the truth I should believe instead? I renounce the lie that ___."
5. "What promises did I make to try to protect myself?"
6. "I renounce the vow that ___."
7. "Jesus, the Bible says your covenant with me is built on better promises. What promise did you make to me that is a better promise than the one I made?"

You've already been practicing part of this

Remember the moments over the last few weeks where we put a question on the screen and just sat in silence for a couple of minutes? That wasn't filler. That silence was listening prayer in miniature, bringing something honest before God and giving Him room to answer before rushing to the next thing. You've been building that muscle this whole time without me naming it.

This isn't a tool that only works on this struggle. Once you're comfortable sitting quietly with a question and actually waiting for God to answer, you can bring that same posture to a hard decision, a conflict with a friend, a moment of anger you don't understand. Anywhere something feels stuck, this is how you get it moving again.

Where this eventually leads

Not this week, but eventually, you may find yourself able to walk someone else through this. Your wife carries her own wounds and her own lies, same as you do. As you get steady in this practice yourself, you'll be able to sit with her, ask the same kind of honest questions, and give her the same quiet space to hear from God, instead of jumping in with your own answers for her. That's a gift most husbands never learn to give. You're building the capacity for it right now.

This process may not be completed in one sitting. Some men go through it multiple times as different wounds surface. That's welcome: it's deep, Spirit-led work that sensitizes your heart to the presence of the Holy Spirit, and begins the process of being led by the Spirit of God rather than your own flesh.

You've done something significant this week: not just learned a concept. You've started dismantling the enemy's position in your life. The walls are coming down.

This is Day 32 of Victory Over Pornography. One more day on Level 4, then it's onward and upward. Continue to Day 33 →