Redeem Your Solitude: Resist Sexual Temptation in Loneliness

While it can be a blessing, solitude can also lead to isolation and loneliness—fertile soil for sin. Loneliness is perhaps the most common circumstance that accompanies pornography usage and makes it more difficult to resist sexual temptation.

Brothers and sisters, may we be able to say with Paul that we are not ignorant of the schemes of Satan (2 Cor. 2:11). Our enemy has a crafty plan to use your loneliness as an opportunity for guilt, shame, misery, and destruction—for the sole purpose of damaging your relationships with the Lord and others.

Seven Ways to Resist Sexual Temptation in Loneliness

Will you take these attacks as they come and hope for the best, or will you, with the Spirit, proactively plan to fight temptation well? Here are seven practical steps you can take to minimize temptation’s power.

1. Remove access. Especially if you’re already succumbing to temptation, you must take radical steps to cut off accessibility. This might mean installing filters and accountability software, getting rid of devices altogether, or limiting when and where you use them. Put as much distance between you and temptation as possible.
2. Establish accountability immediately. You might already have someone to whom you are vaguely accountable. When you’re in a period of isolation or loneliness, step that up! Lean into your real-life relationships and community. If you feel you don’t have much of a community, focus your efforts on building genuine, Christ-centered friendships. Gather a few people willing to come alongside you and check in every day with at least one of them. Encourage your accountability partners to also share how you can keep them accountable; mutual accountability is always best.
3. Set up a daily routine. Idle time is a huge enemy when you’re experiencing loneliness and seeking to resist sexual temptation, so develop a daily routine that allows for planned rest and productivity each day.
4. Care for others. Pornography is a selfish endeavor. There is absolutely zero love for your neighbor involved—in fact, it’s an act of hating your neighbor. Instead, proactively loving others lifts your spirit and makes acts of hatred more repulsive. When you feel lonely or depressed, remind yourself that others feel just like you do and would benefit from a phone call, text, or even a handwritten letter.
5. Don’t settle for false comfort. In the pit of loneliness, fear, and despair, we all seek relief. In those moments, God freely invites you to take and eat of his goodness and comfort (Isaiah 55). While turning to false comforts will only leave you feeling empty, more depressed, and full of regret, the God of all comfort opens his arms to embrace you.
6. Consider how you will further your relationship with God. Even in your deepest solitude, you’re never separated from God. He says to you in Psalm 145:18, “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.” Every moment of loneliness and struggle to resist sexual temptation is an opportunity to be near God. He invites you to enjoy sweet communion and fellowship with him through Jesus Christ.
7. Meditate on the Psalms. Find a psalm that resonates with you, memorize it, and pray it to God every day. Scripture provides a psalm for every experience you can possibly endure, from isolation and depression to fear and anxiety. We all know the healing that comes from sharing hard things with others. These are but signposts to the healing and comfort that God gives when you pour out your heart to him!

This article was adapted from Redeem Your Quarantine: Help for Fighting Sexual Temptations, originally published on April 2, 2020.