EVERY MAN’S BATTLE: VICTORY WITH YOUR MIND.

1. YOUR MUSTANG MIND

As you build the outer defense perimeters, you’ll find that the perimeter of the eyes goes up much faster than the perimeter of the mind.

Why?

First, the mind is far more crafty than your eyes and more difficult to corral. Second, you really can’t rein in the
mind effectively until the defense perimeter of the eyes is in place. Knowing this, you shouldn’t be discouraged if your mind responds more slowly than your eyes. The great news is that the defense perimeter of the eyes works with you to build the perimeter of the mind. The mind needs an object for its lust, so when the eyes view sexual images, the mind has plenty to dance with. Without
those images, the mind has an empty dance card. By starving the eyes, you starve the mind as well. Although
this alone is not enough—the mind can still create its own lust objects using memories of movies or pictures you saw years ago or by generating fantasies about old girlfriends or
the women with whom you work—at least with your eyes under control you won’t be overwhelmed by a continuing flood of fresh lust objects as you struggle to learn to control
your mind.

Currently, your brain moves nimbly to lust and to the little pleasure-high it brings. Your brain’s “world-view” has
always included lustful thinking. Double entendres, daydreams, and other creative forms of sexual thinking are approved pathways, so your mind feels free to run on these
paths to pleasure. But your mind is orderly, and your world-view colors
what comes through it. The mind will allow these impure thoughts only if they “fit” the way you look at the world. As you set up the perimeter of defense for your mind, your brain’s world-view will be transformed by a new matrix of allowed thoughts, or “allowables.” Within the old matrix of your thinking, lust fit perfectly
and in that sense was “orderly.” But with a new, purer matrix firmly in place, lustful thoughts will bring disorder. Your brain, acting as a responsible policeman, nabs these
lustful thoughts even before they rise to consciousness. Essentially the brain begins cleaning itself, so elusive enemies like double entendres and daydreams, which are hard to control on the conscious level, simply vanish on their own. This transformation of the mind takes some time as you
wait for the old sexual pollution to be washed away. It’s much like living near a creek that becomes polluted when a sewer main breaks upstream. After repair crews replace the
cracked sewage pipe, it will still take some time for the waterdownstream to clear. In transforming your mind, you’ll be taking an active, conscious role in capturing rogue thoughts, but in the long run, the mind will wash itself and will begin to work naturally for you and your purity by capturing such thoughts. With the eyes bouncing away from sexual images
and the mind policing itself, your defenses will grow incredibly strong.

As we’ve seen, most sexual impurity is generated from women you don’t even know. You essentially view them in passing. Models, actresses, receptionists, and pinups are everywhere. But they’re strangers. You don’t live with them, so training the eyes defends against them.
But bouncing your eyes cannot screen out these “live” attractions, attractions from your interactions with women. These women aren’t strangers. You live and work in close proximity with them, even worshiping with them on Sundays. Impure thoughts and attractions may arise. Since the defense perimeter of the eyes can’t stop them, you need
another defense.

“What am I supposed to do?” you say. “Those thoughts come on their own. I can’t help them.”

That certainly seems true, since controlling the mind can seem bizarre. Even in church, a daydream may suddenly transpire about some woman at work. Where do these thoughts come from? The mind is like a wild mustang, running free, one thought triggering another in no real order. Still, the Bible says we must control not just our eyes, but our whole bodies:

You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
(1Corinthians 6:19-20)

And not just our bodies, but our minds as well. The Holy Spirit, through Paul, is clear on this:

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
(2 Corinthians 10:5)

This is a jarring verse. Reading it, it’s easy to wonder, Take every thought captive? Is that really possible?

All impure thoughts generate from processing both visual
and live attractions through your senses. Viewing women on the beach. Flirting with the new woman at work. Remembering an old girlfriend. During improper processing, our minds can get carried away in impurity. However, by properly processing these attractions, we can
capture or eliminate impure thoughts.
We’ve already discussed one form of proper processing called bouncing the eyes. It processes visual attractions by
training the eyes to bounce and then starving them. When it’s effectively established, your defense perimeter of the eyes has the nature of the old Berlin Wall. No visual entry visas are ever granted for any reason. But the defense perimeter of the mind is less like a wall and more like a customs area in an international airport. Customs departments are filters, preventing dangerous elements from entering a country such as drugs, Mediterranean fruit flies, terrorists, and other harmful agents. Similarly, the defense perimeter of the mind properly processes attractive women into your “country,” filtering out the alien seeds of attraction before the impure thoughts are even generated. This perimeter “stops the lurking in sin.”

We said earlier that our minds are like wild mustangs running free. Mustangs have two characteristics that resemble male brains.

First, the mustang runs where he
wills. Second, the mustang mates where he wills and with whom he chooses. There are mares everywhere! And if a mustang doesn’t happen to see one nearby, he’ll sniff the wind and, sensing the mare over the horizon, he’ll run over there and mate. This trait is similar to the wild donkey that God talked about through the prophet Jeremiah:

A wild donkey accustomed to the desert, sniffing the wind in her craving— in her heat who can restrain her? Any males that pursue her need not tire themselves;
at mating time they will find her. (Jeremiah 2:24)

Can you control the mustang? Can you run him down on foot or simply wag your finger and admonish him? No, of course not. Then how do you keep him from running and mating where he wills?

With a corral.

Currently, your mind runs like a mustang. What’s more, your mind “mates” where it wills with attractive, sensual women. They’re everywhere. With a mustang mind, how do you stop the running and the mating?

With a corral around your mind.

Let’s expand a bit on this metaphor to help you better understand our goal of reining in our roving minds.
Once, you were a proud mustang, wild and free. Sleek and rippling, you ranged the hills and valleys, running and mating where you willed, master of your destiny. God, owner of a large local ranch, noticed you from a distance as He worked His herd. Though you took no notice of Him,
He loved you and desired to make you His own. He sought you in many ways, but you ran from Him again and again. One day He found you trapped in a deep, dark canyon,
with no way out. With the lariat of salvation, He gently drew you near, and you became one of His own. He
desired to break you, that you might be useful to Him and bring Him further joy. But knowing your natural ways and how you loved to run free with the mares, He set a fence
around you. This corral was the perimeter of the eyes. It stopped the running and kept you from sniffing the winds and running wildly over the horizon. While the corral stopped the running, it hasn’t yet stopped the mating. You mate in your mind, through attractions, thoughts, and fantasy, flirting and neighing lustily at the mares inside or near your corral. You must be broken.

In light of this picture,let’s look at four categories of attractions that have come or will come your way. The first category is your visual attraction to the strangers we spoke of earlier: the joggers, receptionists, and pinups. Because we’ve established a defense perimeter of the eyes—our corral—these are now over the horizon.
We can’t run there anymore. They no longer create attractions. But there are still plenty of attractions within range of the corral. Categories two through four include the women
who are not strangers, the women you interact with in life —the “live” attractions.

In the second category are the women who aren’t attractive to you and don’t generate impure thoughts. They
can include your friends, acquaintances, coworkers, and church members. Your friend may notice someone and say, “Wow,
look at her! She’s hot!” You respond in mild surprise, saying, “I guess so. I’ve worked with her so long I don’t
even think of her in those terms. She’s just a friend.” Your defense against this category of women is a simple
monitoring, to make sure you notice early if one of them takes a step toward your corral.

The third category is likely the most dangerous of all. These are the women you know and interact with and who hit your attractions buttons, like Rachel, your new coworker, or maybe the new worship leader who thrills your soul with her keyboard and worshipful heart. You neigh, drawing them toward your corral, if only in your mind. Perhaps one of them has noticed you as well. Attracted to you, she trots purposefully toward your corral.
Flattered, you snort majestically and stomp your foot and toss your head. Looking at her brings much pleasure. Pushing the boundaries, you stretch your head over the fence, nuzzling a bit through private lunches and close
conversations. Worst of all, your mustang mind can do something a real mustang could never do—open the gate of the corral. And not just mentally You might say you could never open the gate of your corral to someone in the way Duane’s cousin did. But look at statistics for the church, friend. Our divorce rates are no different from the world’s. Christians everywhere are separating or recovering from adulterous aʃairs born of men who opened the corral of their minds. Without defenses, it could happen to you. The last category includes those women who are already inside your mental corral. Your first thought may be that only your wife is in this category, but thereare others whom God has placed close to you. This category can
include the wife of your close friend. You’ll share restaurant
tables with them, create joyful memories with them, and pray earnestly with them. Emotionally, you’ll be close. But you must not lurk .

The perimeter of the mind processes the live attractions that canter up over the horizon and pass our corrals. By starving the attractions, these women retreat to safety zones of “friendship” or “acquaintance,” where they no longer threaten our purity. Most women won’t hit any attraction buttons at all, of course. As they enter your life, they simply trot past your corral toward the horizon. You don’t notice them, and they
don’t notice you. They are and will be merely friends, acquaintances, and coworkers, somewhere of on the
horizon. But those who do attract you and do approach your corral must not be given any reason to come closer or even approach the gate, where you just might, in a moment of weakness, let her in.