Surfing for God: Discovering the Divine Desire beneath Sexual Struggle is a 2012 book on pornography and Christian sexuality by minister and counselor Michael John Cusick. Here, Cusick draws from his own extensive experiences with pornography and prostitutes to discuss biblically how the pursuit of physical pleasure is actually the pursuit of fulfillment in God: addiction to pornography is overcome not by willpower or by trying harder, but by surrendering to life transformation from God and finding freedom in Christ.
Surfing for God is one of two extremely honest and
profoundly important books on Christian sexuality and pornography to come out in
2012 (the other is The Lord Is Beautiful by Joel Danker-Dake); they have
a fair amount of topical overlap, but both are well worth reading.
Cusick is a counselor, and Surfing for God is an
interesting and theologically sound holistic mix of the spiritual and the
practical, in terms of both analysis and advice. Cusick spends a lot of time on
the root causes of pornography use, most of which involve spiritual and
emotional brokenness, and he emphasizes the spiritual aspect of temptation throughout.
Of his many recommendations for those seeking help, he’s particularly high on spiritually-oriented
solitude and what he calls “centering prayer,” by which people can become more
focused on God as well as on their own real state and issues.
Surfing for God is not a long book, but Cusick covers
a tremendous amount of ground. As such, the reader may well feel that he jumps
around too much. Many ideas aren’t developed as fully as they might be, and the
reader may be left asking, “Well, but what about X?” Surfing for God could
easily have been twice as long without becoming tiresome, but one gets the
feeling that Cusick and Thomas Nelson were going for accessibility. Accessible
it certainly is, but Cusick’s advice tends to be a bit general (granted, there’s
only so much a book can do), and earnest readers will likely want (and need) to
seek help from outside after finishing it (Cusick is the founder of Restoring
the Soul, a ministry for this type of thing).
It may not be a perfect book, but Surfing for God is
a tremendously necessary and worthwhile one, and it’s an excellent place to
start for those looking for help as well as for those wanting to better
understand the problem of pornography.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
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