SO FAR GONE!

It wasn’t the first time they had left him behind at the office. He had quite the reputation as the first to come and the last to leave for over a year now since he joined the company. He had that going for him, that and even more relevant his excellent sales numbers. He had topped the chart for a year now since he was lobbied to join the firm. Beforehand he had made his breakthrough in a fast growing insurance firm in the metropolis. His fame spread abroad and so many companies suddenly wanted him. When he looked back he was thankful to the LORD who made it all possible. He, like any other graduate in a third world country struggled for a job. Yet what he did differently was that he didn’t sit down waiting for the job to come to him like the others, he literally went job hunting. There was not a job seminar he did not register for. He had his resume disseminated to all job and HR websites available and signed up for any newsletter that offered job relevant information. When it seemed all of his efforts was to yield no results he set out on a different path. He started a business plan, did all of his research, and walked across offices in gathering first hand data he thought he would need. It was on one such expedition that he was offered a job by a very fine administrator. He accepted the challenge to start somewhere though it was not his ideal place of work; he knew he could do anything he put his mind to. He made it through orientation and training. Like he was used to, he came out top when the overall training results were compounded. He gave his all and helped those he could. He even recommended the job to some of his unemployed friends much to his surprise. His supervising managers had their eyes on him, the branch manager had him on top of his list, and the visiting COO marked him as a potential succession plan once he had passed through the loops. It was the kind of start everyone would have wished for except in his case it put pressure on him at the same time. Thus his career path opened, a career filled with hard work and ever increasing numbers.

 Alone in the office he fired up his laptop. He pretended to work on an excel sheet just to make sure everyone was gone. The days of going to the field almost always had ended. His hard work over the years had been rewarded and he had been conferred Senior Sales Manager only three months before and he was in range for the branch manager position when it opened. His consistency had attributed to his rise in lesser time than all that were before him. He was not the type that used rank for favours. He was a lively person and he gave all of his sales guys the chance to improve upon their numbers. Every one of them loved him. Most of them outside his team wished they were with him. All of these did not make him inconsiderate or prideful. He was as he had come in the very first day when he had to throw all of his previous achievements down and start over at a new industry altogether. He checked the internet connection again to make sure the wifi was on. He keyed in his favorite website address. The network had slowed down all of a sudden and he began to curse the service provider. They had all the money to spend on unnecessary TV ads and yet their services were always below the middle mark. It had been three days in a row, and he had had not the opportunity to visit the site. His younger brother had visited him and the house was out of bounds for such exploits and so the office had become the only option. Three days with no success made him want to give up. Disappointed with himself and disgusted by the fact that this had become an addiction, his mind went back to when it all began.

He was just an innocent boy back then at high school. He had developed a new passion for books. The library had by and by become his favourite place in all the school. There were no limitations there, the books gave him warmth and he made a choice among the shelves. Sometimes he would go to those motivational sections to pick a book or two to read but more often than not he chose the romantic books. There was no particular reason, only that the words in there seemed to come out to hug him anytime he read them. He grew fond of them. It was the imaginative roller coaster he went on that made Science disinterest him. At the end of class every day he would rush there to help the librarian rearrange the books so he could keep borrow another book. He was buried under those fantasies and the real world seemed too small for him. So when the time came that the books were not vivid enough, he craved for something more. It was the time of the rise of the computers and the internet had all his answers. He had found a new love wherein his desires were fulfilled. So soon he had forgotten all about his first love. It had been almost a decade since then and if anything else would replace the internet he couldn’t tell. It made no sense to him how he grew past books but couldn’t overcome this new crave. Yet maybe his problem wasn’t the internet at all, but rather what he had come to do over and over on it over the years. Addiction, compulsion, enslavement! He had been so many things, but he never thought this would ever come upon him. He closed the laptop and packed up his belongings, disappointed with himself. He was on his home when something struck him. He had had remedies to all of his ills whenever he visited that place. There he was alone with Him who knew everything already. He spoke openly and freely about everything he had done. He didn’t mince words whenever he was there and that alone was freedom to him. So he made his confessions and left ever determined not to fall again.
 If there was a way out of sin, then he had not found it yet. He was a church guy. Something he cultivated from his mother’s strictness. He was bathed early every Sunday morning with cold water with no mercy though he often pleaded. His mum was liberal with matters concerning their upbringing but when it came to church she never compromised on it. It had had an effect on him in more ways than he even realized. His favourite book was the Bible his mum gave him on his 20^th birthday. He kept it on the edge of his bed and ran through whenever he felt the urge to. It was not until after three years that he actually became a Christian. It was a difficult but a necessary transition which gave him the foundation for his current successes. He became serious with God and took his life a step ahead of just church. In the days that followed he built himself up in the Word and made necessary changes to his lifestyle. As to his old way of living, he bottled up and threw deep down the sea. He never imagined for once that it would surface again sometime later in his life. He had yearned for the life he once had every now and then by peeping through the window every chance he had. It was not that he wanted to go back to his old life but it kept on creeping up upon him. He entertained the temptation little by little. And now he had become a saint abroad and a devil at home. He had kept the secret life for a little over two years. He was an active member of the church. He was called into the meetings of the council of elders when he was needed. The days went by slowly for him as he agonized over what he had become. Living a double life, he preached virtue and practiced vice. Yet at work he kept on flourishing. His job kept his mind of such distractions for intervals and the evil thoughts came back when he was free and bored. These thoughts ran through his mind as he left the doors of the old chapel.

 Back at home he made sure his younger brother was asleep first. He had no intention of doing what he did eventually. His focus that night was on finishing the compilation of the clients he had for the month. It was something he had done over and over again and so within a matter of minutes he was done. Then it began slowly and steadily to creep into his mind. He had a movie he had kept on his laptop he hadn’t had the time to watch. The timing seemed perfect enough. But in the past it was movies like this one that drew him into the pit he was now found. The movie ended but he felt dissatisfied. His body yearned for something more and he knew where he would get it. He made the same mistake again; he went to the website. He thought he could handle it. But of course it went too far and before he realized he had lost it again. Failure seemed the only thing he was capable of. The damning side of the whole episode was how guilty he felt after the five minutes or so. He cursed the day he was born, he cursed the first time he had done it, and he cursed the life he was born into. The whole thing never made sense to him, it was so unlike him and when he started out he never thought he would land where he was now. He was addicted to pornography, and all the other vices that came with it. He was sure damned.

 He was so far gone! There was no going back for him! The whole thing startled him. How could a man be reduced to one organ? How could a man be so weak against himself? He lamented. He had wet his bed with tears flowing from a worried heart and a weary body. His intentions were far from his actions and somehow he felt helpless. The days of being careless were over, he said to himself. It was time to get serious. He wanted to do something about it before it dragged him to hell. He built a strong wall around his heart never to let go again. He started reading books to clear his mind. His hands were empty; there was nothing to hold on to any longer. Then he found this, he had read it many times before but it felt new that very morning:
Isaiah 54
⁴ Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more.
⁵ For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.
⁶ For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God.
⁷ For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.
The words broke his heart. He found strength to start all over again. This time he decided to take things seriously. He had asked for another life and the LORD Himself had touched him. He was so far gone but he decided to give it one last shot, to fight with everything within him! THE END.