Ryan Swanson: Hello, this is Ryan on the Satisfied podcast here on the Thee Generation Network. We have an exciting episode today and I’ll tell you about that in just a minute. First a quick update on The Chord App. Some of you have been asking and understanding where we’re at right now, but we are about four and a half weeks out from release and we are incredibly excited about this. I actually have a prototype on my phone right now that I am looking at. Hello, this is Ryan on the Satisfied podcast here on the Degeneration Network. We have an exciting episode today and I’ll tell you about that in just a minute. First a quick update on the Chord app. Some of you have been asking and understanding where we’re at right now, but we are about four and a half weeks out from release and we are incredibly excited about this. I actually have a prototype on my phone right now that I am looking at and very excited about. So we’re definitely getting there. 

The beta release is next week and then in five weeks we’ll have this out there. So continue to pray about that. We had an incredible gift come in that really, really helped out with the cost of development. In fact, completely finished the 50 grand that was needed to complete the development. And don’t get me wrong, there are other ongoing costs that we’ll be facing for sure, like maintenance fees and server costs, and further development and other features we want to add.

But we are thrilled to say that the Lord has completely provided for the need to get this thing in the hands of men and women who need help with accountability in their purity journey. So we are thrilled with that. The goal would be to have a table set up at the Thee Generation Youth Summit, coming up here before long. And by the way, the release date for the app is going to be on or at the Youth Summit. So that’s going to be an exciting moment there. October 11th, the beginning of the Youth Summit is our release date. So if you’re planning on being there, you’ll get kind of an inside look. We’ll be doing a workshop, walking through it, that kind of thing. So we have that to look forward to.

But continue to pray for us. A lot of decisions need to be made at this point still. And even though we’re getting very very close, it seems like there’s more work to be done now than in the last six months of development combined. So we’d appreciate your prayer for wisdom at this time.

Well, we’ve been doing a series walking through different stories of victory. It’s been really exciting but we have not been able to do an in-person live interview yet and there’s something about that that cannot be matched – the authenticity of just having somebody there right beside you walking through their story. And so I’ve appreciated everyone that’s written a testimony in and we’ve walked through those and I will continue to do that but it’s a special unique privilege today to have someone join me in the studio. I like to call this a studio. We’re actually in the guest room of our house right now, but it’s not even where I normally record, but it works. But I’m joined here by Steve Stozek, who’s a friend of mine. He’s in the church here at Fellowship Baptist in Taylors. And he is the head of our bus ministry. So he stays very busy with that, with a lot of young people. He has an incredible heart for them. And then also works at Maddox. I’ll let him tell you a little bit about that. Steve, why don’t you start just telling us a little bit about yourself, what you do now.

Steve: Sure. Thanks, Ryan. I appreciate you having me on and the ability to share my story here. Right now, I work for a company called Maddox Industrial Transformer. I do inside sales or I sell low voltage transformers. Been with them for about seven and a half months now. Before that, I was with Chick-fil-A for seven and a half years as a manager and went through the operator program, got through 11 to 13 interviews and the Lord shut the door on that. That’s kind of what led me to go to Maddox. And it’s just a Christian company, a great group of people that I work with. We get to open up the Bible every day at nine o’clock. We get to pray together as a company. And the culture there is just right in line with what I’ve learned at Chick-fil-A. I was just very thankful and blessed that the Lord opened up the door and brought me to this company. 

Ryan: That’s great. That’s Greenville for you. There’s so many Christian companies here and it’s a blessing. It’s a blessing to have a business. In fact, right before I pressed record on this podcast I got a call from one of my clients in our drone photography business who is a great Christian individual and it’s just great working with other believers so that’s pretty neat you have that kind of atmosphere in your business. 

Well why don’t we just dive right into your story then so I’ve I think rather than just trying to pester you with the questions all the way through, I’m just going to hand this over to you Steve and let you walk through your testimony. Just share with us whatever you feel like would be helpful to know in order to understand the miracle that God’s done in your life. And then also just to drive home what you feel like would be a principle that would be very helpful to the young people that are listening to this podcast.

Steve: Sure. I was raised, if you would call it, in a Christian home in the world’s eyes.

I wasn’t saved, nobody in our family was saved, we were actually raised Catholic. And growing up, I was the oldest of five, dad was a dentist, we lived comfortably, played sports all my life, and everything was good. 

And around sixth, seventh grade was when I actually got my first viewing of pornography. My dad had magazines in the bottom of his cabinet in the bathroom, and I just happened to stumble across one of them. That was the beginning of my journey with viewing issues. At first, any guy curious to see what’s going on, go back time and time again, see if there’s any magazines down there and so forth.

From there, it was hit and miss over the next couple of years, but I got involved with drinking in the age of seventh grade, and that turned out to be a bigger downfall than the viewing. By the time I was a senior in high school, I was drinking a 15 to 12 or 24 pack of beer just to catch a buzz at night. Started working at nightclubs when I was 17 years old. Got introduced to drugs during that time frame. Back then you could drink at 18 years old, but obviously I was underage drinking. I was working at nightclubs. At the age of 17, 18 years old, used to hang out in strip clubs. The guys I’d work with, we’d go to one of the strip clubs, hang out for a couple hours, smoke some weed, drink while we were there, go to work all night long, and then, party till the hours of the morning. , by that time I had switched over to liquor where I was drinking close to a fifth of vodka, five, six nights a week. I’d just sit up there, people offered to buy me drinks, and I would just drink glass after glass of Vodka all night long. 

By God’s grace, I am still here today because there’s many nights that I don’t remember how I even got home. That led to a life of fornication. I spent many nights every night hitting on different girls. I lost my virginity at 17 years old when I was in high school. Actually my first experience with the girls when I was in fifth grade. 

But, the drugs, the alcohol, the sleeping around, it was just one thing after another. , I thought I was happy, but I wasn’t. I grew up in Ohio and I moved down to South Carolina in ‘89 and to go to college and I met some guys that lived down there, worked in the nightclub business, got me a job working in a strip club. And so night after night, this stuff was just flaunting in front of me. And after a while you get used to it and to me it was no big deal. But it was just constantly in my face night after night. 

And my first wife was a stripper. I ended up, we were sleeping around, she got pregnant. And we decided that we’d leave Myrtle Beach, go down to Florida, try to get a fresh start. It was nothing I was proud of. We decided, well, we’ll get married, do the right thing. And, I continued to drink down there, and worked in the strip club down there. She continued to work for a couple months. But she drank while she was pregnant and our relationship was terrible. I’d come home drunk, she’d be drinking, there were arguments, there were times she’d pull a gun on me. And it was just not a good situation. She had a son from a previous marriage that lived with us and then other families moved in. It was just not a good scene, there was abuse, verbal, physical abuse going on. And so I actually left before my daughter was even born. And moved in with another girl and lived with her for a while. 

I just continued to work in the strip club industry for I think four or five years. And, and then, um, I met my current wife down in Cocoa beach. , we moved back to South Carolina. , it was more of the same old, same old, I’d gotten divorced with my first wife. , we were living together, partying, drinking, working in the strip club. She’s going to school. 

We decided after a couple of years of dating that we were going to get married, tried to get a normal job, finally got out of the strip club business, but the alcohol was still there. The drugs were gone by this point, but we were out going to nightclubs together, drinking together, partying, got a nice house, had lots of friends, weekends hanging out at the pool drinking. It was just not a healthy lifestyle as our oldest two daughters have suffered greatly because of actions on my part and my wife’s part. 

But shortly after my current wife and I got married, we still continued to struggle, there was no God in our life. We, she was working full time, I was working full time, and we were living the American dream, big house, new cars, two kids, couple of dogs, partying, but I wasn’t happy, she wasn’t happy. We were constantly arguing, we were not intimate together. 

And that’s when the pornography really started to pick up again. It was just a selfish act on my part. I wasn’t happy, she wasn’t happy. And it just started with magazines again. There were guys I work with that had magazines. Eventually started getting on the internet, finding different websites to go to. We’re going on 30 years of marriage, and this went on for the first 25 years of our marriage. 

It wasn’t until I was 39 years old that we ran into some friends of ours, a couple that was going to a church here, and we had just moved up into the Greenville area, and my wife wanted to homeschool me, didn’t know anybody. My wife was getting her hair done, mentioned something about, hey, we wanna homeschool our kids and this lady next to us said I’d do it and the Lord brought us together and they were a Christian family and invited us to come to their church and at that time I had already cheated on my wife a couple of times and we were living in separate homes. We were actually on the verge of a divorce and we had lawyered up and they invited us to come out to their church and so we came out to visit fellowship and kind of looked at each other like, this is not what we’re up here for. I mean, we were worldly wrecks. , you got these people all dressed in suits and ties and looked like they were happy and joyful. And that was something I never had. , we didn’t have it in our marriage and didn’t have it in my life. And so about a year after going to church there and, on and off, we started probably six months into it, started faithfully going to church. 

And, as I heard the gospel preached. I thought I was saved, thought I made it professional when I was younger, but as I continued to read God’s Word and be into the preaching of it, I realized that I had never trusted Christ as my Savior. And so, as I was reading through the book of Romans, I realized that I was lost and doomed to go to hell, and my wife was saved, and so I had asked the Lord to save me, and He did, based off the truth of His Word, and I know that He did.

From the day that I got saved, the alcohol desire went away. From the age of seventh grade up until 39 years old, I had drank and it was just gone. The Lord took it away. And it was truly Him. And I was very thankful for that. And obviously as we quit drinking, the relationship started to get a little bit stronger, but I did not get victory from pornography. That continued to have a hold on my life. That was something that I continued to divulge in. 

As my wife and I still continued to have a rocky relationship. And even as we worked on it, because of my selfish acts, there was just time and time again, I’d get on the computer and look at stuff. It got to the point of bad where the family would go to bed at night and I’d try to find something on the TV. And if we didn’t have the channel, just watching it through the snowiness of the screen. And that’s how bad it had gotten for me that it was terrible. 

And I tried to hide it from my family for a while, which I did. My family thought we were doing well. We were serving in the church. The Lord was using me. There were times that I thought I had victory and I’d go months at a time and not even think about it or worry about it. But then again, times that hit. , rough times again, I’d start getting selfish again, get angry at my wife, and I’d start looking at the pornography again. And it wasn’t until, it was four years this past August that I got caught. 

My one daughter who’s a Bible college who was much savvier on the computer than I was. , you go through and erase the history off the computer, and I thought I got it all. She found out that I was looking at it again. And the look on her face and my wife’s face—to know how bad I let them down devastated me.

I had a three-year-old son at the time, as well as an eight-year-old daughter. I knew I didn’t want my son to go down this road. It was at that time that I knew I needed to do something. I couldn’t do it on my own. I tried. I tried to get God to help me. I thought I’d surrender to Him, but I hadn’t. So I went up to my church that afternoon, I met with my pastor and told him what was going on. I told him that, number one, I needed him to hold me accountable, but then I needed help and I needed ways to have accountability through him, but also at home. And so I had my computer, my cell phone, home computer, all locked down with productive devices that only my wife had passwords to. And I knew one of the things that I needed to do was have an open book for my wife to realize she needed to know full access of what I’m looking at, what I’m trying to get looked at. 

And at first it’s like, here I am a grown man, why do I need a babysitter? But  what? I did. I wanted help. And I didn’t want to live that lifestyle anymore. And so, after meeting with my pastor, we actually sat down and he and a couple of other fellows from our church started The Conquer Series. And an accountability group where we were on a group text together and throughout the day, anytime we started to struggle, anytime we had wicked thoughts, bad thoughts, something came up. We take each other and say, I’m struggling, pray for me. And one of the things that I learned to do over that time, was as either bad thoughts started to come into my mind or I started to veer and think about something, I started singing gospel hymns. And so the one that I always think would be the old rugged cross to just help clear my mind and try to get my focus back on the Lord, because that’s where it needed to be. And so as we continue to go through The Conquer Series and gradually between having the security things on my phone, on my computer, having the accountability there.

But the biggest thing turned out to be that I had to turn everything over to the Lord and trust and depend on Him. And I thought I’d done that in the past, but I truly had not surrendered it to Him. I’d say, all right Lord, help me get through this, but it wasn’t until I fully said, Lord, you gotta take this away. Lord, I got to have your thoughts have to be my thoughts. You got to take the temptations away from me. And if they’re there Lord, I got to trust you. And so , read through Psalm 51, or David seeking forgiveness from the Lord from his adultery with Bathsheba. 

It starts off–Have mercy upon me, O God. According to thy loving kindness, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sins.

And there were times that I had washed my hands of the sin, but I never had my heart right. Over that next year or so of a journey of going through the Conqueror Series, it was a time of just total dependence on the Lord. I would come to the fact that I couldn’t do it anymore. And I had gotten to the point where this past October I’ve been clean of any pornography for four years. The viewing issues have just disappeared. I mean, I can get on a computer now and there were times I’d get on a computer and it’d be like, all right, what can I get to to possibly catch a glimpse of something? And now that thought doesn’t even enter my mind anymore. It’s been that way for three and a half years where I still have the protection there. I want that protection there, but I could get on the computer and I think about going somewhere where it’s going to take me where I don’t want to be or get on my phone and be looking at something. , even driving down the road and seeing stuff on billboards puts a nasty thought on my head. There’s times that there were billboards that I’d drive by every day going to work. I said, Lord, make that billboard go away. I knew that he was there and I’d look the other way or I’d sing a song. And there were a couple of times that I’d pray, Lord, take that billboard away. And, it’s funny, but within a week or two, that billboard was gone and changed over to something else. And it was just reassurance that God was in this, that He loved me and that wanted me to see Victory. And , I have a son who’s eight years old now. And the last thing I want him to do is to go through what I went through to go through the struggles that I went through, to put a possible future wife through that. And I am, I haven’t gone to the point where I’ve had to sit down and talk to him. I mean, there’s things that I have to protect his eyes from. There’s certain things that we don’t watch on TV because I don’t want to, commercials could pop up and there’s things that I want my son to see. So I still have to protect his eyes with the welcome of time that I will sit down and share my struggles with him. I’ve fallen into the same trap as I do. 

But I am thankful to say that I am still clean and it’s a journey. It’s never going to end. I constantly, every day, get up during my devotions, Lord, help my thoughts to be your thoughts. , keep my eyes focused on you. Keep my heart pure. Keep it clean. But day by day, it has gotten easier where the thoughts that used to pop up aren’t there anymore. , looking at a scalene clad lady walking down the road, whether she’s jogging or not, it’s a tunnel vision on the road, trying not to focus on what’s going on on the sidewalks and just singing hymns and having the joy of the Lord that I so deeply thought. 

I’m just thankful that I’ve gotten to the point now where God has given me this victory. I just pray that my testimony would help somebody out there. I tried for years, even after I got saved, thinking, all right, I’m saved, the Lord’s going to give me victory. But it wasn’t until I totally, 100% depended on him to take away the thoughts, to take away the selfishness that I had, looking to please myself and get in my own desires met and not my wives or other people’s. And so whatever you’re going through, whatever you’re struggling with, don’t give up. Because there’s a loving God out there that died for our sins. And He wants to see you live a pure and clean life. He will give it to you. But it’s a day by day battle. And it just comes down to total dependence on the Lord. 

Ryan: Amen. Thank you Steve for sharing that. That’s my second time hearing that story. And the thing that stands out, as listeners, you would know that we generally try to pull one point in particular from a testimony that’s given on here. And there are so many things we could pull from this. That matter of total surrender, total dependence, I know, as Steve just mentioned, that made so much difference for him. And he’s expressed that to me. But I think probably what’s standing out in your mind is similar to what’s standing out in mine. And that is just a very unique testimony in that there are not very many fathers who are willing to open up and be this honest. And to me the climax of this story is when a daughter found out about the viewing and just the pain that that caused. And you can still sense the regret, remorse, and pain in Steve because of the pain it caused his family. There is a sense of responsibility that you will have when you have a child that you just otherwise cannot understand. But it’s very likely for the majority of our listeners that that day is coming. Now, probably the majority of you do not yet have a child, but that day is coming. And you have a huge responsibility to your children to lead them correctly.

I remember in the room where my wife and I were having the ultrasound that would tell us whether ours was a boy or a girl. For some reason, we were absolutely convinced it was a girl, but we made ourselves not have a preference. So we would not be disappointed, but we just thought it was a girl. Well, when they said it was a boy, it surprised me, but the first thing in my mind was, oh no. Oh no. Because I understood the gravity of what I was going to have to go through in raising a boy in this culture. I knew that I was nearly wrecked by pornography. And I knew what a responsibility I have for this young man. And I got together with a group of other new dads, rookie dads, and we meet up once in a while and talk things through. Someone recommended a book, and I’ll recommend it to anyone. It’s called The Intentional Father. In this book, it’s really designed for a son that is going into quote unquote, adulthood, wherever you draw that line, but he likes to focus on going into 13 years old. He really has written the book for those that have sons that are about ready or are turning 13 somewhere around that age group. But for me, reading it when my son was just, what, four or five months old at the time, I thought, I feel like it’s almost already too late. Like I wish I read this thing so long ago, because he really starts with ourselves, not with our children, but how are you going to father based on who you are?

And I thought, man, if I had seen this responsibility when I was a teenager of what it was going to take to be a father, a godly biblical intentional father, to be able to lead my son correctly, man, I would have, I would have taken things a lot more seriously. So maybe some of you want to get a hold of that book, The Intentional Father. And I’m sure there’s maybe not every aspect of it I could condone but I tell you overall the message of this is awesome and I think you could be blessed by it. But to me when I hear this from Steve’s testimony and even how he ended that with wanting to pass on this, the purity journey and this desire for purity to his son, that’s going to have to be intentional, right? That’s just not something that’s going to happen. It’s going to be an intentional thing. Much of the motivation that we’ve seen from Steve’s testimony, his purity journey, has come from actually that motivation to be the proper father that he needs to be. The father, the husband. 

Steve, do you have any comments just on that aspect of it? And then we’ll close here. 

Steve: No, I mean, I started reading that book myself. Actually, Ryan gave my wife and I a copy of it. And I guess I wish I would have had it for my oldest daughter. I have four kids and obviously my oldest two daughters, I think it saved a later life so they weren’t raised in a Christian home, but to one, take responsibility for myself to make sure that I am walking with the Lord and having my devotions and a right relationship with the Lord, but not even for my daughter. I still have a 13 year old daughter at home with my son.So it’s something I need to share with the two of them to make sure that they’re a walk with the Lord, but I have to protect her eyes as well. 

The biggest thing is I can’t be the father and lead them down the right path unless I have that walk with the Lord that I need to have, and that one-on-one time in prayer, in His Word, meditating. It’s got to start with me and then work my way down to my children. But I have a long way to go. My son’s only eight and the way this world is and as easy and accessible it is to find the garbage that’s out there. I have to do everything I can to protect both him and my daughter. But ask the Lord, the Lord I need your help in this too. 

Ryan: Yeah, and I’m glad you brought that out about the daughter as well because we’re finding more and more. In fact, my wife does almost as much counseling as I do when it comes to purity with young ladies. And so really the gravity needs to be the same, whether it’s a son or a daughter, or whether you’re a mother or going to be a mother or going to be a father. It’s really the same kind of responsibility. 

So let me just leave you with that. What kind of a parent are you being right now? Even though you likely don’t have children, what kind of a parent are you preparing to be? Because that decision starts right now.

And I trust that this story will not just fall as a good inspiration, but it will change some aspect of your life right now. Sometimes we can wait until that moment when God just designs our circumstances where we absolutely crash and burn, and it’s a dark and low moment of desperation when we have nowhere else to turn, and finally we find Him. But you can find Jesus where you’re at right now. You don’t have to wait until he has to put you through what Steve has had to go through. You don’t have to wait for that. And if Steve’s testimony was for you an example that you could use to learn from, I know that it would be so worth it for him. It would be so worth it. He would be thrilled to know that. 

So feel free to reach out to us and even if you want to get in touch with Steve, go ahead and just reach out to me and I’d be happy to put you in touch with him. Or maybe you want to send a note of encouragement if this was helpful to you. And feel free to do that. Just email me at satisfied@theegeneration.org, satisfied@theegeneration.org. And Steve would be encouraged to hear how God has used this in your life. 

As we conclude here, let me just say that we’ll continue doing this month to month. And if there’s a testimony that you have I’m sure it is not exactly the same as Steve’s. Everyone is just a little bit different. But praise the Lord. That’s the great part about it, how the Lord works in different ways with each one of us. So even if it’s just a paragraph that you wanted to share about how God has been working in your life or a truth that’s been helpful for you, and you say, well, I’m not done yet. I haven’t arrived yet. Well, that’s okay. You just share what God is doing right now because that’s probably where we’re all at. So share something, go ahead and send that out to satisfied@theegeneration.org. 

And if it’s something that we feel like would be helpful on the podcast, we would love to share it with your permission. All right, well that’s it for today. Why don’t we strive wherever we’re at in our lives right now to see the responsibility of parenthood and of leading those that God will likely entrust to us someday. But for this moment, wherever you’re at in your life, would God teach us to be less gratified and more satisfied with Jesus Christ.