In his book The Game Plan, Joe Dallas lays out and describes what he calls a Player. A player is someone who plays the game (or competition) of sanctification and overcoming sin. While we don’t compete against one another we do compete against three things: our flesh, the enemy and his cohorts, and the world (though not necessarily against the people of the world, just the principles and sin power & principle and the sins of the world). This is not an uncommon or strange motif or theme in the Bible for Paul says that we all run the race (1 Cor 9:24; 2 Tim 4:7; Heb 12:1). So here are 15 Qualities of a Player and after each quality I am going to discuss myself and my situation.

1. A Player is a follower of Jesus Christ, imperfect but committed, who recognizes the value of sexual purity and strives for it daily. I am a follower of Jesus Christ; however, many times I keep it under wraps and here’s why. I don’t want to flaunt my Christianity around because if I fall, I don’t want to cause damage to my Lord and my church. Since I “use” at work and there is a slight chance of getting caught, if I lose my job, I don’t want to discourage people from following Jesus. I don’t want to defame the name of Jesus in this way. Second, I have an immensely hard time following the Lord Jesus as I know how. I constantly feel guilty, shameful, unworthy (which is ok), and disqualified to lead in any regard, even where I am supposed to lead (e.g., my family since I am the husband and father). I am not worthy to carry those titles, husband and father, but they are mine nonetheless. And all of it centers around my failure as a man to walk with integrity and purity. Third, I do recognize the value of sexual purity and generally I do strive for it. However, I struggle more than most and feel as though I fail more often than not. Yet, that is not the case. I do not fail more often than not; I simply don’t focus on my victories and successes because I am so overwhelmed by my utter failures. Furthermore, I am not sure if I can say that I do strive for purity every day. I become sidetracked, unfocused and cease to guard my heart and mind constantly making me an inconsistent follower at best.
2. A Player has had his conscience awakened to the seriousness of compromise, either by an internal or external crisis of truth. I am by no means having an internal crisis of truth—though I wish I were. I constantly ask myself, “Am I broken over my sin?” And I always come up with this answer: “I am not sure which means I probably am not.” Though I am not sure whether I am broken or simply defeated—I tend towards the later. My crisis though is one caused by my wife taking a stand against my sin intervening on my behalf trying desperately to help me back to the right path. Though she doesn’t do it “right” all the time, she has stood by me challenging me, loving me, and simply being there for me—though I don’t always take advantage of that opportunity. Many times, instead, I abuse the situation or take her for granted.
3. A Player has made conscious and practical efforts to separate himself from activities, relationships, circumstances that would constitute or induce sexual compromise. I have made conscious and practical efforts to separate myself from most activities and circumstances that would induce sexual compromise. However, the one situation that I have not made successful efforts (though I have tried!) is in my job. I have failed at gaining local admin access to my PC or convince people to have a filter on our network. The question remains: should I quit my job? Yet, this is the first secular job that I have actually enjoyed and have been more than successful in thus far—though I could try to go back to dock work and management.
4. A Player is a man of daily prayer, daily Scripture reading, daily recommitment to purity, and daily review of the factors that motivate and inspire him. This is extremely tough for me because I do not have a good routine of daily prayer and Bible reading—to be honest, I have gone the last week and a half without reading my Bible or journaling. I recommit myself daily to purity on Twitter and days that I forget to do this are my toughest days. This is something I need intense accountability.
5. A Player knows that to keep his integrity thriving he’ll need the additional integrity of men who share his vision. He stays accountable on a weekly basis, allowing his allies to know his weaknesses, struggles, and victories. I do have a step study that I meet in and an accountability partner that I meet with; however, with my accountability partner, sadly I am the stronger Christian. I wish I were in accountability with a person who is not impressed by my theological know-how and expertise and can simply put my feet to the fire keeping me on topic and challenging me daily.
6. A Player comes clean about his failures and attempts to make restitution to those who have been injured by his behavior. I have come clean with my behaviors to the degree in which I remember them. Since most of this is with my wife—and I do not want to speak for her—suffice it to say that she is not yet satisfied with how I’ve come clean. I do believe that I need to work on coming clean daily, even with the small stuff, which is ridiculously hard for me. While I have not committed a physical affair, it has been extremely difficult for me to convince my wife—and I don’t think I have actually convinced her. I believe she tries to trust me and believe me that I have not, yet I know this is extremely difficult for her because in the past I have lied so many times coming back to her later saying, “Actually, I have…” So she is constantly waiting for me to come to her and say, “Honey, I have committed an affair…” This is even complicated further because of a very, very stupid “email” that I sent on MySpace or Facebook once to an ex-girlfriend of mine calling her pretty and/or beautiful—something that I should only be saying to my wife (and something I fail to say). I continuously shake my head at myself over that stupid email I sent! And I know that I deeply hurt my wife with that one.
7. A Player knows the adversarial nature of the arena he plays in and the tactics his opponent will use against him, and he stays prepared for both. Academically and intellectually, I am in tune with this; however, practically I still lack the foresight to see my future temptations that I may or may not have. In operations management and in coaching, we spend a large amount on planning for tough scenarios that may or may not happen. However, I find myself lacking in this regard in my personal, practical life.
8. A Player is a steward of his emotions, so he addresses them by attending to his wounds through honesty and forgiveness. This is something I really need to work on. I wear my emotions on my sleeve, and if I don’t feel like doing something I simply don’t do it. I hardly ever “bite the bullet” and move on with a positive attitude. Usually I try not to say anything (because we all have heard the saying, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”), yet some people push and push to get me to say something and finally I tell them what I think…usually to my own detriment. This happened to me often in my operations work life (though it has not happened since) as well as my home life. Yet the one thing that may be the most beneficial thing about the 12 step Celebrate Recovery program is its ability to uncover the wounds. However, I probably could do better with a counselor (though I cannot afford one right now, even on a sliding scale—I cannot even get a raise right now due to the economy).
9. A Player understands sexual temptation and stays prepared for it by refusing to entertain it when it arises. Yes, I am very aware of the temptation and addiction cycle. However, I do not stay prepared for it. I often lose focus and sharpness of mind through some poor habits (staying up too late, eating poorly, etc). And then many times I allow myself to be over-taken without a fight.
10. A Player resists sexual temptation through daily training and practical resistance techniques. These techniques I still need to learn and master. Though I know one: bouncing the eyes. My friend calls this: Beautiful Dirt. This is when we come upon an attractive girl and we immediately bounce our eyes straight to the ground admiring the beautiful dirt and worms or the awesome concrete (though this really doesn’t work in Las Vegas because of the erotic flyers all over). The problem with bouncing the eyes is that my eyes tend to bounce to something else that I shouldn’t be looking and it eventually stops bouncing.
11. A Player recognizes that his body is not his own and that he will someday answer to its Owner for the way he has managed it. Yes, and I am terrified of this right now.
12. A Player confronts, humbly but clearly when necessary always with the goal of improving his relationships. I am not sure what to say here right now. However, I hardly ever confront anyone if I can help it. While I was an operations manager, this was the hardest yet necessary part of my job. As I look back on it, I believe that many times I failed at doing this well. Being a high results-oriented, task, performance person, I am just bad at relationships. I am blind, naive, and simply ignorant when it comes to perceptions and what other people think. For the large part, it is simply something I don’t do because I fail to think about what others think (i.e., I simply don’t consider their thoughts about something, e.g. what would they think if I…).
13. A Player has in place a relapse contingency plan that he never intends to use. Like I said previously, in operations management and in coaching, we spend a large amount on planning for tough scenarios that may or may not happen, especially as it pertains to contingency plans. When I worked at one of the larger small package delivery companies that everyone knows quite well (suffice it to say that it was UPS or FedEx), when we were unloading the trailers there were times when belts broke and we had to move trailers, people, supervisors, etc. in order to get the work done. For example, if there were 3 unload areas (15 trailers in each area @ 1 trailer per hour) feeding 10 loading areas controlled by belts. If one unload broke, then we were down 15 trailers/hour extending our work shift. Depending on how well we executed our contingency plan based on maintenance feedback (how long will it be down before it is functional), we either finished our work timely or not dropping our work onto the next shift. And we had contingency plans and contingency plans for contingency plans. And sometimes the contingency plans would be out-dated because of some dock changes that were made, so these changes to the contingency plan had to be made on the fly. Other times we needed to only go into a partial contingency plan (for which there was not a contingency plan) and these decisions needed to be made based on a full knowledge of the workload, trailer arrivals, trailer departures, etc. I say all that to say that the same applies for my recovery, for which I have not developed a good contingency plan or plans.
14. A Player pursues his passion and calling beyond sexual purity. Right now I cannot even see the light at the end of the tunnel on this one, and to me this is the most devastating effect of my problem with pornography. Any time and every time I think about my future beyond pornography, I am saddened because it is not happening now. Will I ever get back to my PHD? And almost every time I think about this, tears well up in my eyes (even now, esp. since I just talked to a friend of mine who entered the PHD program along with me who just passed his comprehensive and oral exams) and I have to fight against it. I am supposed to “return” back to my PHD this coming January; however, I do not see this happening as it stands right now.
15. A Player loves his Lord, knowing his love for him is imperfect but growing daily, and he expresses that love through devotion and obedience. I feel completely inadequate on this on so many fronts.