080 - Accountability Software: Covenant Eyes

Welcome to the Pure Desire podcast where we partner with you to bring hope and freedom on your journey to purity. Before we jump into today's episode, we wanted to let you know about a brand new resource, Mended. One couple's journey from betrayal to imperfect beauty. Mended is the story of Rick and Tiffany Bowman. This story is how God healed a marriage that was destroyed by betrayal and and turned it into a powerful picture of his grace and healing. This testimony of relationship that went from broken beyond repair to rebuilt by God's mighty hand will give you practical tools on how to strengthen your marriage and find true intimacy. There is hope. When God works a miracle. Anything can be mended. To pick up your copy of Mended, visit PureDesire.org Mended enjoy the podcast.

Hey there.

I'm your host, Trevor Windsor. And we're so thankful you're taking time out of your day to hang out with us. I'm here as always with my co host, Nick Stumbo.

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

So is this, you know, Christmas season? Because that sure sounded a lot like.

Yeah, that's Bogart from Casablanca. I have no idea what Bogart sounds like because I haven't actually seen that whole movie, but I was here. He sounds very refined. And so that was as much refined as I could get, I think.

I'm gonna be honest. You sound like Jimmy Stewart there more than Boe Burt. So I thought it's a wonderful life.

Maybe it's a squeeze the two before.

We get too off track. Joining us today is a special guest, Ron D. Haas. Ron is the president and co founder of Covenant Eyes. They're an accountability software company that began in 2000. Ron has a bachelor's and master's in geology from the Ohio State University and spent time, actually is currently PhD candidate at the University of Michigan. Those two schools don't tend to go together very well, Ron, but we'll talk about that later. Ron is one of the pioneers of the accountability software concept. And this is simply to say we're just blessed to have quite the impressive man on with us today. So, Ron, welcome to the PD podcast.

Well, Trevor and Nick, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm glad to be here.

So let's. Before we jump in, you went to Ohio State and now you're at Michigan. Like, do you, do you still have friends from both of those schools?

Well, it's kind of good because I get to root for whoever's winning. That convenient.

Yeah, that's great.

There's a lot of wisdom in there, Ron? Well, as you can probably guess, Ron is with us today to talk about accountability software. We'll hear some history and background from Ron on his story and Covenant Eyes. We'll also talk through the role of accountability software just in the recovery journey, how the software works, the benefits of using Covenant Eyes as your provider. So, Ron, are you ready to jump in?

Yeah, absolutely. Sure.

All right. So, Ron, since this is your first time with us and maybe some of our listeners don't know about you or about Covenant Eyes, would you just take a moment and tell tell us a little bit about yourself. Who is Ron dehass?

Sure. I have been in I've been in business all my life. I became a Christian when I was 30 years old and mainly spent time in the oil and gas business. But in the year 2000, I realized the dangers on the on the Internet, with pornography. I had two teenage sons and decided we need to have accountability. And so it was natural for me to move into that as a business. Once I realized that it can be done, I moved into that as a business. So right now I run Covenant Eyes. I also have a ministry called Nehemiah Ministries that provides a retreat and counseling center for pastors and missionaries here in Michigan. And my wife and I also started a homeschooling support academic school for homeschoolers here in Owasso, Michigan. And we still are very active in that as well. So have a lot of spinning a lot of plates at one time, but I've always enjoyed doing that.

So, Ron, now that your sons are grown up, did they stay close to home or have they spread out across the country?

I'm very fortunate. All four of our kids are married and they live within an hour and 15 minutes of my home. So we get together fairly often. It's kind of nice.

Well, you mentioned that idea of your teenage sons and what was happening with the Internet is kind of some of the starting point of Covenant Eyes. But tell us a little bit more just about the starting of the company. I think it's particularly interesting at a time when this didn't really exist out there. So how do you go from the idea or the concept of accountability and how to help people to actually creating the company? Just share with our listeners some of the backstory of Covenant eyes.

Sure. In 1992, I was very happily married. I had a wonderful family, my wife and two kids. But in August, August 21st of 1992, my entire family was killed in a car accident. My wife and two kids, age 7 and 4, that was certainly a turning point in my life. In some sense the, my life is divided into the before and after of that accident. But once I, I'll tell you, God treated me in a very unique way during that time. He drew himself closer to me than he ever had been before. And I'd have to say ever since even. Fortunately, I met another woman who had three kids of her own a year later and we got married and then we had our fourth. We had our own child. And that family became my family in, in 1993, actually just a year later. And then 1994, our, our daughter was born. And by the time the Internet came into our home in the year 2000, I realized, like I said, the danger of the Internet. And by then I had two teenage sons at home. I was very fortunate to have a young man aged 17, working for me on the Nehemiah Ministries property, just doing maintenance. And it turns out that this young man was absolutely a genius, a wizard of types on Internet and all of telecommunications. And he's the one who got me on the Internet. And his name is Colin. And I said, Colin, in March 30th of the year 2000, I said, Colin, is it possible for you to keep a record on your computer of where I go on my computer so that you can hold me accountable? He 17 year old kid says, sure. And he went in and typed a few things on my computer and three days later presented me with a list of all the sites that I had been at. Wow. And so I said, colin, I think we got a business here. So that was the start. So March 30th and just to give you an idea of how brilliant this young man was, by June 12th of the year 2000, in other words, three months later, he had the program written, he had the website, he had the customer relations management system in place, he had the billing system in place. And we, by June 12th of 2000, we were actually selling Internet accountability. At that time there was all there was, was filters. There was no other Internet accountability at the time. Yeah, and, and he is, he is even today, absolutely a genius on telecommunications. He and I started that business, started an ISP of our own here in Michigan. And a couple years later he married my daughter. And so he now is the, also the father of two of my grandchildren. So that was the start. And so the motivation for it really was, it goes back to losing my family. Motivation was I didn't want to lose another family to pornography. And I recognized the temptation and the danger of pornography on the Internet. Is so compelling, especially for young men growing up at that. At that age, the curiosity and so on. I realized that we have to have something that can provide accountability. And filtering didn't do it. There were filters. They weren't very good filters at the time, but that isn't what I wanted. I didn't want something that would just kind of legalistically block them from seeing pornography. And if they did see it, they would. They wouldn't tell me about it. I wouldn't know about it. That that isn't what I wanted. I wanted something that would allow me to give them a disciplined training in how to use their computers. So that was the motivation.

Yeah. Well, that's such awesome words about having simply a block, because I know for many of us as young men, a block simply became one thing to try to figure out how to get around almost triggering the competitive spirit of, I can defeat this, when really it was meant to have the opposite effect. So. And we talk about that quite a bit at Pure Desire that a block alone isn't really going to help most people. That there really needs to be that addition of the accountability that you remove, that sense that I'm alone online so that other people. You're in community even when you're on the Internet.

Yeah, that's right. And in 2016, Josh McDowell and I commissioned the Barna group to do survey, and it was interesting, the results. We found out that people who use a filter actually view pornography more than people who don't use a filter.

Wow. Wow.

Yeah. Yeah. For exactly the reason that you just said.

Yeah. So, Ron, Covenant Eyes, when it started, I mean, you think about where we're at now in 2018, and churches still have a hard time with this topic, with the idea of pornography being something that happens in the congregation and. And the idea of how to be healthy online and with the Internet is really just a topic that's hard to address in the church. A lot of people are unaware. So when you started this 18 years ago, I can only imagine the type of resistance you got. What was that like? What type of resistance did you get from churches? Were people hesitant then when you presented Covenant Eyes to them?

They were for a number of reasons, not the least of which was having to install a program on your computer. Back then, we would have to walk people through the process of installing a program. So, you know, just the technical end of it was some resistance. But beyond that, people. People thought, boy, if I have this program on my computer, I'm admitting that I have a problem. And I Don't want to. Want people to know that I have Covenant Eyes on my computer. And of course, that has changed now. And especially people have now realized that pornography is ubiquitous. It's everywhere, and it's such a temptation that we need to do something about it. We need to prevent it. But back then, the Internet was such a new thing that people really were reluctant to admit that they need something to prevent them. And also the people said, well, my kids aren't going to view things like that. You know, they just. My kids aren't going to do that. And little do they realize. You know, I've done a lot of talks in front of audiences, and I probably asked over 5,000 people the question, how many people in this room have never, ever viewed pornography? And in all the times I've asked that question, I think five people have raised their hands that they've never viewed pornography. And I'm pretty sure all five of them were elderly women. And so the question is not whether or not your kids will view pornography, it's when are they going to be pornography and what are they going to do with it?

Yeah, that's so true. I think back to as you guys started. Ron. You know, I think I first subscribed to Covenant eyes in 2001, and so I feel a little bit like an early adopter, which, you know, on most things, I'm not an early adopter, but just. Just that concept of not being alone online was like, wow, this. This is really a game changer. And so I. I think so many people have found that to be true. And that's why Covenant Eyes has grown and continues to grow. But walk us through a little bit. Like, what were some of the early wins for you guys as a company, and what really helped you get to the place you are now where it's, you know, helping many, many thousands of people. So what. What did that path look like from starting point to the kind of growth you've experienced and seen now?

Well, early on in the year 2000, there were a number of things that we did that were not normal back then. For one thing, a subscription basis for a program online. That was a very rare thing. Most things, you just bought a CD in a box and you stuck it in your computer and it. And worked it without paying a monthly fee. And so that actually was a new thing. And that now, of course, is very common to pay a monthly fee for things online. But back then it was a new thing. And then the other thing is, how on earth do you market something on the Internet. What, how do you do that? You know, even Google wasn't around then. So how do you market things? And so we kind of had to invent our own way through Internet marketing. And I honestly, In September of 2001, I was ready to abandon the program because I just didn't know how to market it. And so I. One of the greatest wins was I prayed for somebody. You know, back then we were just getting started. I honestly didn't buy a cup of coffee at McDonald's because all my money was in Covenant Eyes. It was, it was tight times and so I prayed for somebody. I wanted a man so I didn't have to work alongside another woman. That might be a temptation. Wanted a godly man. I wanted someone who had marketing ability. And the most important thing, apart from those things probably was he had to be able to work for free.

And that was a hard one to find right there.

It's a hard one. But in walked in walked my business partner at the time. He's no longer with Covenant Eyes, but he walked in and he, he said, I'm, I want to work for free. And he was a godly man, so, so we did and he had extensive experience. And then early on, another time that I was ready to abandon the program just as a last ditch effort, Colin, my partner and I flew out to Denver and met with Promise Keepers. And of course they were very active back then. And I, I walked in the door with Colin and walked out the door with a, a contract for an affiliate relationship. It was really kind of a God thing. It really was. They were actually looking for something like this and we provided it. And that was, that was so encouraging because Promise Keepers was a big thing back then. And they are still, they still are an affiliate. And we have had far more affiliate signups through them than anyone else. So that was definitely a win, I guess a third win. Throughout the years we have recognized there are spiritual battles and every time, every time God wins. And so we have learned to recognize those spiritual attacks and just simply the name of Jesus Christ. Satan cannot stand up against that name. And we recognize we are really at the tip of a spear plunging right into the heart of a principality of darkness. And so we are an obvious target, but we are not afraid to use that name.

So let's kind of move in a little bit to the specifics about the need for, for accountability software. Ron, just in your experience, I mean, you've been doing this for now almost 20 years with Covenant Eyes. Why is Internet accountability software a necessity for everyone?

Without it, pornography is free. It's so easily accessible. It's just one click away. And not only that, it's addicting. It draws you in. And Dr. Ted Roberts, part of the Pure Desire Ministry, speaks very often on this idea that pornography sucks you in and it's addicting and just. It's a terrible, terrible thing. And so we. We function. Behavior change techniques includes certainly just taking the thing away. That is a temptation. That's what a filter would do. It just simply take it away. But that doesn't really address the heart issue. What addresses the heart issue is when there is someone who loves you and cares for you and is willing to kind of look over your shoulder at what you're doing and hold you accountable. And those accountable relationships are the most effective behavioral change techniques that are out there. And so that accountability is essential on the Internet because pornography is so freely available, it's just rampant. Without accountability, it's just going to be impossible for a young man, particularly, to avoid getting into pornography. And it's true for older men and women as well. You know, everybody. Everybody has the temptation. So accountability is essential.

Certainly not a respecter of persons at all, is it?

No.

And it's crazy to think that, you know, as I was a young man in the 90s, pornography was at the gas station or the bookstore. You had to go somewhere and risk being seen, risk being caught, you know, others observing your behavior. And now, if you think about it, the bookstore or the library, the gas station is in your pocket. And it's that accessibility of anytime, anywhere, any place, anything, that if it pops into my mind, literally in seconds, I could be viewing it on my smartphone. And I think for so many of us as human beings, we just haven't thought about the pressure and the temptation that puts on our integrity, that we want to do the right thing. But when there are that many things stacked against us, and it's that easy. What I've described to people a lot is that we all have bad days, you know, we all have bad moments where we have errors in judgment. And if in some errors of judgment, we can go from being okay to viewing something we wish we weren't in just seconds, that's gonna be impossible in some ways for us to avoid 100% of the time. And so creating these healthy categories where we have community, we have a sense that I'm not alone is so vital, because otherwise, we're just really leaving ourselves in a dangerous, dangerous place.

No doubt about that. That is you. You would not let your kids go walking on the streets of Las Vegas by themselves.

Exactly. Good luck. I hope you look at the right size.

What's happening is you're letting them, you know, they take their computer to their bedroom, and they're in their. In their bedroom all alone, looking at whatever, and you don't know what they're looking at, and you have no control. You know, parents take it for granted their kids are not getting into pornography. And I've heard so many stories of kids and parents coming to me saying, I'm addicted. I'm hopelessly addicted to pornography.

Yeah, I know. For me, I mean, I'm a millennial, and so I don't really know a world without the Internet. And so for me, one of the things that accountability software has been, for me is a guardrail that I put up and I put up before I even get close to the edge. So it's something that acts in a lot of ways as a deterrent for me to look at things or go to places I shouldn't go if I know that this is going to show other people, if other people are going to be able to text me or call me or message me and say, hey, look, I just saw that you're. I just saw your report, and it looks like you were doing some stuff you told me you didn't want to do. And so that's a deterrent. But then at the same time, moving forward into health, it also is pushing me to live openly and honestly where I'm not someone who's living with secrets and with lies, because those things also perpetuate shame in my life. And then that just kind of reinforces the cycle. So what I found is that it not only deters me from doing the things I don't want to do, but it also almost reinforces this. This. This channel, or this now new ability I have to live openly and honestly about my Internet use with other people around me.

Boy, that's for sure. That really is true. We have found this Barna study that I referenced that we did with Josh McDowell. We actually found 500 families who have used Covenant eyes for more than five years who were willing to take this survey. And one thing that came out crystal clear was the difference between the answers that their kids provided 13 to 18 versus the answers that the world provided age 13 to 18. It is very clear that parents who take the spiritual formation of their families seriously are successful in passing on their values from one generation to the next.

Hmm, that's exciting. So, you know, Ron, we know that Internet accountability alone isn't enough to keep someone healthy. Because the Internet's only one part of our life. It's only one aspect of the journey for purity and integrity. But I know that at Covenant Eyes you're doing a lot more than just the Internet accountability software. So what else are you doing at Covenant Eyes to promote overall healing and recovery from pornography?

Sure. We provide a lot of education, educational material. We attend a lot of conferences, we give talks at conferences. If you ever have the opportunity to go to a conference where one of our people is speaking, this is what we do is provide educational material. And then we also provide free educational material through our website. Everything on our website is free except for the monthly subscription to the program itself. We have a lot of ebooks. If you go to covenanteyes.com ebooks, there's a lot of ebooks. The one that's being promoted this month is the book on statistics. We provide over 250 statistics on pornography. Our most popular one is your brain on porn. It shows the actual physical effects of pornography on your brain. We have books on the relationship between pornography and sex trafficking, books for singles parenting, the Internet generation, porn and your husband hope after porn, and many other books that are educational material. And so that, that's something that we really try to do is educate people. And all of that is totally free on our website. And then in addition to that, we have a world class customer service that many, many times people need to call in and talk and we do that. And our customer service is always glad just to talk to people. And so if you call Covenant Eyes, the number that's on the bottom of our website, 95 over. Over 95% of our calls are answered within one minute by a real person.

Wow, that's great.

You can actually share your story. There's no time limit on our customer service. People. They we've had conversations go as long as three hours.

That's very cool.

That's what we do.

Wow.

Ron, you've mentioned a couple times the research that you did with Josh McDowell and with Barna. Can you let our listeners know what, what that is? What resource?

Yes, it is the porn phenomenon is the name of it. And it is available. I don't have their website, but it's available at the Barna website.

Yeah.

And it is, it has a lot of statistics in it.

Yeah, we'll make sure to put that for the listeners. We'll put that in our show notes so they can have access to find that on Barna's website as well.

Well, and at Pure Desire we quote from that resource regularly. So, Ron, we're so thankful you guys were a part of that, because I think it really, for so many churches and leaders, you know, attaching the Covenant Eyes name and Josh McDowell and Barna to this resource gave it such legitimacy in churches that when you're able to quote from there, some of the skepticism that leaders can have about, oh, that can't be true, it can't be that bad. It's like, wow, this, this must be a real deal, because those. Those people really know what they're doing. And I think it's gone a long ways towards opening people's eyes to the severity of the problem we're facing.

Yes, yes. Yep. That's for sure.

If Barna says it, it's probably true. I mean, that's just. I've learned to adopt that in my life. So, Ron, so moving kind of forward, using accountability software, specifically, what we're talking about is that just what you were talking about earlier, the idea that what you view in your browser is what you view on your computer and on the Internet, then gets reported to other people. So the question is, who should those other people be? Should it be your spouse? Should it be friends? Should it be family? Who should that be?

Well, I mentioned earlier, accountability is best as a behavioral change technique. When it is someone who loves you and cares for you and is willing to walk alongside of you, think of it as a sidekick. You know, you have this sidekick who's willing to share with you, and the sidekick, whether it's your spouse or a friend or a pastor, your sidekick then might also. You might hold him accountable as well. And, you know, makes a good relationship. It actually builds relationships. Is one thing that we found is if you really do have a good accountability relationship, even if. And we've had people who say, you know, I just don't have someone that's close to me like that. And then go to a pastor. That's. That's a first step. I don't think I've ever heard of a pastor who would say. Who said, no, I can't do that. But go to a pastor. And it's interesting how that then builds the relationship. It gives you something to talk about. And so the answer is yes, your spouse, your friends, whoever you feel is close to you. One word of warning there. Sometimes when there is an estranged relationship because a wife has found out that her husband has been using pornography, very often that might not be the starting place. If you can find a counselor or, or pastor who is an accountant who can Be an accountability partner. That might be better to start, but nevertheless, at some point you want to demonstrate to your spouse that you are being accountable and it really would be a wise thing. And so. Well, I'll talk about what we're going to be doing in a few minutes. We'll get to that. What we're going to be doing actually makes it much easier on the spouse to interpret what's going on.

Yeah. Well, Ron, we know a lot of people find interest in Covenant Eyes and accountability programs for their teenage kids. They're worried about what their kids are seeing and just how accessible it is. They're living in a world with the Internet. But for a teenager to feel like mom and dad are looking over their shoulder or playing police officer or just waiting to jump on them when they make a mistake, that isn't always a healthy relationship. So how do you counsel or work with parents to encourage them to create this accountability with their teenage kids, but to do it in a way that continues relationship and doesn't just become this domineering, I'm looking over your shoulder kind of fear based approach. What do you suggest to parents along those lines?

To begin with, the parents themselves need to be accountable. And you know, that's the starting place. If I'm the dad and I say to my son, hey, my wife, your mom is holding me accountable. Accountability, and then share those experiences that lead to accountability, it's not wise for a parent to use it as a tool, A tool to bash them over the head. It definitely is not meant to be that instead, yes, yes, my son, I am looking over your shoulder. That is true. Because I love you, because I want to be a good parent. And we have a scholarship program every, every summer that we give scholarships as much as $5,000 to students who are going to college and use Covenant Eyes. And the testimonials that we have from them are, are interesting in regard to this question. Very, very often the, the student in their essays we require an essay will say, when my, when my parents first put this on my computer, I, I thought it was an invasion of my privacy and so on. But now I recognize and it's so valuable to me to have this accountability. I've heard that dozens of times from our entrants on our scholarship program.

Yeah, you bring up the idea of modeling it and that's such a huge thing. I mean that's one of the things that we really push. You know, one of the more recent resources we just released, Digital Natives. Just the idea of showing your kid by modeling what it looks like to have online health. Because, you know, I think that it can be very legalistic and pharasitical in how we approach it, but I think that if you're doing it in your own life, someone is a lot more willing to listen to you. And so that's definitely one of the things that we would encourage. So it's just great to hear. It's really great to hear you say that. It's great to hear that it's important not only to have these kind of accountability softwares in place, but also to show people through our lives and modeling what that should look like.

Almost universally for a family, we have a single family price. Month to price, it's. I think it's 15.99amonth. A single family price you can use for your entire family. Put the program on all the devices with or without the filter. We do have a filter as well. And you can. You can basically select what part of it you want to use. And, and that way you can tell your kids, you know, our whole family's accountable. I'm accountable to my. To my wife, too. So important.

So, Ron, you've mentioned this already. We kind of stopped a little bit, but word on the street is Covenant Eyes has a new approach to accountability that's coming out pretty soon. What can you tell us about this new development, what you guys have going on?

Oh, I'll tell you, I'm so excited. This has us jumping up and down here at Covenant Eyes. We've been in business for 18 years, but this is. We are not just entering a new chapter on our work. We are starting a new book, actually, because it just. It's phenomenal. Using image recognition, we have developed a program that will actually recognize pornography on the screen. Now, up until now, we have always called ourselves Internet accountability and filtering, but we're changing that to screen accountability because we are going to be monitoring not just what's on the Internet, not just what comes through the Internet, but whatever is on the screen, regardless of the source, whether it be your camera or a DVD that you put in your computer or whatever the source, we're going to be monitoring the screen. Now, right now, if you signed up for Covenant Eyes, the old version, which is still the download version for Covenant Eyes, it's really just the Internet. And so there are obviously easy ways to get around Internet accountability, although eventually people get caught because. Because of the addiction factor, but nevertheless, it still isn't comprehensive accountability. And so for the first time, we are actually going to be able to. To monitor the entire use of the device. It's already available. We have only. We actually have a version out right now available to our members or anyone who signs up Matter. And it's only been available for a week, but we already have. 2% of our members have already switched over to this program. We're getting great feedback on it. So what it is then is we. The report is going to be so simple to use. It just is simply a selection of blurred images that are from your computer that get sent to your accountability partner. And the report takes like, five seconds to look at. And they're so blurred, you can't really tell what the person. Exactly what the person is looking at. But along with that, we provide a warning for those that were rated as pornography. And so it's. It's such a simple program to use such a simple report to look at. The concern that we've had from some people is the concern of privacy. But I assure you, we have done a lot of research on how much to blur the image. And you can't read any text, so there's no invasion of privacy. And then the other concern is, are we sending people pornography to look at? And the more pornographic it is, the more blurred it gets. And by the time it's actual pornography, it is so blurred that a person really can't. There's not going to be any temptation there. And so we really have avoided any of the privacy issues. And the image is never sent to Covenant Eyes. We don't store them here. They're stored on your computer so that there's no HIPAA issues or anything like that that people need to be concerned about.

Yeah, you can go to covenanteyes.com screen accountability and that'll take you to it. I was looking at it this morning. It looks awesome. You know, when you start to feel a little bit uncomfortable when you see something, how awesome it is that it's probably a good thing. And that's really how I felt when I was looking at it. Like, this is gonna bring so much more light to how we use our devices. And listen, as a millennial, I feel like I have to say I'm pumped about this. I think this is gonna be a game changer for a lot of people who choose to use Covenant Eyes.

Yep. If you just go to CovenantEyes.com, you can also get to that screen. Just on the covenant eyes.com there's a red bar that says accountability is changing. See what's coming. And just click on that bar. And so. But that it is. It is exciting. It's going to revolutionize accountability and filtering, for that matter. So it's. It's really something and it's just state of the art. We were very fortunate to have a fellow on staff who is. He's an incredible data scientist and using artificial intelligence, able to develop this image recognition. Wow.

Well, it's a pretty incredible idea, Ron. And as someone who, you know, for myself personally battled with pornography for a number of years and came out of the addiction, I know there's always that part of us that's looking for the loophole. You know, maybe not all the time, but when we're veering back to unhealth, we're listening to the old lies. There's those thoughts of where could I go? What ways could I get around it? Because like I said, I had Covenant eyes starting in 2001 or 2002, and for another seven or eight years that was part of some health, but there were still the loopholes. There was always ways you kind of knew I could maybe hear. And it won't flag that. And what a game changer to just realize what I see, they see. And that's honestly, I think, what we all want and need so that we know I'm not alone. And, yeah, I still need privacy for the private things in my life that are truly private, but I think most of us that were struggling in the name of privacy really just wanted to isolate and be able to keep things to ourselves. And so I can just see. This creates a really healthy mindset of what I see, they see and how that develops in us, a consciousness of an awareness that what I see is it matters because others will know. And that's a good thing for me because it trains my mind to think differently about how I use the Internet, how I use all my devices. So that's pretty exciting stuff, Ron.

It is exciting. And another thing is right now, Covenant Eyes has always been in English, and the image is universal. The image is language independent. And so we just analyze what's in the image. And so it really opens up the door for us to be able to produce accountability for the entire world.

Wow.

Well, yeah, that's really exciting. So, Ron, it's been such a privilege to have you on with us. We're so excited about what we hear happening at Covenant Eyes, and we're really delighted to be affiliate with you guys and partnering with what's happening there. And so we like to wrap up our podcast the same way, just to throw it back to you and say, as you Think about everything we've discussed today and all those that will listen to this podcast. What's some final encouragement that you would like to leave with our listeners today?

If one of your listeners is currently struggling with pornography or addicted to pornography, I promise you there is help. And pure desire is one of the great sources of that help. There is help. It can be overcome. It can be totally reversed, and you can succeed. It can be done. Let me encourage you. It really can be done.

That's a good word coming off of that.

Just, I was thinking about where I was, you know, when I was in my addiction and before I really got healthy and. And the idea of this, just thinking through it, the image that comes to mind is that this is a piece of the armor that you get to put on and to never put on your armor while you're in the battle. I think that the imagery, if you're awkwardly trying to defend yourself and attack while also trying to clothe yourself with protection, that's not going to go well. So the idea of armoring up before you're in the battle, before all the stuff is going down, just to be proactive in that, I think, is my encouragement.

Yep. Yeah, I think my final encouragement. Just what comes to mind for me today is that reminder of the difference between isolation and solitude that we all in our lives need solitude. We need places where we can go to be alone with the Lord, to work through our thoughts, to rest, and in a replenishing way, to take time alone. But anytime that I'm alone with a device, more often than not I'm in isolation. I'm in a place where it's not really about renewing and refreshing, it's just escaping, and that becomes a dangerous place. And so what I love about Covenant Eyes, what I love about screen accountability, this idea that it really can break the power of isolation. Because I think for anyone really battling with pornography, with addiction, isolation just becomes a place of real death. And so whenever we can find ways to stay in healthy community and that we are alone, it's about solitude, then that's a good move to make in our lives. And I'm just so grateful for. For you, Ron, for Covenant Eyes, for how you're a part of helping people break the power of isolation.

Well, thank you for the opportunity to talk about it, Ron.

It has been a pleasure having you on. Thanks so much for all you're done and continuing to do. You guys offer such a helpful and essential tool, really, for living with sexual integrity. And if any of our listeners are interested in more info on Covenant Eyes. Their website is just www.Covenant Covenant Eyes.com. we'll have that information in the show notes. Also, if you sign up for Covenant Eyes using The promo code PureDesire, just one word, pure desire. You'll get a free month of Covenant Eyes. And Pure Desire gets a small kickback. So while you're getting the right software around you, you can also give back to the message of hope and healing. So Ron, again man, thank you so much for hanging out with us. We appreciate your time.

I loved it. Thank you for the opportunity and thank.

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