The Lust of the Heart: My Story

July 11, 2026

The Lust of the Heart: My Story

My second marriage ended, in part, because of a woman from my past. She was someone I had been involved with before I got married, and toward the end of my marriage, I was no longer faithful. That relationship became a contributing factor in the breakup, and the consequences hit me hard.

This morning, the subject at our men’s prayer breakfast was lust, and the message cut

straight through me.

One of the brothers shared a humorous story. He said a preacher once told him, “If you were driving down the road and saw a pretty girl standing on the corner, it was not lust unless you turned around, went back, and looked again.”

We all laughed, but the joke sat heavily with me.

Jesus addressed this issue directly when He said, “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). His words remind us that lust does not begin with an outward act. It begins with a second look, a lingering thought, and a heart that chooses to entertain what it should reject.

If I am being completely honest, that is how I lived for many years.

The pattern began in college when I was playing football for the Crimson Tide. Being a football player made it easy to get dates. Girls were everywhere, attention was constant, and I took full advantage of it.

After home games at Bryant-Denny Stadium, once we had showered and changed into our suits or street clothes, the “ladies in the black dresses” would be waiting as we walked out of the locker room area. These women came from all over the state. They were hoping to meet and date Alabama football players.

It was an unspoken part of the environment, but it was always there. It was not only the girls on campus. Women from across Alabama came to Tuscaloosa on game days, which gave players like me even more attention and more opportunities to make foolish choices.

Scripture warns, “Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” (Proverbs 6:27). At the time, I believed I could live close to temptation without being consumed by it. I was wrong.

In 1994, I purchased a condominium from a former Alabama football player on Highland Avenue, next to two of Birmingham’s most popular restaurants at the time, Bottega and Café Bottega. The previous owners had used the place to entertain women until their wives discovered what was happening.

Buying that condominium was like giving the fox the key to the chicken coop. I could walk downstairs and meet women almost any night I was in town. It was the worst possible environment for someone whose heart was already being ruled by lust.

Paul told Timothy, “Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace” (2 Timothy 2:22). He did not say to negotiate with lust, study it, or see how close we can get without falling. He said to flee from it. Instead of fleeing, I placed myself in situations where temptation was always within reach.

That pattern defined my single years.

I traveled constantly for work throughout Tennessee, Kentucky, Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio, California, and New Jersey. Between the condominium and the traveling, I had a woman in nearly every town. At one point, I was seeing five, six, or even seven women at the same time. I practically had a different date every night.

Years later, my mother summed up that season of my life in one devastating sentence. She told me, “Son, if you had not gone after women the way you did as a young man, you would be worth four and a half million dollars today.”

She said that when I was in my forties, and her words hit me like a ton of bricks.

The cost of lust was not only spiritual. It affected my relationships, my finances, my reputation, and my ability to live with integrity. Proverbs 5 warns that sexual sin can cause a person to give his honor to others and his years to the cruel. It also warns that a man may eventually mourn when his body and his life have been consumed (Proverbs 5:9-14).

The chase had become a full-blown addiction. My heart was not merely tempted by lust. Lust was running the show.

James explains how this progression works: “Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin” (James 1:14-15). Temptation was not my greatest problem. My greatest problem was the condition of my heart and my willingness to feed its appetite.

I remained faithful during my first marriage, but by the end of my second marriage, I had returned to old patterns. What I had failed to confront during my younger years had never truly disappeared. It had only been dormant.

I have also seen the destructive power of addiction in the lives of people close to me.

One of my former teammates was a massive man, standing six feet eight inches tall and weighing 315 pounds. From the outside, he appeared to have everything a person could want: talent, money, status, and attention from women. Inside, however, he was completely empty.

He did not only struggle with lust. He became addicted to pornography, drugs, and almost anything that could provide another temporary high. I once had to pull him out of a crack house on the west side of Birmingham.

I asked him, “Man, how did you even find these people?”

He looked at me and said, “Well, sick people know sick people.”

That sentence has stayed with me ever since.

His words were painfully honest. Brokenness often recognizes brokenness. People who are hurting frequently find others who will help them hide, indulge, or deepen their pain. Scripture says, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Corinthians 15:33). The people and environments we choose will either strengthen our walk with God or weaken it.

About two years ago, in my role as founder and president of the Lettermen of the U.S.A., my event planner, Yvonne Pope, and I met with Pardis Stitt, co-owner of Bottega and Café Bottega. We were asking her to donate a “Dinner for Four” package to the live auction for our One Yard at a Time Gala.

During the conversation, she looked at me and said, “So, Darryl, you are back on the circuit again?”

I was horrified.

In that moment, my past felt completely exposed. Everything had come full circle, bringing me back to the very place where so much of my destructive behavior had begun.

This was after open-heart surgery and after I believed the “new Darryl” had emerged from that experience. I had convinced myself that surviving surgery had changed me, but circumstances alone cannot transform the human heart. Only God can do that.

David prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). That is the prayer I need. I do not simply need better behavior. I need a clean heart and a renewed spirit.

Andy Stanley’s book Enemies of the Heart has also opened my eyes. He explains that lust is not an appetite we permanently eliminate. It is an appetite we must continually manage. That appetite is often strengthened by deeper issues in the heart, including guilt, anger, greed, and jealousy.

For years, I focused on the outward behavior without honestly confronting what was happening inside me. Yet Proverbs tells us, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). My actions were the fruit. The condition of my heart was the root.

This morning’s prayer breakfast was a wake-up call.

I am tired of the cycle. I am tired of the guilt, the secrecy, and the way lust has controlled portions of my life for so long. I am tired of making excuses for choices that have wounded other people and damaged my own soul.

Jesus did not expose the lust of the heart merely to shame us. He exposed it so that we could bring it into the light and be set free. Scripture promises, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Confession is not simply admitting that something happened. It is agreeing with God about the seriousness of our sin, accepting responsibility for the harm it caused, and turning toward a different way of living.

For the first time, I am facing this part of my life honestly instead of hiding behind my achievements, my reputation, my health struggles, or my excuses.

I cannot change my past, but through the grace of God, I do not have to remain imprisoned by it. Paul wrote, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). Freedom will require more than willpower. It will require surrender, accountability, prayer, repentance, and a daily decision to walk with the Holy Spirit.

I want to become the man God created me to be.

I want my integrity back.

I want my heart back.

“February 14th, 2009 in the chapel at the Montage Palmetto Bluff resort in Bluffton, South Carolina — exchanging vows with my second ex-wife.”

The girlfriend I lived with when my second marriage crumbled — off Highway 280. This photo isn’t real clear, but the memory still is.

This is me in 1986 on the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, living that carefree, chasing-the-thrill lifestyle that defined my single years.

Legion Field, 1987 — the day I got hurt. This girl hugging me wasn’t even my girlfriend; she arrived later. I was already juggling multiple women at once, keeping with the pattern of five, six, even seven at a time.

Out on the town with my buddy Bobby Halsey in Destin, Florida — another night in the bars, another round of chasing. The sad thing is, a lot of the women I don’t even remember their names. Maybe that’s time, or guilt, or both. I’ve asked God to forgive me for the harm I caused, and I trust in His mercy — ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9). t

Andy Stanley’s Enemies of the Heart opened my eyes to the real battle — not just the behavior, but the heart behind it. ‘Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life’ (Proverbs 4:23).