Addiction

There are so many good things to enjoy in this life that we can readily make them the focus of our lives: food, sex, alcohol, movies, etc. These pleasures are so powerful that Jesus warned that “life’s worries, riches and pleasures” are like weeds and thorns that choke the good plant of the Word of God in our lives (Luke 8:14). We easily become “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Tim. 3:4).

Pleasures easily become our masters. Paul describes the life before Christ as one in which we were “deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures” (Tit. 3:3). People become slaves to pleasures. They sacrifice their health, their relationship with God, their relationship with people, and their fortunes to these things.

Because of the power of these pleasures, some people make the opposite error. They get focused on rules prohibiting these pleasures. The problem is that this often produces a focus on these pleasures just as intense. Religion becomes all about avoiding these things rather than a change of the heart.

In addition, God created these pleasures to be enjoyed. Enjoying the good things of this world is not just an option. It is a commandment. The Apostle Paul wrote that these are things “God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer” (2 Tim. 4:3b–5).

How do we learn to receive these pleasures in a good way that doesn’t make us lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God? How do we avoid becoming enslaved by them? Continue reading “Loving God the Most: Lovers of God Rather Than Lovers of Pleasures”

“To be alive is to be addicted, and to be alive and addicted is to stand in need of grace.” So says Gerald May in his book Addiction and Grace.

That’s not what May would have said in his college days. In college, he moved away from religion and, in his words, “made a god out of science” (5).

This love of science led him to study psychology and eventually to become a psychiatrist. His first job was director of a drug rehab center.

May threw himself into the work with tremendous zeal. The results . . . were disappointing. He was surprised at how often he failed, and he fell into depression.

In the midst of his depression, he met a faith healer at a conference. They had a conversation, and she told him that she believed he was meant to be a healer, too. But then she said, “I wouldn’t take my dog to you, because you think you are the one that has to do the healing” (6).

His response? “These are not the words one might expect to be helpful for a depressed person. But they struck me deep and well” (ibid.).

As he thought, he became open to new directions for helping addicts. He went to several addicts who had turned their lives around. He asked them what had helped them to do so. “All of them described some sort of spiritual experience” wrote May (ibid.).

After a long time of reflection, May was led to apply this sort of thinking to himself. It led to a very simple prayer: “Dear Jesus, help me.” This prayer began to grow within him in the months that followed and eventually he found healing through God’s grace.

He concluded that it’s not a question of whether you are an addict. The question is to what are you addicted and to what extent? He saw his depression as rooted in an addiction to success.

And how could he find healing? He found healing in the grace of God.

And the grace of God can heal us, too.

Share this:

Share this: