The weight of addiction changes those caught in its web. It consumes the life force as if drawing the Spirit out of you until you are left with a shell of broken, dried flesh and bone. It affects how you think. It affects how you feel about your lives, relationships, your purpose… It poisons your relationships and deteriorates almost all ties to humanity. It steals your health and sanity. It can cause your skin to blister and your muscle to melt away until your ailments overtake you.
The unseen damage, initially unseen anyway, is the
guilt, shame and desperation that battle and rages against the soul. Every
child, every person, knows how guilt and shame can isolate you; can distance
you from family, friends, and community. The guilt and shame, self-loathing,
self-condemnation, not to mention the wrongs done to others in the commission
of this quest for more drugs, isolates you from those you love. It separates you
from God.
Imagine, if you have read previous posts, if my 17
year old granddaughter doubted God’s love and forgiveness for the sins that she
committed back then. She wailed with humility and gratitude when she found out that
she could be forgiven and is loved by God. How desolate and unloved and
unforgiven she must feel every single day now.
She LOVES God. She knows that her Hampa
and I love her unconditionally. I know that she knows that because we continue
to text and send love and photos to any cell number that we can find for her. And
yet, in the darkness of her addiction, she can’t even TEXT us back because of
her sin. IMAGINE her guilt and shame now! She is in such darkness that she cut
herself off from those who love her and separates herself from God. She knows
that she is in sin!
If only we all would understand that there
is division in our daily lives, how much easier it would be to humble ourselves
and do as we should.
People have written her off long ago. The life of a
homeless addict is brutal, especially for women, they are beaten, robbed,
enslaved, raped, and have little to no protection out there. Most of this crime
goes unreported because of the nature of their lives. And many people prey on the
homeless and addicts for this reason. (Trust me, it isn’t about Trinity and
drug addicts, I have a point)
Initially, because people must feel that ‘it won’t
happen to me’, doing drugs is just fun and games. But before you can think
straight, you no longer just want the drug, the high, but you ‘have to have’
it to survive; to keep from getting sick. That is, after all, how drugs are
made. You begin to weigh your options. How do I get more? Would I lie? Would I
steal from family, friends or my employer to keep from getting sick? Would I deal
drugs to keep my habit going? Would I sell myself?
Truly, it is a ‘selling your souls to the devil’ type
progression that will consume you physically, mentally, emotionally, and
spiritually. Those things that you become willing to trade: the parts of your
life, health and soul that you trade to chase the next high and avoid getting
terribly ill, are, at a certain point, no longer choices. Hear me out.
It starts as choices, yes, but at a certain point,
your body will literally attack you in any way that it can if you do not get
that drug into your system. In fact, opioids
are made to cause more ghost pains so that you think you need it long
after your true condition has healed. And yet, they are legal. (Nope, not going
there either)
Because of this, addiction has a negative connotation,
deservedly so. There are so many other burdens or sins that we overlook or
minimize because it doesn’t have the negative connotation that addiction does.
It almost seems that because people ‘seek’ drugs, and it is illegal, that it
carries more of a stigma than even cancer. (Don’t beat me up here. It is an
analogy that feels necessary right now.) And because of this, we criminalize
the victims but not the drug companies. (No, I am not going there this time.)
1John 3:4: Everyone who makes a practice of sinning
also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.
The one most overlooked thing that I want to point out
to you is, admit it or not, addicts, in some respect, acknowledge that
they are broken. They know, perhaps not in these exact terms, that they
are in sin and darkness. In some way, they recognize that they are sinners and
are unworthy. They are worn down to the point of almost being unrecognizable
from their former selves. They know and feel every raw detail of being
in sin... which is more than I can say for the rest of us.
2 Tim 2:24-26: 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome
but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25 Opponents
must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance
leading them to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and
that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the
devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
So, here it is: You see, sin, any sin,
does the same to us. It can and will separate us from God whether we are aware of
it or not. Yes, even people who wear the badge of ‘Christian’ for all to see, assume,
wrongly, that sin is more a physical state like murder and adultry, rather than
what goes on in our thoughts and hearts. We convince ourselves that we are
justified, sanctified, above it all, pious and knowledgeable and therefore,
exempt from self-reflection and sin.
Gal 5:19-21: The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual
immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry
and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition,
dissensions, factions 21 and
envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that
those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Let me remind you, brothers and sisters, those ‘little
white lies’ that you keep telling to hide your sin are not little
and they aren’t white. They are darkness just the same. The mental battles that
you lost, the hypocrisy, the fake accolades, the badge wearing and condemnation
that you wave about as if you are God is reserved for you. How
far are you willing to go to hide your darkness? Would you lie and give
false witness? Would you acquiesce due to fear of man over what God would want?
Would you be willing to steal? Would you sell yourself to the devil?
Mark 7: 21-23: For it is from within, out of a person’s heart,
that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery,
greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and
defile a person.”
You can cover your tracks, coat it with sweetness and
supplication, ingratiate yourself to those over you in this life but you cannot
hide it from the One who knows you best. You can hold yourselves above
others, gather the like-minded minions to your breast and treat those that you
think are ‘less than’ you with disdain… but that is poison, my
friend and it will destroy you even more so than addiction because at least the
addict knows they are in sin.
That tiny bit of anger or resentment, the desire for
stature in the world over a desire to serve, that fear of man over God that
makes you dishonest, that willingness to sell your soul for acknowledgment in
this world can make you unrecognizable. You can quote book, chapter and verse
but if you have not love, you are lost. Mark my words, you may not have boils
from the poison in meth, the scars of abuse from a rough life or even the
outward appearance that you are sinful and sick… but you are.
1 Cor 13:1-3: If I speak in the
tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not
have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If
I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all
knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do
not have love, I am nothing. 3 If
I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I
may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain
nothing.
You are not free from judgement. These things follow
the same path of destruction as any other sin. These things darken your heart,
turn others away, withers your light and brings down worldly kingdoms.
We must be more aware of the poison in our own
thoughts and behaviors so that we, too, will not turn from Him. We want Him to
recognize us when He comes. We must understand, call it what you like, sin is
sin! Dig deep my friends. Ask Him to reveal your sins. Get on your knees and
repent.
Prov 4:23: Above all else,
guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Not one of us is without
sin, but praise to those who recognize that they are in sin and seek
forgiveness for their brokenness.
PS: This was going to be
about how failing health can consume our lives in the same way that addiction
can. How illness can change our lives and the lives of all around us because it
changes who we are and what we must become to survive it. But God. He had other
plans.
Now do you see?
Much love and many
blessings
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