I hope everyone has been blessed with the peace and joy of the Lord today. I know some times things don’t seem very bright and new, but we just have to look up. Everyday isn’t going to be perfect, but today is a new day. God’s word says that joy will come in the morning and if it wasn’t for that sometimes life just gets right down hard to live, but we do have his blessed assurance to carry us through the day.
Let me tell you I didn’t always feel this way. I used to feel like there was just nothing worth living for and that the end would be a better alternative to the trap that I had come to call my life. Addiction isn’t something that little boys and girls aspire to attain. From the first time we begin to think of the things that we might like to be when we grew up. The response was never, “Well, I would like to be an addict when I grow up mummy”. So addicts must in some way, fall into addiction. But no really, how does that happen? I can only speak from personal experience in that addiction once held me captive. I truly believe that the one who roars around seeking to devour is real and he has been tempting man since the beginning. Like all of God’s creatures we desire relationship and love from our Father, however I believe that the illusion is presented that this world and it’s objects can make us just as happy as the Lord does. That was the lie that got me and for that matter I was in such a fog that I am sure that even the existence of God was suspect. When a person is lost they are unable to find rest for this longing for the Lord and very innocently turn to other things to fill this void left by the lack of relationship with God. Without that compass directing our lives the man or woman is as the old mariner’s term implies, dead in the water. Again, thinking back I can see the addiction growing and then later flourishing through the absence of the meaningful existence of the Lord. I was lost, lonely and afraid. No matter how big the party or how many relationships, I just couldn’t seem to find that thing that quenched the desire within. I turned to drinking and then drugs and still I was just so empty. Nothing satisfied me. I ragged in desolation, isolation from family and extreme disregard for life and relationship with others. All of this started as a simple need to be accepted and seen with respect by others, rapidly turned into a brutally destructive force against the soul God had so graciously created for me. I truly lamented over those long years and near the end thought that perhaps I was destined to be lost forever in perpetual torment.
Addiction is a process that involves listening to the lies of the enemy day after day, week after week and year after year, until when asked what you want to be when you grow up all you can say is I can’t be anything. I never was anything and I am not meant for anyone. If there is a God, he cannot love me. The enemy had completed his work and my soul wandered alone. Looking forward to the next day used to be filled with fright and apprehension. Each step that carried me down the sidewalk of addiction was agony. Cold, hot, wet, thirsty, hungry, sick, feverish, vomiting, tired, sweating, angry, aching, eyes burning, heart pounding addiction. Hell on Earth. When a man is turned over and all his fears become his daily reality. Some turn head on into it and find a way to endure it. Better yet he can teach himself to love it. Addiction can even reach such heights that he or she will forfeit anyone or anything that they had ever treasured.
Addiction consumes the heart and mind of an addict and is a bondage that only the Lord can truly deliver men from. True freedom I found in the Lord and I have had my eyes opened and he has made my life new. All things of addiction have passed away and I am well. Addiction was a lesson in salvation and has grown my faith. I am glad and so blessed that the Lord let me endure it. It is his greatest work in my life and it gives me empathy to help those still living in addiction.
Where the spirit of the Lord is there is Freedom.
Very inspiring thanks for sharing!