The Great Escape – relief from the terrible guilt of a lifelong addiction
by Glen on 2001-09-09 00:18:42
You may be in the middle of a fight between doing right, and doing wrong. You know better, but there’s something about the wrong thing that attracts you. It meets some need that has never been met in your life – or helps you forget your life.
When you choose wrong, you feel guilty – you feel distant from close friends and family – but you get over it. Time helps you forget what you did – until next time, when you do it again.
You’ve wanted to stop choosing wrong for a long time. You’ve tried different tricks to fool yourself – but the need you have inside really isn’t met – you just deceived yourself into avoiding wrong. It seems like doing wrong is unavoidable – you know you’ll give in sooner or later – why not just give in now and stop fighting?
What you have just read are the thoughts and feelings of someone who is a slave to sin. Sin is doing something that alienates you from God, and it then ruins your relationship with your friends and family.
I know those feelings well, because they have been mine.
After years of suffering and searching for relief, my experience has been that nothing I can do can really save me from terrible addiction. There is no activity, 12-step program, relationship, or mental position that can keep me from horrible addiction.
One day, I was about to give in to awful addiction once again, when God whispered to me and asked Do you love me? God was watching what I was about to do, and he really wanted to know if I love Him.
That’s a fair question for God to ask, isn’t it? If you are getting ready to give in to your repulsive addiction once again, how would you answer God at that moment, while he watches you? He has a right to ask you for your decision, any time.
Do you love God?
Jesus said “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” Jesus is telling you and me that if we love Him, we will obey him. But it’s not the obediance he wants – it’s our love! The obediance simply comes as proof of our love – it’s a natural result – not a forced action!
This is a very hard thing to understand in this twisted world. God is not bending our arm, trying to force us to conform to his standards – he only wants to know if we love Him. Yes, the answer has deep implications – you might consider your life carefully before you answer to God’s question. By loving God, you give everything you are to Him. That’s true love.
If I love God – and I do – then I will obey Him. When I do not obey, I show God that I don’t love Him. Not fully, not selflessly.
But this is the question God puts in your heart whenever you consider doing your addictive act – God wants to know at that very moment, and right now…
Do you love me?