“I do not understand my own behavior; I do not act as I mean to, but I do the things that I hate. Through the will to do what is good is in me, the power to do it is not; the good thing I want to do, I never do; the evil thing which I do not want—that is what I do.” Romans 7:14-22 paraphrased
I began reading a book last week that was a required text for my degree. It is titled, “Addiction and Grace.” I can honestly say that I probably would have never picked up the book if it was not a class requirement. I am not an addict: I don’t drink or do drugs, so my first thoughts were that this book was for someone else. “Maybe by reading this material I can make a difference in someone else’s life,” I thought. But in the first pages of the book, I found out how wrong I was. Dr. Gerald May writes, “I am not being flippant when I say that all of us suffer from addiction. Nor am I reducing the meaning of addiction… every human being is an addict. Our addiction may not be to alcohol or narcotics but it may be to ideas, work, relationships, power, moods, fantasies, and an endless variety of other things.” At that point the list began and it was a list that I didn’t like. Soon, I agreed with the author that everyone is an addict.
St. Augustine was a forth century preacher who was said to be one of the great orators of all times. When the arena wasn’t open, people would come to St. Augustine for a good show as well as to hear what God’s word said. In a message on addiction, St. Augustine said, “God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them. If our hands are full, they are full of things to which we are addicted. And not only our hands, but also our hearts, minds, and attention are clogged with addiction. Our addictions fill up the spaces within us, spaces where grace might flow.” Can you picture that scene? God having a good gift to give to his child but there is no room in the hand to receive it. Let me paint a more vivid picture. A child goes to the an ice cream store and gets two cones. One has chocolate ice cream and the other has strawberry. First a lick on the chocolate and then a lick on the strawberry. Back and forth he goes filling his tummy with that rich, creamy goodness. A man on the street comes to the boy and offers the young lad a hundred dollar bill. The problem is that the boy doesn’t want to give up his ice cream. He can’t put it down or the dog might get it. He can’t put it in his pocket or it would make a mess. So the boy walks away happy with two fists filled with ice cream instead of the hundred dollar bill that could purchase fifty more cones filled with that rich, creamy goodness.
It would seem that the Apostle Paul understood this rich, creamy mess in which we all find ourselves addicted. When he says, “I do not act as I mean to,” I am pretty sure that addiction is a part of that thought. But what do you do? How do you put down the ice cream for a better gift from God? The first step is to realize that there is something in your hand that is keeping you from a blessing. I didn’t see it! I didn’t know I had addictions. I didn’t know that my hands were too full. But it soon became evident that there are good things of God that I am not receiving. What hope is there? Paul continues to write, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord. I am going to try to learn how to put them down in favor of God’s Good Gifts!
In His Love, Pastor Aaron
