LIVING AN ADDICTION FREE LIFE
Everybody values personal freedom and independence. One can never fully appreciate this basic, essential right in life until one loses it to incarceration, debilitating illness, disability or addiction. I am sure when you read the word ‘addiction’ your mind goes straight to drug addiction. But then there are so many others things we get subtly addicted to and do not view as a problem. So what is an addiction?
An addiction to something is a very strong desire or need for it. Personally, I am convinced that the only very strong desire or need I should have in my life is God. The Psalmist talks about thirsting after God. “As the deer panteth for water.” That creates an analogy that the psalmist could not do without God. How many of us truly sense a craving or longing to be in God’s presence continually?
A person addicted to illicit drugs or even the more socially acceptable substance – alcohol, is uncomfortable and experiences withdrawal symptoms when they have been without it for a while. Do we have withdrawal symptoms when we have not spent quality time with God in days or weeks?
I remember an incident that happened in my undergraduate days. My brothers and I went into a supermarket to buy some things. The younger of the two – Eloka, (now of blessed memory) asked my eldest brother to buy something for him. I forget now exactly what it was. Our eldest brother looked at the item in question and asked him only one question:
“Do you really, desperately, direly need it?”
Eloka replied in the negative and said that with all the adjectives used to qualify the word ‘need’, he knew that the only need he had in his life that was real, desperate and dire was more of God.
That qualification definitely got my big Bro off the hook! Lol!
Over the years, I have tried to maintain some degree of detachment from things. When I find myself becoming unduly attached to things, I consciously give myself a breather or a time out. Often times I find that after the time out, the craving for that thing usually reduces and I am free!
Please write a comment, tweet or send an e-mail telling me the kind of things one could get addicted to and your personal challenges or struggles in this area.
Till next post, please stay in boundaries where God’s love can reach you and richly bless you!
Your friend,
Camba