Addictions

When you talk about addiction, most people automatically think about drugs. Certainly drug addiction is a serious problem, but there are other addictions. Some people don't think of alcohol as a drug, but it is, and so alcoholism is just another drug addiction. Nicotine is also a drug, but it is generally more habit-forming than addicting. Part of the problem is that different people are susceptible to different things. One person may be able to smoke for awhile, and then stop for awhile, and then pick it up again, while another person may suffer withdrawal symptoms within hours after putting out a cigarette; for one, it's a habit, for the other, it's an addiction.

But drugs are not the only thing. For some people, gambling is an addiction. Granted, there is a certain amount of thinking that they just need one quick win to get ahead, and then they will stop; but the more they gamble, the more they lose, and the bigger the win needed to get out of the hole, and then, on the rare occasion that they actually get that big win, then they develop the attitude that they can afford to gamble now, they have money, and end up losing everything anyway. Casinos don't exist to make their customers rich--they exist to make their owners rich.

Some people find pornography addicting. Psychologists say that the appeal of pornography is that one can engage in sexual activity without actual having to go through the social activity that normally leads to the emotional closeness that should lead to, well, I'll say marriage, even though most psychologists probably don't consider marriage to be a mandatory precursor to sexual activity... The problem, of course, is that God has given us a desire to procreate: We, being the basically simple-minded people that we are, have turned that into a simple desire for sex, at least on the surface. Below the surface, though, there is a desire to see our genes, our DNA, in the children that will eventually grow up and, either take care of us in our declining years, or choose our nursing homes. No matter how much pornography one views, that basic need is never met: It's sort of like painting over rotting wood to cover the problem instead of replacing the wood and fixing the problem.

There is a statement commonly attributed to John D. Rockefeller (although I can't find anything to directly link him to the quote), that, when asked "How much money does it take to make a man happy?" he replied, "Just a little bit more." In the book of Ecclesiastes, God tells us that we will never be satisfied with increase; this doesn't just apply to money. Whatever action that makes one feel better, if it is not of God, will snowball; it will take more and more to achieve that same feeling, and, even then, it's a temporary feel-good type of thing, it is not satisfaction. Mick Jagger was right about that...

Hold Fast, But Let Go

Yesterday morning's sermon title was "Hold On ... Let Go." The two main scriptures that my pastor used were Hebrews 10:23 and Hebrews 12:1. Hebrews 10:23 admonishes us to hold fast to the faith, while Hebrews 12:1 tells us to lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us. His point was, of course, that we have to hold on to Jesus, but let go of anything that would keep us from doing what God would have us to do. He used the example of past experiences coming back to haunt. He spoke of an individual that had a particularly horrific experience, and had suffered for years as a result, and that, in counsel, my pastor had told this individual, "I'm not asking you to forget, I'm asking you to forgive." The man was dumbfounded. We throw around the phrase "forgive and forget" a lot, but, in reality, if somebody truly hurts us, we're not going to forget. Sometimes we are barely able to forgive.

I know that I have had incidents in my life that come back on me from time to time. Some of those instances I find very hard to forgive. One thing that makes it easier on me when those things come to remembrance is the realization that I can't take vengeance on them (and most of time that is quite literal--I'm angry at an individual that I haven't even seen in years), and the understanding that if God is anywhere near as angry at them for what happened as I am, then they are going to Hell. Is that what I want? No, really it's not. There is no one that I can think of, that, if I had the opportunity to choose, I would choose for them to go to Hell. There are some that I don't think I would want in Heaven, but not any that I would want to go the other place (and, no, I don't believe there are any other choices--one of these days, maybe I'll blog about purgatory, or the idea that after God destroys the earth, that He is going to re-create it as a new paradise, second only to Heaven itself, for those not quite good enough to go to Heaven).

Now, you may know people that you feel deserve to burn for eternity. I suspect some of you feel that way about someone (I have felt that way about some people in the past, but I got over it); realistically, if you sit down and really think it through, to have someone spend eternity in the worst possible torment... I don't think that's really what you want. If it is, then let me refer you to Matthew 5:22.

Even secular psychologists will tell you that by not forgiving someone, you are really only hurting yourself. All the anger in the world directed at someone else, only raises one's own blood pressure, increases one's own heartbeat, causes one's own mental anguish. Sometimes we really just have to let those things go. The term that is used for refusing to forgive is, 'self-destructive.'

I am reminded of something I read many years ago. Two men that worked in New York City rode the subway to work every morning, and every morning, one of them would stop and buy a paper at the only newsstand in between the subway station and the building that they both worked in, and the news vendor was always surly. The guy that bought the paper never seemed to let it bother him, but it drove his friend crazy; finally, one day he asked, "Why don't you ever get upset at the way that man treats you?" The reply: "Why should I let him determine my day?" I have wanted to be like that ever since I read that.