Jesus never seemed to be in a hurry. He lived and interacted with others at the speed of walking. He had time for people. He was relaxed. However, for most of us, slowing down is one of the hardest things to implement about the Jesus way of life. Jesus has much to teach us about managing our pace and succeeding in the things that matter most. Join us online this week as we learn to change our pace and embrace slow.
www.chaseoaks.org. Used by permission.
Religion, Addiction, and Sobriety
Religion relates to spirituality, which is embracing a higher power and allowing that power to help us through life’s struggles. Spirituality is something that’s with a person wherever she is, and at all times supports her. Sometimes, religion plays a role in addiction recovery because even religious people can become addicts.
From Futures of Palm Beach:
“There is no race, belief, nor any amount of wealth or knowledge that can prevent a person from becoming dependent on a substance… Religion, however, can play a substantial role in recovery for some people.”
AA: a Faith-Based Organization that Promotes Sobriety
More than one million people are Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) members. The group attempts to keep its members sober, and the methods they use are based on a solid belief in God.
AA uses a 12-step program, and that program asks participants to recognize that addiction cannot be controlled, and only a higher power can restore sanity. Addicts are asked to call upon God to help them find the strength and will to change, understand, recover, and eventually move forward with their life. AA is for alcoholics, but there are sister groups, such as Narcotics Anonymous (NA), that offer support for other types of addictions.
Spirituality and How it Can Help with Sobriety
AA maintains that it’s not a typical religious organization, but rather that it promotes spirituality (however the group member defines their spirituality). AA was founded by a deeply religious man, Dr. Frank Buchman, a Lutheran minister. Dr. Buchman didn’t call his group AA, and it wasn’t about treating alcoholism. At its start, the group was about resolving all conflicts in a sinner’s life.
It wasn’t until later that the group’s name was changed to Alcoholics Anonymous, and the group almost immediately began accepting an individual definition of God. The only firmament is that one must believe in a higher power in order to work the program, and become successfully sober.
This spirituality helps with sobriety because it teaches the newly sober to call upon their God for strength, wisdom, insight, and help. In dark moments, addicts can ask God for help and strength. They can ask God to keep them clean and sober, and with God’s divine assistance, they can provide help and assistance to other addicts. A relationship with God helps addicts rebuild their relationships with family members and friends.
Religion gives peace, hope, strength, and comfort, which is why it’s often a fundamental to sobriety. It teaches addicts that everything happens for a reason, and that getting sober is part of God’s plan for them. It can help the addict to learn from his mistakes, and move forward with his life in a positive and beneficial way.
Religions that Provide Addiction Support to their Members
Religion can help a person deal with addictions, but that person must make the conscious choice to embrace their God and work toward sobriety. Christianity provided the foundation for AA, but it’s not required to believe in the Bible to attend meetings. Christianity is the single most popular religion in the US, and according to Futures of Palm Beach, it’s “the majority leader of religiously affiliated treatment programs in America.”
Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism are all very forgiving toward addicts. These religions promote health and kindness, and provide different tools for getting clean and sober. For example, yoga is a part of Hinduism and can be used to build a healthy exercise routine. Unfortunately, the Islamic religion, or Muslim religion, is not so supportive of addicts. In the Middle East, addiction is something to condemn despite the million people or so who are admitted addicts.
If you need help, you don’t have to turn to God, but you can. Religion isn’t a requisite to get better, but it can be very helpful. If you want to learn more, get in touch with an recovery specialist, and inquire about the options available to you.
http://www.futuresofpalmbeach.com/addictions/how-major-religions-understand-and-deal-with-addiction/
http://silkworth.net/religion_clergy/01060.html
“Lord…let me know how fleeting my life is.” Psalm 39:4
Abraham Lincoln once listened to the pleas of the mother of a soldier who’d been sentenced to hang for treason. She begged the President to grant a pardon. Lincoln agreed. Yet, he’s reported to have left the lady with the following words: “Still, I wish we could teach him a lesson. I wish we could give him just a little bit of hangin’.”
I think I know what the old rail-splitter had in mind. Yesterday, I got a little bit of hangin’.
We were having Sunday lunch at the home of a fellow missionary family. It was after the meal, and I was in the kitchen while Denalyn and our friends, Paul and Debbie, were talking in the living room. Their three-year-old daughter Beth Ann was playing with our two-year-old Jenna in the front yard. All of a sudden Beth Ann rushed in with a look of panic on her face. “Jenna is in the pool!”
Paul was the first to arrive at the poolside. He went straight into the water. Denalyn was next to arrive. By the time I arrived, Paul had lifted her up out of the water to the extended hands of her mother. Jenna was simultaneously choking, crying, and coughing. She vomited a bellyful of water. I held her as she cried. Denalyn began to weep. I began to sweat.
For the rest of the day I couldn’t hold her enough, nor could we thank little Beth Ann enough (we took her out for ice cream). I still can’t thank God enough.
It was only a matter of minutes, maybe seconds. We almost lost her. The thought was numbing and convicting.
It was a little bit of hangin’.
The stool was kicked out from under my feet and the rope jerked around my neck just long enough to remind me of what really matters. It was a devine slap, a gracious knock on the head, a severe mercy. Because of it I came face to face with one of the underground’s slyest agents—the agent of familiarity.
His commission from the black throne room is clear, and total: “Take nothing from your victim; cause him only to take everything for granted.”
He’d been on my trail for years and I never knew it. But it I know it now. I’ve come to recognize his tactics and detect his presence. And I’m doing my best to keep him out. His aim is deadly. His goal is nothing less than to take what is most precious to us and make it appear most common.
He won’t steal your salvation; he’ll just make you forget what it was like to be lost. You’ll grow accustomed to prayer and thereby not pray. Worship will become commonplace and study optional. With the passing of time he’ll infiltrate your heart with boredom and cover the cross with dust so you’ll be safely out of reach of change. Score one for the agent of familiarity.
Nor will he steal your home from you; he’ll do something far worse. He’ll paint it with a familiar coat of drabness.
He’ll replace evening gowns with bathrobes, nights on the town with evenings in the recliner, and romance with routine. He’ll scatter the dust of yesterday over the wedding pictures in the hallway until they become a memory of another couple in another time.
He won’t take your children, he’ll just make you too busy to notice them. His whispers to procrastinate are seductive. There is always next summer to coach the team, next month to go to the lake, and next week to teach Johnny how to pray. He’ll make you forget that the faces around your table will soon be at tables of their own. Hence, books will go unread, games will go unplayed, hearts will go unnutured, and opportunities will go ignored. All because the poison of the ordinary has deadened your senses to the magic of the moment.
Before you know it, the little face that brought tears to your eyes in the delivery room has become—perish the thought—common. A common kid sitting in the back seat of your van as you whiz down the fast lane of life. Unless something changes, unless someone wakes you up, that common kid will become a common stranger.
A little bit of hangin’ might do us all a bit of good.
On a shelf above my desk is a picture of two little girls. They’re holding hands and standing in front of a swimming pool; the same pool from which the younger of the two had been pulled only minutes before. I put the picture where I would see it daily so I would remember what God doesn’t want me to forget.
And you can bet this time I’m going to remember. I don’t want any more hangin’. Not even a little bit.
http://www.upwords.com. Used by permission.
“You fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.” Psalm 16:11 KJV
What a drastic difference salvation makes! To the one who doesn’t know God “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31); but for those who know Christ personally He is “able to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy.” (Jude 24)!
Think about it…we can stand before Him-now-present tense, blameless and with great joy. Joy, the commodity that is so elusive for those who look for it in the world, is available in full measure—in God’s presence. R.A.Torrey once said, “There is more joy in Jesus in twenty-four hours than there is in the world in 365 days. I have tried them both,” and he was exactly right.
Principal Rainy, of whom a child once remarked that she believed he went to heaven every night because he was so happy every day, once used a fine metaphor about the Christian’s joy. “Joy,” he said, “is the flag which is flown from the castle of the heart when the King is in residence there.”
The primary motivation for worship must always be the simple fact that God is worthy of worship. Worship is for God, not for us. But an ancillary benefit of worship is the delight that it brings to the worshipper.
We don’t worship for selfish reasons, but God, in His goodness, has so designed the worship experience for mutual satisfaction. Duty becomes desire, and in the process of giving Him glory and adoration He gives us peace and joy.
Worship is a wonderful experience. To gain an audience with God we don’t have to wail, cry, of cut our bodies like the worshippers of Baal; He invites us into His presence to dine with Him, and the meal is always satisfying.
Judson Cornwall speaks of a craving only satisfied by worship: “Several years ago while pasturing in Eugene, Oregon, where we were involved in a building program, I had a rare evening off. Seated alone in my front room after having a delicious meal, I became aware of a deep longing or a craving for something. Rationalizing that I had not taken time to listen to music for many weeks, I put some classical music on and sat back to relax and enjoy its soothing sounds. But the music only increased my edginess. Thinking that it was the wrong type of music for my mood, I changed to Christian music, but its effect upon me was no better. I began to read in silence, assuming that my intellect needed feeding because my involvement in the building program had consumed my reading time. Nevertheless, I couldn’t find any type of literature that satisfied me.
Almost absentmindedly, thinking that my craving was for food, I wandered into the kitchen and prepared myself a large roast beef sandwich. But inasmuch as I had already stuffed myself on my wife’s cooking less than an hour before, I soon realized that my craving was not physical, emotional, or intellectual. This left only my spirit; so I got onto my knees to pray and began to touch the presence of God. Total satisfaction swept through my being. All along it had been my spirit yearning to contact God’s Spirit. I had misread it as a craving in my soul or my body. Finally, the deep crying of my spirit had been satisfied in God’s presence.”*
In like manner, we will discover that the deep longing in our lives will be fulfilled-in His presence.
After reading the following verses, list some of the advantages of being in God’s presence:
Notice in these verses that when God removes His presence, it is always a sign of grave judgment.
When you spend time with God, is it a restful, peaceful, joyful experience? There is a difference between God’s omnipresence and His manifest presence. The fact that He is omnipresent means that He is everywhere at all times; even in every wicked place on earth. His presence is also in the midst of His faithful followers who have gathered to acknowledge and worship Him. In what situations is God most likely to manifest His presence?
List some ways you can develop a hunger for God’s presence. Write down some times that you have experienced God manifest presence, both in worship with other believers and in your private time with God. What were the circumstances that surrounded those special times? Spend some time in Psalm 131. Picture yourself being held in the gracious arms of your Heavenly Father.
*Judson Cornwall, Let Us Worship, pp. 9-10, Bridge Publishing 1983.
*Dr. Don McMinn, A Heart Aflame! pp. 10-12, NCM Press, 1993.
PSALM 16:11
JUDE 24
1 SAMUEL 30:3-6
PSALM 31:20
ACTS 3:19
1 JOHN 3:19
GENESIS 4:14
EXODUS 33:15-16
2 KINGS 17:22-23
JEREMIAH 23:39
Dear Jesus, Show me how to enter into your presence in quiet worship. May I learn to experience the joy of fellowship with You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
