Real Clear Truth

Are you addicted to something? Most everyone is addicted to something. I was addicted to food for years. Make that, I AM addicted to food, but I have learned that I can control that intense craving I have for food.

There are many types of addictions, but in my view, people can be addicted pretty quickly to something. Once the flesh tastes something it finds appealing, it immediately wants more, and we gladly feed its desires *unless* something inside us says there is a good reason to do otherwise.

The biggest reason we control ourselves is societal norms. As much as our body wants something, we don’t want to be rejected by our society and so we will force our body to do without for the sake of our larger emotional needs.

Why does an actress stay thin even though her flesh craves sweets and fattening food? She stays thin because she will lose her status in society if she cannot control herself in this area. Of course, some people are fortunate in this area to have DNA that creates a higher metabolism and less effort is needed to achieve the same results as others.

But culture shapes a lot of this.

Go into a suburban professional-class evangelical church, and you’ll see most people are well dressed, generally more fit looking and their children better behaved. Go into a working-class Spirit-filled church and you’ll see a lot more heavy set people, more poorly dressed and their children given sugary treats in Sunday school and running around because of it.

Well unless it’s a faith based church, and then it’s totally different.

Each culture sets the norms of what is expected, what is most prized and what doesn’t really matter. Our desire to fit in drives our wills then to control our flesh except when the will has already been broken down in some areas.

Because of a lack of wisdom, people let the desires of their flesh drive them right up to their point of tolerance, the point at which they have set in their wills to never cross. But of course, when you’re right up next to that line, it’s easy for circumstances to conspire against you and overcome you. Some circumstances are the neurological transmitters that you’ve trained to want to go up to that edge. Some circumstances are our “friends” that are hoping that if you follow them over that line that they won’t feel so bad. Some circumstances are a media culture that finds value in constantly pushing the envelope as that is what excites. Some circumstances are a down day when your will is sapped and you simply don’t care for a moment. Some circumstances are a very real enemy of our souls who knows the destruction he can cause if he can only coax you into stepping over the line.

The problem is that once circumstances conspire to break through a taboo of our wills, it is no longer a taboo, and it is now so much easier to cross over that line again and again.

These circumstances are like a flood pushing up against our wills and our moral dams. They find every weakness and every hole. They soften our stand and pour over us when we are down. They seek to break the dams knowing the addictions that we already have will finally be given release when the dam is gone.

The breaking of the taboo, the breaking of the dam, the breaking of our will is like the chamber of the pistol in the Russian roulette game finally going off.

Wisdom is to recognize the potential for destruction and to do what is needed to prevent it, not allowing it to even come close, and to set up blocks so that the flood never reaches the level needed to overflow our wills. Wisdom creates a culture in our lives that channels the flood waters into safe areas. Wisdom sets long-term courses in our lives that firmly establish our neural transmitters to work for us and not against us.

There is a thrill to stepping into “forbidden” areas, but wisdom sees the larger thrill of having lived a good life that brings deep rewards and great riches to us. There is a thrill in stepping up to the forbidden line and smelling the fruit on the other side, but wisdom knows our flesh is weak and that the aroma can be irresistible, so it stays far away. There is a thrill to trying a new experience that seems like it will be easy to step away from once we’ve had just a little of it, but wisdom dispels this deception by looking to God and seeking the light of His understanding.

Wisdom is seeing the flower that will be if we don’t let our flesh wither. Wisdom is seeing what is really right, not in accepting what our devolving culture says is okay. Wisdom is seeing the traps that wait to ensnare us, not in assuming our flesh will be able to escape the traps set for us.

Wisdom is in knowing not only that the flesh can be disciplined, but also in understanding our limitations and the prudent paths to follow to avoid those limitations.

Wisdom understands that the law of God was given to bring life and thus studies it to gain the knowledge of how to remain free.

Our culture has no wisdom only because we have not shown it that we have any ourselves. Our culture is blind only because we have allowed darkness to blind us. Our culture is falling into destruction only because we have joined it.

All the while we pretend our spirit is in control even though our wills have long ago given over to the flesh and wisdom has abandoned us to our folly.

For more on how the Christian worldview should change our views on addiction, see this article on the DanielProject website: The “Insanity” of Addiction.