Addiction is a crazy thing… Sure, sometimes it’s a devilish trap, one little taste and you are hooked, but generally it’s a search for fulfilment that drives this thing we call addiction.
Dr Gabor Maté speaks about addiction on a TEDx talk and says that often it starts with a pain… and the addiction is a pain killer. Or a hole filler… or a warm blanket.
If you are a child of the 70’s, addiction was weed and LSD. In the 80’s addiction looks like a mandrax tablet… or the 90’s… addiction looks like speed and ecstasy… Or at least, that is how I remember it from Church holiday camps and Rodney Seale talks… In 2020’s it seems addiction is work, porn, sex, the internet, shopping and TikTok.
So we’ve tried filling our emotional buckets with every kind of plant, drug, chemical or behaviour… and still… empty…
I believe the Bible has the answer in Romans 11. There is a simple idea tucked away in verse 36.
everything finds fulfilment in God
“For from Him and through Him and for Him ARE ALL THINGS.”
(Romans 11:36 NIV)
[emphasis mine]
Let me simplify it in terms I understand… If I find a piece of paper with some scribbles and a picture on it… I might think its cute, I might have some thoughts, but it has no meaning, and I will through it away.
However, if it’s a note from my daughter, painstakingly written in crayon and created with love… I will stick it on my cubicle wall or computer screen that I can look at it every day and know that the love it was made with is bigger than any mountain and deeper than the sea!
We try and fill up with copies of things that makes us feel, for a minute, good like that. But it cannot work.
It’s not what God gives us that fulfils us… it is the WHO that gives it to us, that makes it valuable and fulfilling.
Jesus gave a hint to the woman at the well. “I will give you water that you will never thirst again”
(John 4:14)
It’s not the water… it’s the giver.
I think the Passion Translation is the most clear and descriptive in this case:
”And because God is the source and sustainer of everything, everything finds fulfilment in Him”(Romans 11:36 TPT)
Seek out God… what God gives you, fills the hole, heals the pain, emotionally connects and strengthens you.
The cool thing is that we don’t need to pay a fee, make an appointment, or fill out some forms to get to God.
Just speak…
“God… it’s me… can I have a minute…?“
(He always will!)
