Everyone Has a God

*this musing was adapted from The Last Addiction by Sharon Hersh

“Whatever we are ultimately concerned with is a god for us.” – Paul Tillich

Whether we claim to believe in a god or not, we all have a god (or idol) that we worship and are addicted to – namely, a person, place, substance, activity, or ideology that becomes central to our mind, body, soul, and spirit.

Addiction is from the Latin word addictus, which means “to surrender to the gods”.

We all have a person, place, substance, activity, or ideology that we surrender ourselves to for the sake of finding peace and satisfaction.

It could be baseball. It could be shopping. It could be a parent. It could be a son or daughter. It could be work. It could be school. It could be a fraternity or sorority. It could be Allah. It could be a guy or a girl. It could be alcohol. It could be going green. It could be anything that we think about, talk about, and give praise to the most.

“Addiction is… worship. It is giving my heart and soul over to something that I believe will ease my pain…” – Sharon Hersh

As Christians, we might be tempted to worship something more than God Himself, which is idolatry. And even though an atheist might claim not to be religious (see last blog post), he does in fact have a religion because everyone worships something.

Here is the big truth about being addicted to anything other than God: “Addiction makes everything better until it makes everything worse.”

A man who is addicted to his work and makes it his god may be a good thing at first (i.e. job will bring in good money, favor from co-workers, recognition, etc.). But, when his family starts falling apart, everything gets worse.

We can apply this scenario to any of our idols. And the result is always the same: everything gets better until everything gets worse.

The only addiction that will not lead to emptiness, loneliness, and despair is the God of the bible.

“In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” – Psalm 16:11

Once we are addicted to the God of the bible, we can go on enjoying everything that He’s given us. We can worship Him who has given us all things instead of worshiping the things themselves.