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.

Freedom Isn’t Really Freedom

by Tyler Zach

Is it possible for a free person to be a slave?

Is it a paradox that a person growing in freedom can actually become less free?

Rob Bell, in his newest book, Sex God, says something quite interesting:

“Often freedom is seen as the ability to do whatever you want. But freedom isn’t being able to have whatever we crave. Freedom is going without whatever we crave and being fine with it.”

Let’s look at a drinking scenario since it is a rather common occurrence in fraternities and sororities.

Many Greeks have the potential to become pendulum swingers when it comes to personality and attitude. During the big parties, these students are energized, happy, humorous, and seem to enjoy life to the fullest. But during the school week comes complaining, bitterness, and depression. Thus, the weekly Wasted Wednesday becomes an oasis opportunity for these guys and girls to drink and be satisfied with life again.

In choosing the freedom to drink, these students slip more and more out of freedom.

We often become dependent on what are free to do. Therefore we become un-free.

Guys who choose to look at pornography because they are free to do so, become addicted and then become slaves to pornography. Girls who choose to date one guy after another because they are free to do so, become addicted to dating and then become slaves to dating.

Whatever you are choosing to do that you have become a slave to, as trivial as it may seem, still affects your daily attitude. A guy who doesn’t get his daily or weekly dose of pornography will simply act different than a guy who isn’t dependent on pornography. A girl who can’t go without having a boyfriend will act different than a girl who can be without a boyfriend for a period of time.

So, how can we be really free?

The bible makes it clear that we are born as broken people. We are slaves to doing the things that bring chaos instead of order. We’d rather be addicted to things that benefit ourselves rather than benefit others. We are slaves of wrongdoing.

Jesus, however, offers us an alternative – being slaves or right doing. Can you imagine being the type of person who can’t help but do the right thing in every situation?

This is true freedom: Not being addicted to any wrongdoing.

However, simply abstaining from wrong things will not lead to satisfaction. A lot of Christians are really good at following the rules and abstaining from the wrong things. But there is no joy and not satisfaction in their life. That is why they secretly envy their fraternity brothers or sorority sisters who are living it up, partying, and enjoying life to the fullest. This type of envy makes it easy for them to condemn the wrong doers because they wish they could be having fun too!

No, true freedom means replacing the addiction of wrong things with the addiction of right things. True freedom means leaving behind the story of your life for a better story.

By receiving Jesus into your life and submitting to his way of life, you will eventually become more and more addicted to him and a life of right doing. You will find yourself desiring to go down and serve Hurricane Katrina victims rather than going on a party trip to Mexico. You will find yourself serving your housemates by doing extra chores rather than locking yourself in your room to look at pornography. You will find yourself hanging out with and mentoring younger brothers and sisters in the House instead of spending an hour on the phone each night with your boyfriend or girlfriend – who you will eventually break up with.

Being a slave to right doing is the only kind of addiction you want to have in your life. And this change of life can only come through Jesus. He died and was resurrected so that we could die to a life of wrongdoing and resurrected into a life of right doing.

Self-help books won’t do the trick.