Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Addictions and mind games? ............. Parables 745

February 26, 2002

Our friend, a doctor, says he loves working with people who have addictions because “treating them is a game.” He explains that an addict will eventually agree to treatment, but only because he secretly thinks he can get out of it. This doctor likes to “out-manipulate” addicts and “put them in a position of giving up their will.”

Does this treatment succeed? Perhaps some people are freed from addictions, but I’m not sure anyone actually gives up their will. God gave us freedom to make choices and unless physically forced or chemically induced, our will is too strong to easily take from us. Perhaps some would say this doctor is doing a bit of “god-playing” with his treatment. He backs the addict into a corner leaving only one clear option. The patient sees he must choose cooperation and abandon his addiction. Or is “god-playing” an appropriate term? Does God work like that?

In the New Testament book of Romans, the Apostle Paul talks about some who commit gross kinds of sin. He explains in chapter one how “God gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts” and “to a depraved mind.” He explains how consequences are a “due penalty for their perversion.”

In other words, if a person wants to persist in doing wrong, God will not necessarily interfere. In fact, He might pull back all help and let that person become totally addicted to their sin. This is one opportunity He gives us to change our minds about doing things His way. He lets us find out that our way does not work.

Why would God do let anyone become addicted? The passage gives some answers. First, letting people go into deep sin is a revelation of His wrath. If people reject God and the dangers of sin and “suppresses the truth by their wickedness,” God reveals the results of their rejection: they become slaves to the very thing they wanted the freedom to do.

A second reason is that God makes Himself known to everyone through creation. The passage says, “ . . . what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

It goes on to explain that some, “although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

Rejection of God’s revelation brings blindness to spiritual truth. In that darkness, people succumb to habits and substances that become their gods. These sins bind them like slaves.

How does God release people from that bondage? In this case, those who are enslaved by an addiction can start loosening their chains by acknowledging God as Creator. As they do, they must also admit that He has a claim on their lives.

Another thing an addict can do is be thankful, not only for life and its good things but also for their problems. Even though they used an addiction to escape from them, these problems can be a driving force in a better direction — to God instead of to their habit.

God does not play mind-games. We cannot accuse Him of manipulation. He knows how to pull desperate people out of the clutches of an addiction. The human side is to recognize and admit helplessness, even admit being out of control and not wanting to stop. Then can call to God for help. God’s part is not backing people into a corner — we get there ourselves. Instead, He hears our cry for help and gladly works in us — making us to not only want His will but also setting us free so we can do it.

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