I could go on. I am sure there are more ways someone could say what basically amounts to the same thing. Religion? No thanks. I don't think that will work, and I really don't want to try it. And I don't blame you. With what we tend to think of and call to mind when we think of religion or say someone is religious is negative at best.
People in religion don't like, perhaps even hate, all those who disagree with them and don't belong to their group. Religious friendship isn't really friendship at all. Non-believers are just projects or targets. No one really cares about the person, just about getting them into the group, making them one of the rest. If someone isn't interested or doesn't want to hear about their religion, then the religious people disappear, moving on to the next person. Or worse, they become condescending and judgmental, treating the person as less than and with disapproval. This can make work environments especially miserable. Religious people are seen as rude, stingy, selfish, judgmental, angry, non-accepting and always ready to strike out against those who don't believe or who believe differently. Religion is too hard. If you do enough of the good and the right and don't do enough of the bad and the wrong, then maybe God will like you and you can go to Heaven and get help. But often it seems like the person in need of help and love is just beat on. A scared girl facing a terrible choice is screamed at and told she's horrible and going to hell just for thinking about abortion. A young man looking across the street from a college campus seeing angry, yelling people holding signs that tell him he is hated by God because he is gay. Religion and politics become so intertwined that political view and religion become the same label and then the attacks, anger and hate towards the other side becomes so unloving and family and friends are exiled, cut out of life and blocked on social media because of disagreements over health care, gun control, drugs, and a host of other things, and the issue is political but the wounds are religious.
That's what many see and feel and think about religion. Doesn't that sound like fun? Not to me it doesn't. Being a part of that is like being friends with the bully simply to escape being a target only to find that you eventually truly become a bully. It's sad but true that we who claim to follow Jesus may be the only Jesus someone ever sees and then they see some variation of the above. Hurtful, hateful and hypocritical. No wonder that they run from the idea of turning to God.
But the truth is that we who are or were addicts have lived a very strict, religious-like life. No/ I hate religion! I won't let some set of rules and beliefs dictate all I do, think, and feel or how I behave. I refuse to be a part of a group that treats people who are one of them the way religions do. Oh really?
Well, thinking back, my only real friends who others who drank and used, particularly those who drank and used similarly to the way that I did/. I didn't like hanging out with those who were clean. I derided and judged and didn't trust those who were outside my group, especially those who were clean. I only acted friendly or like I cared about someone as long as I thought I could get something out of it in return. Goodness, I could go on.
And talk about being controlled in a religious way. Let's take a look at the Ten Commandments with a twist.
1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
The vast majority of my time was spent worshiping drugs and alcohol. Almost every moment was spent consuming, or thinking about being able to consume, or working toward getting something to consume. Seriously, what or who came before my chemical god? Nothing. I would do pretty much anything, walk away from anyone or anything for another taste. I sacrificed family, friends, freedom, careers, money, and more on the altar of addiction. I am not unique. Nothing and no one was more important. Nothing came before it.
2. Don't practice idolatry.
Idolatry is defined as the worship of idols and extreme adoration, love or reverence for someone more than or others than God. It didn't take long as a member of the Church of the Hallowed Chemical before that wasn't even hard. I couldn't really love or adore anyone, and the only thing I had reverence for were the chemicals.
3. Don't take the name of the Lord in vain.
Taking the Lord's name in vain is calling Him Lord and acting like He's not. It's using His name to justify our sin. It's basically acting like the religious jerk in the paragraphs above and blaming God for it. So the addict, the one trapped in the bondage of habitual sin, behaves horribly and blames everything else but himself or herself. He or she constantly denies that they are slaves. I can quit any time. This thing doesn't have any real power over me. But in the times when everything gets quiet and truth can't be denied, we knew there was nothing more in control and more powerful in our lives than our addiction and the need to feed it.
4. Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy.
There was nothing more holy to us than our free time, right? The time set aside to be able to drink or use or do whatever. Nothing was more important. Not family events, not holidays, not celebrations, nothing. We might could limit our intake or participation for a while, become a functional addict, for family or work, but only if there was a block of time, the weekend, the late night, the something, that could be totally devoted to worship and nothing could interfere with that without a problem.
5. Honor your father and mother.
This is the first one that must be totally changed. It simply gets reversed to don't honor your father or mother or anyone else for that matter, at least not more than the master. Devotion to the addiction supersedes all other relationships.
6. You shall not murder.
The second one that gets reversed. You shall harm all others who threaten your ability to worship at the altar of addiction, even to death. Beating, stealing, and even killing, are all options to protect the stash, to protect the freedom to continue using, or to attain what is necessary to consume.
7. Don't commit adultery.
You will be faithful to the addiction. Even years after quitting, the addiction calls the formerly faithful to worship in dreams, in cravings, in moments of temptation.
8. You shall not steal.
Reverse world once more. Steal. Seriously. What's mine is mine and what's yours is mine if I can' help you consume it or get it away from you. I would surely help you drink your wine in the name of a good time, and I would steal your stash and help you look for it.
9. Do not bear false witness.
This is another reversal. Say anything about anyone to get the blame, pressure, heat off you so that your ability to come to the altar isn't hindered. It's everyone else/s fault, every problem, every mistake, everything. Refuse to take responsibility for anything. Convict everyone else. If they didn't, if you didn't, I wouldn't have....
10. Don't covet.
Don't long for or be willing to work toward having anything that anyone else has. Don't try to get or maintain a family, home, career, anything really. All that you need is the addiction. You don't need anyone or anything else, so don't even bother trying.
At let's not forget the demands of our vicious god. We addicts sacrifice children on its altar. Sacrifice marriages, parents, siblings, even our ourselves. We trust nothing else but the addiction to meet our needs, and it is our only source for validation and forgiveness. Not true forgiveness of course, but when the shame becomes too much to bear, even the shame of the addiction and the things done to feed and in the name of the addiction, it isn't family or friends or even God we turn to. It is the addiction that helps us ignore, forget, pretend, escape.
I was far more faithful as an addict than I ever have been as a Christian. I hope that isn't always the case. I would love to get to a place where I truly was as wholly and completely devoted and consumed by my relationship with Daddy as I was for a quarter of a century with chemicals. I don't want anything to be more important to me than Him and our relationship. We addicts have plenty of religious tendencies. We are more like the religious that we despise and that have hurt us than we like to admit. We have done more evil and stupid in the name of our god than any hypocrite we've ever met.
The answer is not to stop worshiping at the altar of addiction in exchange for a different set of rules and commandments. It's not to stop being a selfish jerk for whatever your addiction is and start being a selfish jerk for Jesus, or Buddha, or Mohammad or ...... The problem with religion is the demand to measure up. Do this. Don't do that. Do it all well enough and hope it's been enough. Attack anyone different to show your devotion and commitment. Don't be tempted to stray or be guilty by association. Cut out everyone and condemn all those who will bot be like you. Pretend that you are OK and accuse everyone else of not being so. The God problem can not be solved by religion because religion is about us, created by us, to make ourselves feel better and to control ourselves. And it fails.
But relationship with God is not about what we have or haven't done. It's all about what Jesus has already done for us. It's not about earning or deserving but about receiving. It's not about excluding and exiling others. It's about loving even enemies. Christians will and do fail. They get caught up in political and moral battles and react wrong. They try to cover their sin and shame by acting good enough. They try to feel superior by pointing out the wrongs and flaws of others. And more. And worse. In other words, they are just as human as non-Christians. And if you have been beaten up by judgmental jerks in the name of Jesus, I am so sorry. I have been there and felt that. I got pushed around and beat up so bad in and by the church that by the time I turned 13 I completely and totally believed that God hated me. That crap is not Christianity and we are not called to that. Christians act that way sometimes, because Christians are not yet made perfect and we sin. But Christianity is not those things. It is a call to love God and love others, to deny self and follow in the example and footsteps of Jesus. When we do that, we find freedom. We find a life worth living. And we discover by grace the love of Daddy that doesn't have to be earned or deserved. The God problem is solved in relationship not rules.
This site is free. If this blessed, helped and or informed you, the best thing you can do is pass it on via the social buttons below. And please subscribe or follow Unshackled Life Ministries on Facebook.
Unshackled Life Ministries is grateful for every person that reads the daily Unshackled Moments, the weekly Unshackled Echo and or listens to the Audio Messages. I want to thank those who have clicked "like" on something that blessed or ministered to them on social media, commented on the blog or replied to an email subscription. It is encouraging to know that God is using this ministry to help and bless others. Please remember that if God used something from this ministry to help, encourage or bless you, it could also bless someone else. Would you help get the devotions and sermons to more people by sharing this? Hitting the share button or forwarding this to a friend will help us reach more people with the good news of freedom and the encouragement to live an Unshackled Life. Thank you and God bless.
No comments:
Post a Comment