Misery overwhelmed me when I had those moments of not being able to live with myself the way that I was. Being in that state only leaves two roads to choose, die or change. Scared to die I would determine to change, to do it better, to try harder. The winding road of my will to be good took me by different routes back to the place of growing so weary that apathy and hopelessness returned. Every road didn't lead to Rome, it led to relapse, it took me to the place where the walking dead rule and the old nature I wanted to believe had died did as he pleased.
I tried everything. I promised myself to do all the things good people did. I assured God that I would do better this time. I announced deliverance and victory and told how I'd been set free and pretended that I wasn't scared to death that it wouldn't last and that I couldn't hear the voice in my head laughing and telling me that I was full of it. I remember sometime around the age of 15 being prayed for by some youth minister speaker and going home and telling my father that I had been healed of my addiction to cocaine. Of course all I really did was let him know I'd been doing coke, because my freedom only lasted a few more days before I picked back up. I think that part of me hoped that if I told everyone God delivered me that He would have to do it just to keep from looking bad when I failed. And I always failed. Every resolution. Every goal set. Every promise. Every religious discipline I thought would make me good. Every secular training method and self-improvement technique. Everything I tried fell short and my determination disappeared like a New Year's resolution to diet dies in the face of Valentine's chocolates, if it makes it that far.
Even the rooms of recovery and much of what I heard there only put off the inevitable stumble. Thinking the movie through, avoiding being hungry, angry, lonely and tired, 90 meetings in 90 days, changing my people, places and things, avoiding my triggers, sticking with the winners and trying not to be alone for more than a little while and so many more tips and tricks to just not use no matter what. None of it worked long. Relapse after relapse. I was the prodigal running back to the pigs instead of staying home.
I was too bad to be good. I was worthless and couldn't do right. When I tried, I felt like a hypocrite because part of me always wanted to do it wrong. When I didn't try, I believed myself unloved by God because I chose wrong over right. I was a pathetic failure who didn't deserve to be free or to be helped. I was a true slave to my desires, and my desires were selfish at best, stupid and damaging and deadly at worst. I was the moth that knew the heat of flame would one day burn me up but couldn't resist the urge to fly close, and part of me always wanted the fire. I had a mind afraid to die but chose repeatedly the path that led to death. It made no sense. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't change it. Understanding the futility only seemed to make me more miserable. I was broken. The citizens of the Island Of Misfit Toys looked at me and thought what a broken mess. I literally had a dope fiend express her gratitude that at least she wasn't as screwed up and hurting as I was.
Can you relate to any of that? Whether it's an addiction like drugs or alcohol, or a habitual sin that makes you feel like a failure and a liar when you walk into church or tell people you're a Christian, do you feel that hopelessness that comes from no longer being able to lie to yourself that lasting change is possible? Have you come to the place where you know you simply just can't do it right, at least not long?
If so, you're right. You can't do it right. You will never be good enough. You can't make yourself good, kind, unselfish, clean, sober, right or anything in the neighborhood. You might can visit a while, but you can't move in and live there. You're not good enough or strong enough to get past the HOA. But that hopelessness is the place where true hope is born. Not the hope that is a halfhearted wish. Not a wouldn't it be nice if I won the lottery, and if I lose no big, it's only a buck, why not try? No, the hope that is an expectation that the answer will come, that the appearances are wrong and this is not how the story will end.
My wife and I were recently listening to a book together in which one of the major characters received a deadly injury. I told Leah that the character was not dead. Was not. No matter what the author did to attempt to manipulate me into grieving for or believing in the loss, I refused. My hope was based simply on the logic that this was not the last book in the series and the story couldn't be carried on without the support of that character. Sure enough, several chapters later came the big reveal that the character had been miraculously spared. Expectant hope based on faith that I understood the story. Now, the same kind of thing failed me when years of comic book reading set me up to believe right up until the credits ran that the movie Wonder Woman would end differently than it did.
Hope that we know the story causes us not to fall for the twists, and it is also why the book is always better than the film. since the book got it right and the movie changed everything, causing our hope and understanding to be deferred. That sure hope, that expectant understanding of the story, that assures that no matter what happens, no matter the plot twist, the end is assured, can be yours. If you feel worthless and undeserving, broken and sick, you are the perfect candidate. Jesus came to heal the broken and to set the captive free. He didn't come for the ones who were good enough and well but for the sick and the sinners and the undeserving. And even the plot twist of His death on the cross and burial couldn't change the ending. Our hope is not a wish and it's not in religion or effort or anything but the truth that God loves us, is who He says He is and will do what He says He'll do, no matter what plot twists our failures, life, or anything else make it look like.
God love you as you are, not as you should be, But He also loves you enough not to leave you broken and alone, His greatest desire is to have relationship with you and to heal you and set you free. If we will just let Him, He will begin and complete the work. Relapse and failure ended for me not when I tried harder but when I came through the hopelessness of knowing that no effort on my part would be enough and looked to Him for the solution and the power to overcome my problems. There is a solution, and it is found in the love of our Creator doing for us what we can not do for ourselves.
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