God Addict

I went to God thinking that He could solve my problem, but He didn’t. Not because He couldn’t, but because His solution wasn’t what I was looking for. The solution I was looking for was similar to the newlywed experience… or the just started dating experience. I felt accepted because of the feelings and the experience that I was having with Him. When that feeling and experience went away I might not have felt accepted anymore. I kept going back to God more and more and could it be that just like a drug I needed more and more of it in order to get the same kind of high? But that high, that solution had to require more and more of me… more devotion… more time reading… more time doing all the stuff that I should in order to be close to God.

I had the pain. God was my drug.

But it never solved to problem. It never got across to me that I was accepted… the only thing that happened was the pain went away. And when I stopped feeling the effects of the drug, for whatever reason… whether not doing it enough or whatever, I began to feel as if God was rejecting me. And perhaps if I couldn’t attain that feeling, then I wasn’t accepted. That feeling meant I was accepted and if I did not have that feeling, I was sure or at least felt… maybe not sure…that I wasn’t.

I was a God addict.

He isn’t there primarily to take away the pain. Something is causing the pain and it needs to be dealt with. The closeness I felt brought peace to my heart, but it was only a drug to cover the symptom, because when that feeling went away, whether it was true or not, I did not feel accepted. I felt rejected.

I pursued Him as the solution to my pain, but the drug didn’t work. It was never supposed to work like that. You can’t mask the pain all the time, you have to get the thorn out. You can’t go to God to primarily solve your pain. Otherwise you are just chasing another type of drug.

I fought so hard and long to be close to God, not because I loved Him or stuff like that, but rather because He took away the pain. But, because those experiences do not last forever, the pain continued and resurfaced. This might have pushed me on toward more and more devotion, but it never did anything to the inner condition that caused the pain in the first place.

Perhaps it also reinforced that idea that I had to do this this and this to be accepted. I had to do the right thing in order to be accepted. I had to please people to gain their favor and acceptance. I didn’t believe that I could be accepted or that I was accepted just for who I was. Just for who I am.

My issue is acceptance. I don’t believe, because of events that occurred to me early on in life, that I can be accepted just for who I am. That is my problem, and I don’t need a fix to cover the pain. I need to understand that I am accepted. I need to know that I am cared for by God regardless of what I have done or will do. I need to know that I am unconditionally accepted. I need to know the truth… and the truth will set me free.

(Thanks to Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz; his thoughts sparked a tangent in my mind that led me here… and first and foremost to God, who guided me with those thoughts.)

Stumbling on Job

So, today I opened up to the book of Job and read for a while. I'm not exactly why I turned it there but the first part of it got me interested. I kept reading and pretty much skipped to around the end when Elihu speaks to Job about God's righteousness and goodness. And I think it really hit me deep inside.

You see, I have, for the past few years, had this feeling that I was being unjustly or unfairly treated by God. I had read the book of Job before but I had never realized as much of the fullness of the meaning as I have now. I believe that I accused God of treating me unfairly. I was angry, upset on the inside. But Elihu's comments got to me. God is just and not only that he is righteous and good. Who am I to think that I could judge God?

I was also upset because I felt as if I wanted to come to Him, begging Him to let me in, but He just wouldn't. I felt that I had done my part but God was just letting me hang. I felt as if I was doing what was right and He wasn't doing His part of the deal. Then BAM, by reading Job I realized that I had been seeing myself as more righteous than God was.

Whatever difficulties we go through in life and whatever happens we can know and trust that God is just, God is righteous, God is good, and that He is in control. If we ever get to the place that we start condemning God or thinking that we have been unjustly treated by Him then we are treading on dangerous ground. For who has any right to speak to God like that. Can I stand in a position to say, "God, I know better than you do about this"? Do we dare speak to the one who sees every aspect and angle of every situation and complain that He doesn't know what He is doing? It is pride in our hearts and evil to think that we could know righteousness and truth and justice better than God.

We need to trust, no matter what, that not only can God do whatever He wants because He is God, but that He, along with that, is always righteous, is always good, is always just. He is a God full of loving-kindness and mercy.

I used to look at the Old Testament and complain in my mind about how God seemed to do some pretty horrible stuff. "How could he be a God of love" I would say. But if you look you see that the character of God shown in the Old Testament is one of especially great love, kindness, and mercy. Just take a look at the book of Jonah. Sometimes we seem to think that we can judge God from our tiny miniscule angles. We just can't.