Confessions of An Addict

The problem with being an ex-addict of any kind is that as long as you're NOT using, you're doing good.

The other problem is that "other" issue many arise, but as long as they are not the issue they are harder to see.

Recently at my churches women's retreat we heard about this modern day Babylon that we all live in. It's a self-indulgent or over-indulgent society.
We listened to Beth Moore speak from her Daniel series and claimed "I am and there is none beside me" (Isaiah 47:8) as the Babylonian motto.

Going into retreat I knew my life needed some changes.
In various areas, but changes for sure.
I had/have some areas that I live for me. Where I do what I want, when I want, and for the most part as much as I want.
Quite frankly "I am and there is none beside me" rings strongly in my actions and voice in certain many areas.

So, good for me, I'm not partaking in my addiction, you know the "bad" ones they created 12-step programs for, but I was hit hard with some over-indulgent behaviors that lie in more acceptable areas.

See, if I drink a bunch of alcohol and get wasted every night or smoke pot all day every day then I have a problem.

But, other things like
exercise,
eating,
working.

Those things can be a problem and I don't know it because they are #1 legal, #2 not as easily identified and #3 I can find more people to tell me they are not a problem. After all it's not bad for me to train for a 5k or eat a magic cookie bar and I gotta work my job.

So the Lord worked perfectly in many avenues and areas and I was led to eat only fruits and veggies for 10 days.
Today is day #9.
I've survived. So far.

It's been hard and at about day 7 I missed "real" food, at least I made it to day 7 before I called it "real" food. The hardest part has been cooking for the rest of my family and not licking my fingers.
I even baked a cake last weekend and no cheating!

I am reminded how much God has sacrificed for me. How He left His majesty in heaven to come to earth as a human. While here not only did He not eat anything for 40 days, but He died for me. He chose suffering for my freedom, death for my life.
I don't want to forget that fact.
I too often do.
I don't want to move about my life training for a race, working my job, educating my children, interacting with others without remembering the fact that my life is not mine, it's not even about me. It's Christ's and it belongs to God.
This story I'm living is not my story. It's God's. Too often I live it like it's mine, like it's my kids, like it's about here and now.
It's not.
It's about eternity.
It's about the kingdom of heaven.
So as I sit her making my favorite childhood meal, I will remember that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Then I will make up some sort of creative vegetable meal and eat it, happily.

I like how the Message says this passage:
Deut. 8: 1-5
Keep and live out the entire commandment that I'm commanding you today so that you'll live and prosper and enter and own the land that God promised to your ancestors. Remember every road that God led you on for those forty years in the wilderness, pushing you to your limits, testing you so that he would know what you were made of, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He put you through hard times. He made you go hungry. Then he fed you with manna, something neither you nor your parents knew anything about, so you would learn that men and women don't live by bread only; we live by every word that comes from God's mouth. Your clothes didn't wear out and your feet didn't blister those forty years. You learned deep in your heart that God disciplines you in the same ways a father disciplines his child.

-Michelle