Addiction

“Every decision is a limitation.”

Such an idea never occurred to me before last night, but the wife of the program director at camp in Jerusalem spoke these words with such clarity that it stunned me. She declared “each decision limits your life in important and not-so-important ways” as if it were the most simple fact ever. Choice equals consequences; idea equals implications.

Addicts live this out (even if they give no mental assent) each time they shoot up or inhale. Editors demonstrate this (with knowledge) each time they publish another book or article or poem. Politicians engage in this (fully desirous) each time they deliver a speech, book a campaign stop, hug a tree or hold a baby. So why do I not consider this truth in the light of God’s Word?

Just two weeks ago at camp, I stood in the אולם (meeting room) listening to 49 Israeli kids singing “I’ve Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down in My Heart” in Hebrew, and it reminded me of a verse that used to bring me such joy. Paul exhorts believers to know the fruits of the house of Stephanas because “...they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints” (I Corinthians 16:15). In high school and my early working years, I kept this verse as a theme and begged God to let me be addicted to ministry. I think He granted my prayer. My whole life rebelled against the “status quo” and revolved around pro-life activism, mentoring youth, and street evangelism (both with Jews for Jesus and on my own).

Two years ago in January, I was challenged to take my passion for God with my life skills and shape/hone/grow/direct them in a Christian university setting. This has proven very good and very bad for me.

Very good because I have truly stretched and changed for the better when it comes to an understanding of and appreciation for the faith of our fathers and how it is my own personal faith, today. Very good because I have been enabled to recognize the pagan ideology and humanistic thought that infiltrates Western culture. Very good because I have certainly found cause for participating in academic, social, and ministerial opportunities.

Very bad because I have developed both a sense of ineptness and a dampened incentive to try anything without a prior approval from a professor or authority. Very bad because I find myself wondering what people will think before I wonder what Jesus will think. Very bad because I notice my radical addiction to the love of Christ and others is turning into a ball-and-chain to the tyranny of the moment and its paperwork.

I guess this is all to say that recent months have been a struggle for me. Collegiate culture and even the “American Dream” try to suck me into the “bigger is better” and “better is still not best” mentality. But being back in Israel with its thousands of years of history, promise, and people reminds me that God generally works with the weaker, forgotten, and difficult...and this truth is pulling me back into my old addiction.

I have a God who is faithful, and if I say I serve this God, I must be nothing less than faithful to him. My God demands addiction when He commands, “Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deuteronomy 6:5).

I want nothing more than to be forever addicted to the ministry.

If this decision limits me – which it will – I don’t care. I want my life opportunities to be limited to one thing. Me decreasing so that Jesus can increase.

A godly king named Hezekiah who was addicted to the ministry of the LORD once became sick unto death. God told Hezekiah that he would die, but he refused to listen to the prophet Isaiah and demanded longer life. When God showed the king an extra measure of grace and healed him, Hezekiah quit his addiction “cold turkey.” He hosted the Babylonians and showed off the glory of his throne...instead of showing off the glory of GOD. Isaiah returned to the king and told him that God said that Babylon would invade his dominion and take captive his seed. But Hezekiah acted as if he’d never been an addict and declared instead, “Is it not good if peace and truth be in my days?” (II Kings 20:19).

His decision to not be addicted to the LORD’s ministry, and the ensuing limitation of concern for his own offspring, show me the danger of “kicking this habit.” Better for me to not have peace in my days, and stay addicted; than for me to have peace in my days, kick the habit, and disregard descendants.

Addiction is a serious thing, like Sara Groves prays in her song “Generations.”

“Remind me of this with every decision,
Generations will reap what I sow.
I will pass on a curse or a blessing
To those I may never know...
...to my great, great, great granddaughter: live in peace.”