Part 1
Nearly 7 years ago in 2016 God gave me a miracle. After 25 years of chasing the dream through a bottle of booze, He freed me from alcoholism. I can’t tell you how I knew it was a reality. I just did. The miracle was delivered a few days after I completed an assignment given to me by my pastor. It was an assignment of forgiveness.
About a year later that miracle was tested. As I sat alone in a pizzeria that also sold craft beer, I was tempted to have some samples. Why not? I had been free for a year. I was closer to God than ever before. There was no threat of going back to what I was by sampling a couple of craft beers. Was there?
As I waited for the waitress to come back, God spoke to me. He said, “Chris, if you want to give back the gift I gave to you, then that is your choice.”
Ouch. I ordered water.
Late the next year, in 2017, I would give up drugs for good as well. This was done out of obedience to God, and the blessings of song that came from that will have to be told another time.
Recently I watched a young evangelist, who used to be an addict, tell the woman who was interviewing him that he was a changed man, fully and completely, from the inside out. She led him on by suggesting he had no desire for the old life. “None at all,” she stressed. “Nope.” He smiled and said he had no desire for those things. He was completely free and completely changed.
I can say I hope that was true for him, but it wasn’t. He lied. He relapsed years later and died young.
I have no doubt God freed that man from his addictions and used him for His glory. And I have no doubt God freed me from mine. But there is one thing we can’t overlook: Our flesh!
- Being freed from your chains does not free you from the consequences of your choices.
- We all have it in us to go back.
You might be asking, what keeps me sober? If God gave me sobriety, but He is not keeping me from going back, then what does?
First, I can tell you there is not a man or woman, no prize or possession, that can keep me from self-destruction. If I put my hope in anything of this world and staked my peace, joy, freedom and sobriety on it, all would be lost in moments.
The most awesome earthly blessing God has given me are my wife and my kids. But I’m not sober today because of them. Having them in my heart helps, but they will drive me to use quicker than they’ll keep me from it. Relationships are challenging.
My obedience and sobriety is possible only by these reasons:
- Fear of God
- Love for God
- Respect for God
- Desire to Obey God
Come back next week and we’ll expound on these principles.
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In the meantime, check out some of our other posts, like this one about not letting our past, or our scars, define who we are today.
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