There are so many things that can cause us to fall into addictive behavior. Whether it’s alcohol, drugs, sex, internet, gadget technology or even church addictions, we all have a propensity for replacing the good for something of lesser value. This does not mean that all that we do is somehow destructive. God has given us an abundance of His goodness that can fill our lives with joy, pleasure and wonder, yet these same pleasures are often taken to extreme and lead us to destructive lifestyles.

The ancients of Israel were given a promised land; land that was flowing with milk and honey, yet they chose to place their adoration in the created rather than the creator. They gave themselves over to idolatry, time and time again.

We are likely to say, “how silly of them, didn’t they understand that God was with them and had their best interest at heart?” Okay, maybe we wouldn’t say that exactly, but then again we have the advantage of reading their story and seeing where they went terribly wrong. So why do we do the same thing? Why do we receive our manna with a sense of dissatisfaction? Why do we long for the next greatest thing that we know full well will be out of fashion and out of date in just a few months?

I believe the answer lies in our sinful nature. We want what we want and we want it now (at least I do). Perhaps we need to reread the garden account and understand that we too would likely have taken the fruit and then made excuses for eating it.

Our inability to refrain from addictiveness is not new; our sense of self-reliance on willpower and resolutions all come down to an attitude that says “I can handle it.” In reality, we can’t handle it. Whatever “it” is, is not so easily overcome. Gerald May, who wrote “Addiction and Grace”, said this:

“The wanting, yearning, longing quality of pure desire is natural and God-given. It is not only necessary for life; it also lends a rich open-endedness to existence, a lack of complete satisfaction that is powerfully creative and, in many ways, joyful. But the grasping, clinging, possessive quality of attachment is something very different. It is restrictive, not creative, imperative instead of enjoyable.”

Perhaps the Lord’s prayer is a good place for us to start in our wanting, yearning and longing quality for pure desire: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the power…”