Work in the lab, grant writing and preparing for two weeks out of the country still has me pretty swamped. I’m not sure how I will get it all done by 5am Tuesday, but….
Thank you so for your wonderful comments about obsession and addiction; there is much wisdom there.
My thoughts on what obsession and addiction are and how they have come into being are based on the following hypotheses: 1) we are all searching for something; 2) the search is desperate, personal and ongoing; and 3) we will continue to search until we find what our heart seeks or until we give up in despair.
Saint Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in you”, and the famous mathematician, Blaise Pascal describes, “a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”
These same themes are beautifully addressed in an excerpt from one of my favorite authors, A.W. Tozer:
The Desperate Personal Search
“The average person in the world today, without faith and without God and without hope, is engaged in a desperate personal search throughout his lifetime. He does not really know where he has been. He does not really know what he is doing here and now. He does not know where he is going.
The sad commentary is that he is doing it all on borrowed time and borrowed money and borrowed strength--and he already knows that in the end he will surely die! It boils down to the bewildered confession of many that "we have lost God somewhere along the way."...
Man, made more like God than any other creature, has become less like God than any other creature. Created to reflect the glory of God, he has retreated sullenly into his cave--reflecting only his own sinfulness.
Certainly it is a tragedy above all tragedies in this world that man, made with a soul to worship and praise and sing to God's glory, now sulks silently in his cave. Love has gone from his heart. Light has gone from his mind. Having lost God, he blindly stumbles on through this dark world to find only a grave at the end."
And so these quotes, taken together, form the beginning of my definitions and discussion of obsession and addiction, for it is my hypothesis that they are the things or people we try to use to end our search and fill our empty hearts. But, in the end, they use us. The idol without hands, feet, eyes or power gains control and leaves us addicted, obsessed and with a gapping wound, a bigger and more painful void than we started with.
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22 comments:
Blaise Pascal also said:
'You would not seek me if you had not already found me'.
I need to read this all again slowly in the morning when I am less tired.
Love Lorenzo.
Good thoughts here, Susan. So true.
Tozer's quote reminds me of Lewis in "The Weight of Glory":
Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object. And this, I think, is just what we find. . . . The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things — the beauty, the memory of our own past — are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.
Lorenzo - look at Taliesin's CS Lewis (one of my favorite Brits!) quote - make perfect sense along with the second Pascal quote you gave us!
I love the quote, Taliesin! And this essay is very moving, Susan.
I forget sometimes about my own tendency to worship idols. As I was reading this I resisted some of the ideas--that I still have darkness in me if left to my own devices.
But then I thought. And thought. Yep. It's still there. God protect me.
I like the Tozer quote.
As for addiction, I do think that physical ones can sneak up on us. I particularly think of how alcohol is a socially acceptable substance, not necessarily something one would use to meet a desperate need. But then heredity can kick in for some people, and what was a simple social activity can overtake the body (which then affects and feeds off the weaknesses of the soul).
It's a wonderfully insightful post, drawing from Tozer. You're absolutely right on our propensity to create idols as we search for satisfaction in all the wrong places.
"...rather like unconfessed sin in our own lives.."
Now I don't know much about compost heaps but I know a big pile of shite when I see it!
Dear Anon,
I think that Kind David said it best in Psalm 32 when referring to his hidden sin, "when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long, for your hand was heavy on me an my strenght was sapped as in the heat of summer.
THen I acknowledged my sin to you, my iniquity I did not cover. I said, my sins I will confess to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin."
Seems to me that if unconfessed sin troubled David, a man who God said was His friend and a man after His own heart, how much more does it weight me down.
Susan
Taliesin, Thanks for the quote.
I would add about all of this from my perspective: It seems nearly the easiest thing in the world to get off track. Of course it's only by grace that we're ever on track anyhow. But I easily turn anything into idolatry, though by grace we can see that anything and everything seen in the right way should cause us to give thanks to the Giver of all good things and draw us nearer to God.
I remember being pretty profoundly struck a few summers ago ('04). I was studying 1 John and leading a Bible study on it, and 2:17 struck me: "The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever" (NASB). Lusts, desires, passions of our sinful nature--these are things where we search and want and crave, but we are not filled. Why not? Because the world is passing away. It fades more day by day. It lessens. And so with each passing day I find that I need more of the world to try to satisfy my cravings. Yet it could be as simple as Jesus' words, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life" (John 4:13-14).
"Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies shown to David." (Isaiah 55:1-3)
Posted 8/10/2007 2:21 PM
Drew
http://belovedbeforetime.blogspot.com/
From a spiritual point of view, my thoughts on addictions are when people can not face up or confront their failings, trauma or crisis es in their lives. Addictions block them out, make them feel abstract from the world and for awhile "happy". In the cold light of day, they still have to deal with the problem. They are not taking responsibility for their own lives. It is an obsessive behaviour.
Will being doing similar postings on my blogg.
love Gillie x
Glad that you've visited Gill - welcome.
I wholeheartedly agree with Drew and Ted - we all crave and want, all the time - and it is only by grace that any of us are ever "on track", and that not because we are strong enough to "face up" to our failings.
LL - thanks for your commen. I certainly agree that chemical addictions can "sneak" up - however, I also would think that satan, knowing our individual weaknesses, could easily provide the circumstances for some "psychological" addictions to sneak up on us too.
Some of the most addicted people I know don't fall under the heading of classic addictions such as alcohol or drugs. They come under the categories of "independent", "successful", "balanced", "people-pleasers", "dependable" and "helpful".
While physical addiction certainly, and psychological addiction and obsession specutively, have much to do with brain chemistry - all "addictions" have to do with the heart for "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he".
My further hypothesis - and hopefully my next post will deal with this issue: idols of the heart.
Which C.S. Lewis book did the quote come from?
I think that addictions do tend to be physical, but maybe brought upon by a mental need.
I don't know who the anonymous comment is from that has come from my blogsite. I do have an idea, but can't be certain!
Lorenzo.
Thnaks for the comment! See you when I get back!!!
m
Susan, I'm looking forward to your thoughts on idols in the heart. Important stuff, though sometimes I think I get carried away in thinking about sin and idols and the like. Not that it is not important, because it certainly is and we need good input on it. I just tend to go overboard in most anything and everything I do.
Grace is the big factor we need to navigate a better path that begins to recognize where we may be getting something out of proportion and thus falling into sin and idolatry. We need grace so as not to be scared or bowed down and stuck in defeat so that we can get forgiveness and find, with baby steps, the better path, learning to live in the light and continue to be cleansed of sins.
Well, something like all of that.
Ted, I absolutely agree - those of us that do things 110%, 24-7, have a tendency to scrutinize ourselves the same way - and, in fact, I think that our "hair shirt" can become an idol in and of itself - at least it can for me. And if so, then the mental self-flaggilation (sorry, I'm sure I didn't spell that correctly) can almost become a "works" issue to earn some brownie points with God. So, if I disppoint myself first, then I don't have to deal with feeling like I've disappointed God.
I'm still thinking about what to post next - as well as trying to finish up the projects that don't seem to end! and get ready for a trip -
Lorenzo,
The book is The Weight of Glory" which is a collection of sermons with "The Weight of Glory" being the first sermon in the collection.
Gill,
"...when people can not face up or confront their failings, trauma or crisis es in their lives .. block them out, make them feel abstract from the world and for awhile "happy". In the cold light of day, they still have to deal with the problem. They are not taking responsibility for their own lives. It is an obsessive behaviour".
For 'ADDICTION' read 'RELIGION'
Hi Halfmom,
I would have emailed you but I have somehow lost my password during the process of trying to change it. My server has instructed me to look in my emails for my new password but without a password I can't get into my emails.
Anyway have a lovely holiday and when you come back hopefully I'll have an email address again.
Lorenzo.
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