A week or so ago, I spoke at a Christian function where I came across a book named, “You Can Change: God’s transforming power for our sinful behaviour and negative emotions” by a British church leader. Given my line of work, the book was of pertinent interest and at $9.95 I thought, why not grab a copy? The blurb on the back promised lasting change in Jesus Christ for those entrapped in sin, so I began reading. As I worked through the first pages, I noticed they were filled with a litany of Biblical truth- all true and all edifying. It looked at how people are made in the likeness of God and meant to reflect His glory and yet how many people find themselves in sin. It then shakes a proverbial finger and says, in a roundabout way, ‘Don’t you know that you are meant to reflect the glory of God? Don’t you realise that sin will/is destroying you?’ It then moves on to prescribed solutions- from Scripture- of how problems are to be dealt with in Christ.
One of the biggest problems that I have with this kind of material- as good and true as it may be- is that it does not really help people get to the bottom of what is happening for them in their hearts and why they are sinning. People sin for understandable, albeit not justifiable, reasons. As the book’s author, Tim Chester, accurately pointed out, people can use victim-like, blame-shifting language to justify their sin (e.g. ‘others provoke me’; ‘if others would only help me or love me more’; ‘I take after my family’; ‘this is just the way I am’; ‘people don’t understand what it is like for me’; ‘it’s my background that ‘makes me’ do these things; ‘life is just so unfair’; ‘anyone else would react the same way I do’), p. 142. And yet, while those excuses can be used to justify sin as a victim, they may also be true to the one who is doing it. Like all lies, they have a seductive power and they are usually believed because they give people a faux feeling of control. People believe them because they want to believe them. They are also learned and while they must be unlearned if healing is to take place, they must be put under the microscope and picked apart for why the person keeps believing them. That will unravel the self-deception and sin.
And here’s the rub. When people sin, they have two choices: 1) go to the clean river to lap the water and fill their stomachs with pristine drops; 2) or go to the toilet and be filled with putrescence. The needs that they have- needs for love, comfort, fuflillment, acceptance, protection, guidance. provender, purpose- are all God-created and good; but when they take those needs and seek to fill them with things that are not of God, then things get ugly. But people always have their own personal and complex reasons for getting their cups filled with things that are not of God: those things for each individual must be unravelled. Very often those entrapped in sin have anger issues, and sometimes their anger is right and even understandable.
One young man whom I met had been sexually violated as a 4-year old: at that age, his parents literally used him as an object in sex orgies. Does he have a right to be angry about what had happened to him? I would say an emphatic ‘Yes’. Without guilting the man into forgiveness and how all must be forgiven in Christ, I listened to his heartbeaking story and cried. He was angry and was taking that anger out on his own body, on me, and others and rejecting sources of healing. What happened to him was nothing short of tragic. Yet rather than telling him to pretend not to be angry and to put on a happy Christian face (a mask), I encouraged him to own his anger. Only when he was able to do make some progress, and to take that anger to God and have it acknowledged and used for change.
Books like Chester’s can be helpful in getting people to think about how God can get people out of pain and addiction from what He has revealed of Himself in Scripture, but if people are not permitted to speak their stories and confront the painful past behind the sinful choices that they are making, then Scriptural truth will do little more than guilt people into godly submission. It will just end up a finger-wagging exercise. In the end, that will lead nowhere, and a person trying to get healing can easily relapse back into addiction.
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If you are someone in addiction, it may be very hard to trust God and others, and to open up about your stuff. You may already feel guilty about sin. You may have resigned yourself to sin, thinking that God cannot change it or forgive you. Very likely few others really understand you or support you; you feel lonely, frustrated, angry, and discouraged. Perhaps you are feeling those things because you want to play victim: and if that is true, then you need to confess that, face it, and prayerfully take it to God. But there might be good reason to feel this way. Maybe noone else you know does understand. But does God understand? Does Jesus ‘get it’? You bet They do. Maybe your pastor, friends, family, and church people don’t understand: that’s nothing for you to worry about – it is not your problem- and God will deal with them in His good timing.
But you can always go to Jesus. His friends didn’t ‘get’ Him- they slept when He prayed with blood-like sweat in the Garden of Gethsemane. His parents abandoned Him when He was a 12 year-old and blamed Him for it. Two of his closest allies – Judas and Peter – denied Him in His greatest hour of need. He knew grief when His friend Lazarus died. Peter told Him not to go the cross, giving Jesus’ biggest enemy, Satan, a minor victory. His disciples tried to stop Jesus from going to Him: they actually tried to stop His ministry and others’ healing. Jesus knows and understands all the trials, but He never gave into self-pity. He kept on going to God for His sustenance. You can, too. You don’t have to – noone’s putting a gun to your head- but it’s a good idea. One that will keep you from going off the edge.
Shaom, Haydn (Liberty pastoral worker).