Posted on by Abe Austin

The Shackles We Choose

Something I have been noticing while doing my study of Exodus is that Israel hated their enslavement in Egypt…but they also preferred it to being free. Though initially euphoric when God destroyed their enemies in the Red Sea, they repeatedly afterwards claimed that things were better for them when they were in captivity than free in the wilderness.

It seemed a strange behavior, until I examined my own life and realized that the same is true for me. As much as I may not like feeling subject to my boss, I cannot fathom living without the security he provides me. I think of all the projects I wish devoted my spare time to, but I’m afraid to cut out the movies and video games that receive most of my spare hours instead. I see my cluttered house and want to set it in order, but focus instead on the mess of emails I’m subscribed to. I say that I’m ready to live a self-controlled and honorable life, then I obey the will of my temptations instead.

From my birth I was blessed with great opportunity and freedom, given to me by the goodness of God and the sacrifices of my ancestors. But I have taken that freedom and given it right back to other masters. There is no locked gate keeping me captive, most of the prisons I have checked myself into I could leave any time that I wanted, but I choose to bind myself to these places of my own volition. I remain a prisoner because I am not ready to be truly free.

My conscience urges me to forge out into the wild. My Savior freed my soul two millennia ago. My ancestors provided the security to let my ambitions soar. I pray I find the courage to live as free as I could, to have no Master but my God, the one who calls me into deeper waters.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Shutting God Out

Sometimes when I converse with God I hear the kindest, warmest, and most loving voice I have ever heard. At other times, He seems clinical and formal, still telling me good things, but without His usual warmth. As I have examined those different experiences I have come to realize that it is not God who changes His manner, but I who change what tone I am willing to receive.

When God feels direct and cold to me, it is because I am not open to receiving His love. Sometimes I am frustrated with myself, unwilling to love myself, and so I set up a wall to keep His love out also. He speaks to me as kindly as I allow Him.

Sometimes He doesn’t just sound cold, though, sometimes I can’t even hear Him at all. But once again, it isn’t because He has abandoned me, but because I have gone and shut myself in a room without Him. Even then, though, “he stands at the door, and knocks: and if I will open the door, he will come in with me,” (Revelation 3:20).

And the fact that he will come in with me has been the most meaningful thing to me in those low moments. He doesn’t require me to break down my walls and come out into the open if I’m not yet willing to. He is content to come stay in the dark hovel with me. He will sit with me in the shadow, with only His presence for a light, until I’m finally ready to leave.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Appreciating the Worst Self

It is common to despise our “worst self.” This is the self that is lazy, selfish, overly-indulgent, and perverse. That self always gets us into the worst trouble, imitates the behaviors we most resent in others, and frustrates all of our plans for self-improvement. I have listened to many addicts share their hatred for their “worst self,” going so far as to wishing that they could kill him!

But the thought has occurred to me that my “worst self” has also done the bravest and noblest things that I have ever done. It was while I was firmly in the gutter of shame and depression that I decided to ask for help from my addictions. It was while I was a sinner that I made the decision to repent. It was while God seemed farthest from me that I tried to follow Him most.

The “worst self” has its downsides, but when transformation does occur, it is necessarily that self who decides to make it happen. The “worst self” chooses to let itself die so that the “whole self” may emerge, and we owe it a great debt of gratitude for repeatedly making that sacrifice.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Deeper Into Enemy Territory

Recovery is a multi-stage journey. I, and many of the other addicts that I have known, experienced an initial battle with temptation and eventually a victory over it, only to feel new battles springing up around us some time later. After the initial success, we tend to experience setbacks, or new addictions forming off to the side, and it makes us doubt the control we thought we had gained. Most great battles in recovery seem to be followed by a sequel.

As I have reflected on this phenomenon, the thought has occurred to me that the more you press against your foe, delving further into the heart of enemy territory, the more unpredictable and treacherous the terrain becomes. The initial push and triumph in recovery feels fantastic, but that is nothing more than breaking through the front lines. Yes, it is a victory, but you have yet to capture the capitol. Or, to shift metaphors, perhaps you have chased the bear from your home, but in so doing you have followed it into its lair where greater challenges await.

Virtually every addict finds that his bad behavior comes about by the following sequence:

  1. He has many hurts and frustrations in his life
  2. Those hurts and frustrations put him into a perpetually dejection and faithless state
  3. While depressed and faithless, temptation easily has its way with him

The first fight for recovery has to do with short-circuiting this pattern. The addict learns how to manage or mitigate his pain, removing unnecessary afflictions, ending negative relationships, and stopping behaviors that add stress. Less frustration means less dejection, and less dejection makes him stronger against temptation.

And this is all well and good, but the solution will last only as long as his management and mitigation efforts are effective. Sooner or later life will throw something new and unexpected, as it always does, and all his perceived progress will be undone. He will find out that his sobriety is dependent on life being easy, and no one’s life is always easy.

So the addict must go further into enemy territory, deeper into the heart of the problem. Sooner or later he has to learn to break the connection between the pain of life and becoming dejected. He has to learn how to be peaceful and content, no matter the simultaneous pain. This is a very difficult thing to do, of course, but if he can succeed in this critical battle, then the world will no longer have any power over him. He will have captured the heart of the enemy’s power, and the war will be over.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Impasse of Release and Guilt: Part Three

In my last two posts I have described two parts of a paradox in addiction recovery. Part one was that we have the greatest success when we do not ruminate on our failures, but simply let them go. Part two was that the addict who breaks beautiful things and hurts loved ones feels it is too flippant to just let those things go. It seems necessary that the addict should be devastated about his failure for some time.

Thus, the addict finds himself caught between the surrender of guilt that would give him the best chance of recovery, and the sense of justice that demands he pays for what he has done. Thankfully, there is a third element that comes to bridge this terrible gulf, to provide a ladder from the darkness to the light.

The Need for a Savior)

At the core of the addict saying that it is right and appropriate to feel devastated for his failures is a recognition that he has broken a moral crime, and so justice ought to be carried out on him. But once we recognize that this is a matter of paying the price for a moral crime, Jesus Christ steps into the picture. The whole point of Jesus Christ is that he, himself, paid the price for these crimes so that we wouldn’t have to.

If I responded to my most shameful acts with nothing more than a “yeah, that happened, but moving on…” then yes, that would be too flippant. But there’s nothing flippant about saying “My best friend died for what I did, so that I could go free.” If anything, that adds even greater gravity and weight to the situation, while also justifying me in letting go of my shame and moving on.

Yes, it is appropriate to be devastated about the seriously wrong things that we do, but Christ offers to feel that devastation for us. When we take him up on that offer, and surrender the weight to him, then it is entirely appropriate for us to get right back in the saddle and try again.

I think this is why having a Higher Power, and more specifically a Savior, is essential to recovery, because when I don’t account for the fact that someone paid for the price for me, I get stuck at an impasse between parts one and two. I need this final part to bridge the gap and bring it all home. It allows me to live as if I had never done anything wrong, while also not minimizing the very real wrong that I really did do. Bringing Christ into the recovery allows us to exchange our worst for his best, and thus the captive may go free.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Impasse of Release and Guilt: Part Two

A Proper Devastation)

Yesterday I considered how obsession with failure only tends to yield further failure. In order to change our lives and habits, we have to let go of our tendency to punish ourselves, we have to forgive ourselves for falling short, we have to get right back up and resume living our commitments.

Speaking for myself, just by understanding this fact I do find it easier to let go of my more minor indiscretions. If I eat too much at a party, if I stay up too late playing games, if I find myself distracted at work, I find it within my reach to set aside the self-resentment and instead say, “yes, that happened, but I should get right back to living my commitments, hopeful and trusting that I’ve still got this.”

But not every wrong fits into that “minor indiscretion” category. We addicts are defined by how consistently and repeatedly do heavy and major wrongs. We do things that not only hurt ourselves, but those we care about most. We break beautiful things and cause irreversible damage. And just letting go of that doesn’t feel so easy. In fact, it feels disrespectful and inappropriate to just let it go. It seems too flippant to say “yes, that happened, but moving on…”

And yes, focusing on the guilt and failure of our major wrongs is still the surest way to end up repeating those painful behaviors. Pragmatically we ought to just let them go, but in our hearts it feels like we should be distressed and devastated for a time.

This is a great conundrum then. It is the impassable gulf, the catch-22 of recovery. How are we to do make the surrender that help us get better when doing so feels actively wrong? This is the gordian know we will untangle tomorrow.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Impasse of Release and Guilt: Part One

In my spiritual journey, through my experiences of addiction and recovery, I have seen a difficult impasse that many addicts have grappled with, myself included. There are two aspects that seem to be fundamentally at odds with one another, creating what at first appears to be an unfixable situation. We’ll look at the first point today, the second one tomorrow, and the surprising resolution after that.

The Need to Move On)

One thing that psychological research has found, and that I have seen within my own self, is that dwelling on one’s failures is the surest way to repeat them. The more we obsess over what we’ve done wrong, the more we are aligned to returning to that polluted well again and again.

I have many times found myself repeatedly and profusely apologizing, spelling out every reason why what I did was wrong, and focusing on how fundamentally selfish all my actions were. The result? All of that self-flagellation sent a message to myself that I was fundamentally no good, hell-bent on doing the wrong things, and so that’s exactly what continued to happen. I continued to do the same things again and again, because that was just the garbage sort of person that I was.

On the other hand, being willing to set aside my shame and believe in myself in spite of my failings was fundamental to overcoming these negative habits. I had to sincerely believe there was a better, truer me beneath the bad actions before he could come forward into reality.

There is a caveat to this. One who is in complete denial, who is constantly minimizing his wrongs, who is dismissive of the pain he causes, he may require a sharp wake up call to really face how messed up his behavior really is. But for any self-admitting addict who is genuinely remorseful, the pragmatic next step for him would be to set aside every failure and just keep moving forward.

There is an obstacle to doing this, though, which we will discuss in the next post.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Day Without Christ

Jesus was crucified just before the sabbath, hastily laid to rest in an empty tomb, and remained shut out of sight for the next 24 hours. The following day he appeared, newly resurrected, and was witnessed by one group of followers after another, including all eleven apostles. Eventually he was even seen by 500 disciples at one time.

Thus, there was the last day of Jesus’s mortal life, the first day of his glorified life, and in between one day without Christ at all. What a bitter sabbath that must have been for Jesus’s disciples, the one day where they didn’t have their Lord to be there with them, and didn’t know that he would ever be with them again. A day of darkness, a day without the Lord.

But where was Jesus during that day away from the world? What was he gone to when he departed from his people?

He was gone conquering.

As the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. He led captivity captive, and hath put all things under his feet. (Hebrews 2:14-15, Ephesians 4:8, and Ephesians 1:22).

Jesus might have been missing, but hardly had he abandoned his people. The time when Jesus was absent in the lives of his disciples, he was gone destroying their greatest enemies: death and hell. He fought with mankind’s greatest evils, and his ability to rise back to life the next day shows that he was triumphant in that battle. He came back having won for them the greatest gifts they would ever receive.

Each of us similarly faces days where Christ appears to be missing in our lives. We feel his spirit beforehand, but then for a spell it seems that he has gone away from us. We are left alone in the dark, much like his ancient disciples. At such times, might not he have gone to conquer our greatest enemies also? Our days without Christ might be a sign that the greatest victories are about to come.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Trending Towards Death

It is a terrible thing to be faithless, nihilistic, cynical, and depressed. There are many that find themselves in a state where effort seems ineffectual, the future appears bleak, and life itself feels meaningless. Too long in such a state can be a very dangerous thing, as the broken person may begin to consider ways to expedite the end of their miserable existence. Even if not, though, they will continue forward in a sort of waking death, unmotivated to do any of the things worth living for, isolating and numbing, and just letting themselves go. They may reach a “natural end,” but one that was premature and avoidable.

On the other hand, though, one might love life to the point of debauchery. They might become carnal, sensual, eagerly pursuing every pleasant, vibrant experience, trying to live as full and varied a life as possible. But gross hedonism is just as tended towards death as depression. Promiscuous sexuality, drunkenness, risk-taking, late-night parties, and gluttony do not prolong life, rather they burn it out faster, resulting in either an accidental death, or once again, a demise that might be considered natural, though premature and avoidable.

The soul cleaved from its purpose becomes depressed and gravitates towards death, but also the soul that makes its purpose the pleasures of life also gravitates to death. Survival itself is contingent upon finding the true life worth living, and committing ourselves wholeheartedly to it.