You all remember this great song, don't cha? 1989 was a good year. I think Robert Palmer's hit was not as good as Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorns," an absolute classic, but much, much better than 2 Live Crew's, "Me So Horny," an absolute foray into debauchery (sorry no links) :-)Everything I ever needed to know about addictions I learned from Robert Palmer. That is until Carmen came along (don't google Carmen's image, you won't get this Carmen) with his striking song "Addicted To Jesus." Wow, Carmen, you are so cutting edge.
But this week I have been reading Brennan Manning's new book, The Importance of Being Foolish
. He speaks some about addictions and does a great job at making the connections to people who think that they are not addicted. He speaks about hearing from God and getting stuff from Christ.Getting more and more from God and that stuff having less and less affect is an unhealthy addiction. So, Carmen, your Christ addiction is not something Mr. Manning is all that interested in. And folks, I'm with Brennan.
I have a friend who would literally not leave his living room until God told him to. He would pray and pray until he finally got a "word from the Lord." Then he would go do what God told him - mow the lawn, jog, get an odd job to pay the rent...etc. He called it faith. I am not inclined to go that far. Addiction? Unhealthy dependence? Denial of responsibility?
Needing a word from the Lord so badly and frequently can be like the 40 year old who still lives in his parent's basement and can't hold down a job or keep a relationship alive longer than a month.
Yes, God desires complete dependence on Him, but when we deny what he has supplied and demand He do it for us, then what exactly is that? We can get more interested in that constant reassurance than what that reassurance was meant to accomplish.
When God says, "Love me and love people," do we really need more than that? Sure, if God wants to speak, He will, but has He not sopken enough for most Christians to know what to do?
When we ask for answers, he might give us wisdom. When we ask for signs he might give us a number of optional opportunities. When we ask for reassurance, he might place a risk before us. When we ask for answers he might just be quiet since there is no reason to repeat himself.
I know that I have been and am probably a recovering Godaholic. I always want to know God's will (nothing wrong with that), and I require God to make it clear to me in 10 different ways before my confidence will kick in (smell the addiction?).
God's silence is detox.
Selah
7 comments:
all that matters is that you mentioned carmen...we need more carmen posts on emergent blogs..
raising the standard because revival will soon be in the land while i reject the witches invitation,
mark
Chris, with our hertiage there has been such a donwplay or even denial of God speaking except through "the Word" that still have to trumpet that he can and does speak. I know that you have addressed this in past posts.
This post reminds me that this new self/ new heart can be trusted to know what to do. And many times we are not really looking for direction but just putting off what we already know needs to be done.
I think the difference between dependancy and addiction is FAITH. A faithful dependance on God is a good thing - I want to depend on God for everything, but that means depending on Him to equip me for action, even when I don't get a "sign" from above. Addiction needs a fix, or proof, to keep the addicted hooked. There is no room for hope, faith or trust with addiction.
What TL said!
DU
interesting point of view. i think you and i may live in two totally different christian cultures though. in the christian culture i am apart of, too much of hearing from God isn't really a problem. in fact, i don't know anyone with that problem. but going entire days/weeks without asking Him what He thinks about what we are doing....yes, regular problem where i come from.
Great post, Chris. But, honestly, all I could do through the whole thing was sing that song to myself...
Might as well face it, you're addicted to love
Great. Its going to be embedded in my consciousness for the rest of the day!
That is a favorite song and a favorite video.
All things in excess cause problems. And I think you are right we learn as much by God's silence as we do by his proddings. We just have to be tuned in to his frequency by our frequency...{lame}
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