Addictions?

Okay, it’s confession time. Let me step into the booth, pull the curtain shut, and slide open the window between the two compartments. “Bless me, for I have sinned. It has been forever since my last confession, and I don’t really know how to say it, but I have developed an addiction. It started as a simple way to pass the time, but now it has become an obsession. I can’t stop thinking of it. When I look at people, I immediately begin to see this vice and carry out scenarios of how to bring it to fruition in the moment. When I see places that have certain physical characteristics, I see ways to change them to lock into the right pattern in my head. I even look into the cereal bowl, and the marshmallows in my Lucky Charms trigger the ideas.”

The kindle/facebook/smartphone app for the game “Jewels” is one that many people know. I got started on it years ago on pogo as the game “Sweet Tooth,” and now then again on a Mah-jongg computer game that had a similar idea to it. Now, with a new Kindle Fire in the house after Christmas, I re-discovered it, and downloaded it for my phone. Oh, not just one, but two different versions of the same game! I can’t seem to help myself; at every available opportunity, I start it up and play. I play when I’m letting the baby play in the bathtub for awhile, I played waiting at the dentist for the big boys, I play while watching TV, and I’ve even played it in the bathroom. (TMI?)

My “addiction” to this game has gotten so that even when I look down at my keyboard on my computer, I want to slide the keys a certain way and watch them disappear. While driving, I can see the patterns that form in the signs, buildings, and cars around me, and want to weave in and out of traffic just to line up with green cars in the other two lanes to make a line. I even envisioned what it would be like if I shifted a kid’s nose between his eyes on Sunday, and then I realized how morbid that would be. Plus, they weren’t all the same, so it wouldn’t help my game any.

Have you ever noticed how quickly something can become an obsession for us? I have discovered through the years that I have an addictive personality. FORTUNATELY, and only by the grace of God, I have never really dealt with the drug and alcohol side of that issue. For me, the focus varies, but the habits are still there. When I was still single, I got hooked on the old TV show “7th Heaven.” I would watch it every day in syndicated reruns, and when I found out it came on earlier in the day, I began setting my VCR (yeah, I’m that old) to record episodes every day. To this day, I have a box of a dozen or so VHS tapes full of episodes of that show sitting in a corner of my office collecting dust.

There was another time before I got married that I became obsessed with the Donkey Kong 64 game that came out for an earlier Nintendo Game system. I would rush home from my first job in youth ministry, and turn on the game, and spend hours playing. I would usually pause the game long enough to make a sandwich or something, but then I’d be right back at it until wee hours of the morning. I was never very good, but that didn’t stop me from playing and thinking and dreaming about that stinking game.

While living in the same city, and still before I got married, I would spend lots of times at Blockbuster renting movies. There was one located on my way home from work, and it was not uncommon for me to swing in and rent a movie, and bring it back within a couple of hours and get another. I was probably in that place every day of the week at least once. The folks that worked there knew me by name, and I think they secretly pitied me for being such a sad specimen.

Aside from understanding why I was probably single until later in my life, I think I’ve demonstrated what kinds of things pull me in. What I hope it’s also done is help you to begin to visualize the things in your life that we lovingly call “our guilty pleasures,” or make jokes about how they trigger our “OCD” tendencies. The truth is, many of us carry around addictions, and just because they aren’t of the drug and alcohol variety doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous (although, those are certainly included in this whole idea). It may be your need to have Starbucks at least once a day, or maybe you’re obsessed with getting an iPad for $23.99 on quibids.com. How much facebook is too much, and what about texting and twitter? I personally believe that the folks who are on “extreme couponing” have some kind of addiction to be able to keep up with that lifestyle. What if the compulsion to make sure your kids are “involved” and “well-rounded” leaves you killing yourself to get them to five different practices during the week and seven or eight games on the weekend as well as harping on them to finish their homework while dismissing church and Bible study altogether?

How many quality things in your life go by the wayside due to one of these addictions? I miss the opportunity to see my son play in the bathtub when I’m hooked on my game. I missed many opportunities to develop at least some friendships in those years of being single. Even worse than all of that, is the way these addictions tend to feed my “SELF” that tries to rise up within me.

As a believer in Jesus, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) I have put to death that selfish nature so that I may “...take up my cross daily and follow [Jesus.]” (Luke 9:23) If I claim to be a believer, but put so much effort into these “addictions,” and the selfishness inside of me that drives me towards them, then I am not taking up my cross and dying to myself to live for Jesus. In fact, I’ve created an idol or two; one of myself, and another from the addiction.

I’m not saying that all of these things are in and of themselves bad things. I just think that if we are going to claim to be true followers of Christ, then we need to listen to what His Word says, and recognize how easy it is to lose sight of what our true center of life needs to be, and not let the activities of our day revolve around lining up three jewels of the same color. It speaks volumes that after struggling and literally stressing about finding the matching colors, these jewels simply disappear. The things of this world are fleeting, but a growing, dying-to-self, actively-following-Him relationship with Jesus Christ will last us all our time on this earth, and through the rest of eternity. As Steven Curtis Chapman eloquently says in his song, let’s make Jesus our “Magnificent Obsession.”