Have you ever felt overwhelmed? Did you feel like you were hanging onto your sanity by your teeth and with your hands tied behind your back? Did the vices that used to captivate you erupt like poisonous gas before your eyes? Did you watch the green fumes thread the air, working their way towards you? Did you shiver with fear, knowing you had no choice but to breathe them in? Did you wonder, “Is this it? Am I a goner for sure this time?”
So often we hang on the razor’s edge while the vapors of our lusts weave around us. Whether we are one day, one week or one year sober, we long to inhale and drop into oblivion, even though we know we really just need to hang on.
Hold Fast to Hope!
I recently placed a reservation for my boss at an upscale hotel on the West Coast. The agent I spoke with had a French accent and described in luxurious detail the many amenities he would have to look forward to while traveling on business. She paused briefly after informing me of the complimentary “all you can drink” wine hour, as if there could be no more attractive perk than this. Candidly, I wondered how alcoholics respond. My boss is not an alcoholic, but I have many family members and friends who are.
So how do we say no when friends, family, and even hotels are spurring us forward?
I recently went in search of a really good story. I find that stories of people who have succeeded in the midst of tremendous adversity give me hope. I found such a story in the biography of Chuck Norris titled, “Against All Odds.” In an early chapter he describes growing up with an abusive, alcoholic father. Mr. Norris spent his formative years watching his dad bully and berate his kind-hearted mother. Still, he wrote, “She never gave up praying for Dad, and she never tired of telling Wieland (Chuck’s younger brother) and me that we could make something better of our lives, that God had good things in store for us.”
There are times when the only way to resist temptation is to wave our hope flag high. In the moment of temptation we may feel as if it will crush us. We may even feel the saliva building under our tongue as we think about the plate of brownies situated right outside our work station. We manufacture a thousand scenarios where we eat only one and are satisfied, along with a host of other lies that have led us into dark alleys of addiction in the past. But we must resist because we know that nothing good will come from consuming that thing we were once enslaved to, and then we must hold fast to hope.
Courage is Contagious!
I recently listened to an interview with Timothy Keller, a respected pastor, teacher and writer. His new book, “Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering” looks compelling. During the discussion he said,
“We know that if God is good, he doesn’t enjoy our suffering. We know that if God is powerful, he could stop our suffering, but he doesn’t.” He then said, “Part of the reason for suffering may be that it makes us better human beings.” He pointed out that a wise person once said, “If there was no evil or suffering, there would never have been such a thing as courage or sacrifice. Still, if God has a purpose in suffering that goes beyond making us better people, it remains that we do not know why evil and suffering continue. God knows, but we do not.”
That is difficult for me to fathom. After all, in this context God seems like a monster. But the foundational tenet of the Christian faith is that Jesus was God. He entered into our pain and suffering, and he sympathizes with our pain. The death of Jesus on the cross causes me to find courage. Courage to ask for help. Courage to cling to him when all other hope fails. Courage because of all the promises he has made in his word, The Bible. And this kind of courage is contagious!
“For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.” – Hebrews 6:16-18
Steely-eyed and Stubborn!
There are times I question if God is faithful. I wonder, will he allow me to be tempted beyond my ability? Will he really provide a way out? Because Chick Fil A ice cream is a very real possibility and I weep under the strain of wanting and not having it.
Still, I have been practicing steely-eyed tenacity. Meaning; I continue to hang onto the metal bar by my teeth and I pray like the dickens for God to send a strong wind to blow the poison gas away. I have faith that he will. And even if he does not–even if I have to inhale it because I have no other choice–I will not stop hoping in Him. My feelings are irrelevant. My fears are irrelevant. I will not let go of the bar. Because my relationship with Jesus is sweeter than any confection Julia Child ever conceived of and more satisfying than the tie breaking home run in a baseball game that’s gone into overtime.
This is the crux of discipline.
Chuck Norris wrote about this kind of discipline in his book. He said that learning tang soo do, a Korean style of martial arts, required special permission from the instructors who looked at him with skepticism. They let him into their training sessions which were five hours long, six days a week. He said, “I was learning discipline by developing the ability to do something that was never easy, not always pleasant, and about which I was not always enthusiastic.”
Maybe you will laugh at all my Chuck Norris analogies, but I have great respect for the man. This past week, after a month of torment by poisonous fumes via temptation, I read his words and found courage again. The stories of people who have succeeded give me hope. And that is why I have written this blog entry today. I hope my story will give you hope too. Never give up. Never surrender. Cry out to God for help and help will come. He has promised and He never breaks a promise.
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