Addiction

Readers offering close attention to these Pages will catch my high regard for biblical maturity as a life pattern for daily experience and integrity in both natural and spiritual context.  When translators of the King James Version of Scripture came to the word reflecting the growth of persons toward the ideal they chose the English word, mature, for the purpose.  Many persons live self-guided from the example of ideal models they perceive have done well – the reach toward better life formation.  This higher life is best modeled for us in Jesus Christ, but there are others.  Our reach should exceed our grasp.  To seek to be like unto the life of Jesus is not to say we will, in the context of nature, achieve ultimate match, but that we will become better persons than would have otherwise been the case.  Secular society, at least as it appears through the media style of reporting, feels the Christian interpretation is somewhat naïve, too religious, perhaps too given to a standard now out of style and seen as bland sectarian, and irrelevant to modern life in the natural environment.  This sneering-like approach could be rebutted by taking item by item the factors of life, assert the factors, make comparisons and contrasts, and conclude with results for proofs.

It is clear from Scripture that the principles of many centuries past, applicable at the time they were given in written form, continue to be the principles currently useful.  To illustrate: as relating to the issue of economies Scripture is clear about the benefits of debt-free living; prosperity in meeting the needs (goods and services) of human beings; provision for families, the young and the elderly; aid to those who face negative life circumstances (the orphan and widow); wealth balance (stewardship) between rich and poor to meet needs and values; work duty for those able to contribute; integrity (honesty) of personal and social entities; improvement in performance (affecting the product of goods and services); care for the human environment to prosper life and health; and, all achieved in the context of love, peace and freedom.  How could it be better?  In addition, if the pattern were practiced as it could be practiced (even if imperfectly), God would assist society in moderating the negatives of a dynamic nature that challenges humankind when differentials occur.  This listing of life patterns related to families (relationships), governments (laws for order and human solutions), educations (life and profession), personhood (meaning for the individual and the group) – and the lists extend for the one and the many in combinations.  Scripture speaks to the real benefits and processes of life that have pertained from the centuries long past and continuing – with the added benefit on how to mend lives and processes when they have been missed or violated.

To make it work, we need first to know the story.  The more we know the easier it is to learn how to apply it.  Our problem becomes the strength of desire to follow the order and processes.  Do we want to make the effort?  It is common, as studies have proven, that we often miss our own ideals because we are unwilling to pursue the discipline of life that make us qualify for our rights (righteousness).  For example, the person able to work evades the duty.  It is clear from Scripture that the person will be hungry and is reduced in the society, perhaps by denial of sustenance until correction is made.  The person able to give to the needy steals from the needy in passing along a lie related to human meaning.  (This was dramatically illustrated to the church in the lies of Ananias and Sapphira.) The matter is so basic that Solomon reminds his readers that it is good for children to bear some of the yoke of work in their youth.  Every person I have ever met, when the theme came up, were pleased when as children they were taught to work, not only to help sustain their own maintenance but to contribute to others.  Anything that contributes to the benefit of others is interpreted by God as divine work.  To accomplish it, the person ought to choose affirmative addictions to life in small and large ways.  Each day to be determined to accomplish something true with his or her competency – to pray, lift, encourage, add-to, including lifting others so to reduce the negatives of life.  Not all addictions are negative.  The habit of the good should so take us that we begin to do the right things because they have made us what we are in habit.  One of the first addictions I want for my life is prayer.  I want to be addicted to holy love, and to aid that truly helps others.  It is the work of angels.