Drunk on the world

I was thinking how the Bible talks about drunkenness and lust and it made me think about addiction and how addiction to screens, the news and social media, are a way of becoming drunk on the world..

An addiction is a form of slavery. We may think we are free when we follow our passions and lusts but we are enslaved to our own  desires. When we act on our lust,  our behaviours are motivated by the biological  chemical drives in our bodies and brains.

Often, when a person is drunk or on drugs they feel like they have even sharper, truer perceptions and insights than when they are sober, but this is a trick. They often even feel like they can drive a car but usually they end up behaving in a way that has horrible repercussions  and consequences.

Sometimes that can happen with the internet. We get lost down rabbit holes of ‘knowledge’, ‘illuminating’  insights and the noise of arguments stuck on feedback loops that go nowhere, only engrave deeper resentments and lines of division.

The enemy uses the internet and the media in a similar way I think. It’s so easy to become inebriated on it.

It also makes it harder for us to have the deep concentration to sit in prayer, to read the scriptures, to wait in the Lord.

Addiction changes our tastes. It can make us love what is toxic and hate what is healthy.

I was thinking about the Israelites and how they hated the taste of manna at first. How they even missed Egypt because even though they were slaves in Egypt It gave them the food they wanted to eat.  Read Numbers Chapter 11.

Manna can taste a little dry at first but it is only light because it’s pure. Once you get used to it other food makes you sick.

When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

26 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

28 Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”

29 Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

30 So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you?What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’

32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life.Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty

- John 6:25-35

Jesus can break every chain of addiction. Whatever we hand over to Jesus, whatever we lay at His feet, He becomes The Lord over it.
 He leads us, to walk in the freedom of the children of God.
So our peace, joy, love and sustenance come from an eternal source that never runs dry.

.
‘My joy, my love, my peace cannot be taken by the world because it was not given by the world.’
- Emma Mae Jenkins
.
.