Higher Addiction

I will be turning 19 in three months.
I’m a beautiful, dark-skinned teenager who’s in her third year at the University. Let me tell you a short story.

I was about sixteen when I started having access to the internet. I would surf the net and Facebook for long hours of the day and even into the night.

Facebook was my addiction. I would scroll and scroll, admire, envy and get even more depressed. Then, I stumbled on romance and erotic novels. I enjoyed reading and this became my escape. I learnt that I could even give myself some sexual pleasure without hurting anyone. How cool, I thought.

No boyfriend trouble, no worries about pregnancy or mum beating me blue, black. I would touch myself when I felt like it and stop whenever I wanted to. So much fun I thought, but I didn’t know this meal was served full course with dangers and addictions.

Something was happening to me. I couldn’t pray again, I lost that confidence. The Church was a no-go area for me, because I felt condemned already. I was deceived. I couldn’t start and stop when I wanted to. Throughout the day, the thoughts that encompassed my little mind were fantasies of all sorts of sexual pleasures and perversions alike.

My interest in productive things was completely lost. I craved my lone time to do my thing but what I realized was that those three minutes of ‘fun’ was my ticket to the land of guilt and condemnation for three days.

Regrets accompanied my every thought.
Voices told me how dirty I was and how God must be so tired of me. Shame filled my being and I was in despair. My nights were filled with a lack of sleep. My pillow became an ocean of tears. I tried to help myself but I was drowning. All I wanted was to have my fellowship with God back.

Somehow, God sent people my way to tell me He loved me. Well, I thought that was just cliche. Something everyone told you just to feel better.

One day, I heard that God was very intentional about me but how could I believe that? I had to leave the faith of my parents and find God for myself. Believe in Him for me and not just because my parents did. Did He consider me His child still?

And then one day, God sent someone to me. We looked at the prodigal son and my eyes were opened to see that even in his fallen state as a son, the Father still called out to Him. The Father was on the lookout for Him. Wanting to draw him back to himself. He didn’t even care about the reason why the prodigal son had come.

He didn’t care that his son had squandered his resources and only thought of coming back cause he had nothing on him. The Father was just faithfully being a father. Faithfully loving His own. Who does that? He cleaned him up and clothed him. Celebrated and rejoiced over his lost but found son.

And then, I realized God never left me. I left Him because of guilt. I didn’t know how much he loved me. That day, I learnt through the lady that God sent me that He is even more willing to help me from every addiction than I am to help myself.

“For the One working in you is God—both to will and to work for His good pleasure. So says Philippians 2:13 Tola. Can you see He’s not even exactly expecting you to deliver yourself from yourself?

As you see, I am not even speaking off my head but the word of God. The very truth of God’s word. He just wants you to come to Him, trusting and continually submitting yourself to Him. I thought I had to work, punish myself, and make promises to God that I would never do bad again. Something I could never fulfil even in a thousand years.

It was soul-soothing, heartwarming and body and mind-strengthening to come to know that I wasn’t alone and didn’t have to do everything by myself. Father wanted to share that burden with me. Before I would even think that I’ll need help and deliverance from that, He thought about it.

And then, He didn’t just stop there. The Sweet person of God divinely orchestrated my deliverance and sent His son once and for all. For me. I was His temple and He could very well take care of His sanctuary. He could clean every dirty area in my life. Take away the garment of sinfulness, and replace it with the garment of righteousness. That is His job description, not mine!

And so, I trusted Him and let him have the keys to every area of my life. Even the darkest corners of my life. I remember not truly surrendering my all to him.

My horrible addictions
My greatest lies
My foolish mistakes
My deepest secrets
My weaknesses!

But He was willing to help me through all of that, in love. And He has. His grace is always sufficient. Christ has become my addiction, my higher addiction!


Lessons:
✓ Don’t let the devil take you to a place where you feel or even believe for a moment that you own and live for yourself; a place where you feel powerful and sufficient in yourself and not God’s grace – that’s pride and then you think you’re very strong and mighty but then, you keep going in circles until you fall badly.

✓ God wants to help you more than you want to help yourself. Trust and tell it to Him.

✓ Quit the subtle act of giving God some space, trusting him with some things (and not everything), opening some rooms to Him but either by disbelief or distrust and ultimately deceit, reserve some to take care of ourselves.

✓ Surrender everything to Him. Make Him your addiction. The addiction you can never regret.