The thought dropped neatly and quietly into my mind as I was taking my morning walk. It clicked in like the final answer to a question I already knew the answer to, but needed to hear again. What the addict really desires, what all of us really desire is more of God not more of anything else. More of His power, more of His prescence, more of His glory. Why do we want more of anything? It’s to fill an emptiness within us. Something we feel we are lacking. But God is the only one big enough to fill that space. What we don’t need is:

Another helping of comfort food

Another drink

Another hit

Another 10 miles of running

Another trip to the mall

Another look at that magazine, movie, book that we know we shouldn’t be looking at.

There are those of us with addictive personalities. I am one of them. I have been addicted to not eating, and after I got over that I became addicted to exercise. I would go to my morning class and then the evening class, and then after that I would follow the aeobics teacher to her final class in the neighboring town. I was one of the groupies. A little exercise was good, a lot was much better as far as I was concerned.

There was also a time in my life when it got very easy for me to put away three glasses of wine a night. Then one day I heard myself giving someone the pat answer for how often I drank. “Oh, I have a glass of wine with dinner every now and then.” HA. And this is the funny thing about God. When you get really serious with Him, He will ask you to be honest with Him and yourself. And He will ask you to make some changes.

Right after I said that, (in the deafening silence of my brain) the Holy Spirit said, “That is not true.” I had been lying to others, myself and God too. And it was time to get real. Then He asked me what I was going to do about it.

The truth is, there will always be another reason or excuse to eat too much or have another drink. The reason why will always be there, but thankfully, so will God.

That night on the way home from work, I didn’t buy any wine even though I knew I was out. I went home and sat down in the corner of the yard and prayed. The stray cat, “Tux” came and sat beside me.  I prayed, “Okay God, you need to show up here and make yourself real tonight.” And as the cat and I sat side by side, we watched the sky fill up with one of the most beautiful sunsets I had ever seen. He showed up big time.

I do believe God gives us certain days that are mile markers in life, and He makes sure we won’t forget them. That was around 8 years ago now and still vividly alive in my mind. It’s a reminder to me that anytime I think I need more of something else, it’s really more of Him I need.

He loves us so much friends. The God of the universe loves you right where you are right now today and He’s waiting with open arms to reveal Himself to you in a big way.

And you don’t even have to clean yourself up before you go, Jesus already did that.

Let yourself be loved. Just the fact that you are on this earth is proof that He loves you.

He is there for the quick fix as well as the long haul.

“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

Hebrews 13:5