Addiction and Grace

This is the latest book I’m reading, recommended by Matthew as it was part of his curriculum at Wheaton.

The most significant thing I experienced in reading this is the distinctive link that freedom has to love. I had not really thought of love giving birth freedom in the way it is described here. It is unassuming to me, yet has made so much sense. This really has given me a different perspective on how the Gospel can be lived out. When I am not bonded/addicted to the things that want to usurp my desire, I am then able to direct this desire to its truest form, which is a love for God and an ability to express this love in freedom to Him and others.

This is more or less same idea of sin and redemption, but explained more in psychological terms, which provides a different perspective. Here are the basic thoughts discussed in the first couple chapters of the book:

God has created us out of love, the love that God simply is, for God is love. Scripture proclaims that this love, from which and for which we are created, is perfect.

Our life on earth is lived out expressing this love in a myriad of different forms. Though dimmed because of the fall, all that we do is in one way or another lived out in the actions that express the desire for this love. In many ways it is good – expressed in love for family and friends. And in other ways it is distorted, through controlling, abusive relationships, sexual perversions, etc. However it is played out, it all comes back to our eternal desire and longing to experience the perfect love that we were born into. This yearning is the essence of the human spirit; it is the origin of our highest hopes and most noble dreams.

Our freedom of will is essential for our participation in a creative loving environment. Free will was given to us for a purpose: so that we may choose freely, without coercion or manipulation, to love God in return, and to love one another in a similarly perfect way. So freedom is what is born out of perfect love. The love that creates us is not enslaving; it is eternally present, and endlessly open.

Working against this boundless love that gives birth to freedom is the powerful force of addiction. Addiction is the absolute enemy of human freedom; it is the antipathy of love. Addiction bonds and enslaves the energy of desire to certain behaviors, things, or people, and these things come to rule our lives. In addiction we are forced to worship these objects of attachment, thereby preventing us from truly, freely loving God and one another.

Most true addictions are impossible to get out of by our own willpower. By our own efforts, we are left helplessly unable to escape the bondage we find ourselves in. This also keeps us from attaining the perfect love we were born out of. We are unable to live out the commandment to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind. We can dedicate our entire lives to them, but still fail.

Yet this failure is necessary for us because in this helplessness we can most honestly and completely turn to grace. Grace is our only hope for dealing with addiction, the only power that can truly vanquish its destructiveness. Grace is the invincible advocate of freedom and the absolute expression of perfect love.

Grace itself cannot be possessed; it is eternally free, and like the Spirit that gives it, it blows where it will. We can seek it and try to be open to it, but we cannot control it. Similarly, grace seeks us but will not control us.

Finally, a quote that I feel summarizes what the book is really trying to express:

I live a life infused by the bondage of addiction and the hope of grace; I think we all live such lives. Let us pray that our communal efforts will contribute to that primal, eternal desire that we all share with God: perfect freedom and love for all humankind.