Checks You Can't Cash

Here's a list of 5 Things That Don't Deliver On What They Promise: 

1. Consumerism: We fill our heads with thoughts of, "How wonderful my life will be once I own that!" But all of us have experienced the reality of Buyer's Remorse. I am an expert at convincing myself of the necessity of material goods I covet. 

2. Pornography: Attractive, but also objectifying, dehumanizing, and addicting. A recent article in New York Magazine, discusses among other things, how men's appetite for sex with real women decrease after viewing porn.

3. Promiscuity: Despite what the latest pop song tells you, having multiple partners is not cool. STD's, emotional pain, and insecurity, form the tip of the iceberg of this destructive, but culturally acceptable practice.

4. Infidelity: There are three words for love in Hebrew: riyah: love between friends; ahavah: deeply committed love; dod: erotic, sexual love. Infidelity lives on the promise that dod love is enough to satisfy, but ultimately leaves us empty and longing for the substance of relationships that include all three types of love.

5. Lying: "Oh what a tangled web we weave!" Lying excels at getting us out of the frying pan and into the oven. In the end the freedom of truth trumps the convenience of a lie.

Don't Look Back

Pillar of Salt

The moment you start arguing you have lost the battle. This is standard teaching in the psychology of addiction. It shows the connectedness one has to the destructive activity or thought process.

I was recently reading the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the ancient cities that were destroyed by fire from heaven because of their depravity. I was struck by the main character's refusal to cut the ties to places that epitomized horrific dehumanization.

God sent angels to deliver Lot and his family from the coming destruction, and the text tells us he, "lingered" (Gen 19.16) - so much so that he had to be drug from his home. His wife is famous for being the one who looked back on the cities as they were being razed, and was turned into a pillar of salt.

A professor I know likes to say, "we humans are inherently addictable." It may be the control, the predictability, the physiological connection, but whatever the reason for the addiction, it robs us of our humanity.

This is a very serious subject and one that can hardly be touched in a blog post, but if you have recently taken steps to free yourself from things that were robbing you of life, keep prodding along and don't look back.

You are leaving a realm of bondage and are entering a life of incredible freedom (Rom 6.22). I have found that staying as far as I can from the things I justify as innocent, but know they will only drag me down, is one key to living freely.