Let me ask you a question.

Can you have a healthy addiction? Or rephrased is all addiction wrong?

It’s so easy to turn to the things of this world: sex, drugs, alcohol, materialism – you name it. Are you addicted to one of these right now? Or do you know someone who is to one of these or another harmful concern? Let’s turn the tables – do you know someone who is addicted to giving, to serving others, to praying for the church or in general, or to loving Christ?

As I have mentioned, as of late, it’s been on my heart to be more giving. At my church the topic of generosity is currently being taught and the acronym is:

L = labor
I = influence
F = finances
E = expertise and experience

We can impact the world daily through one or more of these areas. We can spread love and serve Him while our hearts are focused on what really matters.

Would we ask from the L-rd for us to be addicted to generosity? What is that cost?

The fact is that we are all needy and live in a transactional world. Needy for love, needy to be appreciated, needy for X, and needy for Y. We want to get back what we put in OR even more.

Now imagine we don’t care about getting anything back. We are 100% focused on the prize of being with Christ and allow Him to work through us and around us as He sees fit. If so, we would get a heart change and a focus shift – from ourselves and our selfish needs to a different type of need. A true need – depending on Him and the desire to continue on the path of that dependency.

An addiction to dependency. Some would say in a 12-step addiction program that co-dependency is a hangup and negative. While I agree with this concept when the light is shined on a person and you hold he/she up on a pedestal, I want to state that I disagree when the dependency is our L-rd. That is what the L-rd is and what the term “L-rd” means – in CHARGE of EVERYTHING.

We depend on Him. We lay it all at His feet. He is now in control and guiding us. We are needing of His love, His grace, and His direction. We surrender to His care, to His arms, and to His protection. Sure, we will go through quite painful experiences here while we are still breathing air (we need Him for air), and we will never stop needing Him in eternity. We will be perfected including our ultimate neediness to be near Him and to worship.

Thus the question resounds – are you ready for a healthy addiction..?

I pray that all of us, including me, seek out Christ as our healthy addiction and to yield our cares, worries, and needs to Him daily for not only our daily bread but our forever future.

Oh, and to leave one last thought in your mind I hope, I was reading a book about generosity and an interesting point was made. The woman who anointed Jesus with the expensive perfume – was she more concerned about the transaction or more about the worship no matter what the cost. What was she needing…?

May we be more like the woman rather than the disciples in this story!

Mark 14:3-7 (HCSB):

“While He was in Bethany at the house of Simon who had a serious skin disease, as He was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of pure and expensive fragrant oil of nard. She broke the jar and poured it on His head. But some were expressing indignation to one another: “Why has this fragrant oil been wasted? For this oil might have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor.” And they began to scold her. Then Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a noble thing for Me. You always have the poor with you, and you can do what is good for them whenever you want, but you do not always have Me. She has done what she could; she has anointed My body in advance for burial. I assure you: Wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told in memory of her.”