104 - The Four Promises and Addiction
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Four Realities and Four Promises
Ultimately, every person who becomes addicted to any substance or behavioral process is running from knowing how to or being willing to contend with four realities and four promises.
Because the four realities are in conflict with the experience of the four promises, a person must find a way to integrate the conflict or avoid real life.
We are emotional and spiritual creatures, created to live fully. We are created to only be able to find fulfillment in relationship with ourselves, others and God.
As emotional and spiritual creatures, if we run from feelings and needs, we cannot resolve the conflict between reality and the truth of God.
Four Realties
The best we ever become is still clumsy. We are all like “giraffes running on ice.” Perfection is not attainable.
We must live life on life’s terms. We don’t make the rules about how life works. No one defeats death, pain, or the craving to connect in relationship. To love always requires that we learn how to tolerate pain.
Everything in life is practice. Doctors practice medicine, lawyers practice law. Parents, likewise, are practicing being parents, as are people practicing being human. Children are working very hard practicing being children. No one has all the answers. We are all works in progress, not works of perfection.
It takes a lifetime to learn how to live. Whether a person is eight or eighty-eight, we still have questions about living and life, relationships, love, success, needs, and God.
Four Promises
1. God is with us.
Immanuel is the name of Jesus, who is with us in Spirit, was with us in person, and was from the beginning of Creation.
2. God goes ahead of us.
God knows the future where all of us are headed. He is in control of the future and our well-being, even as we suffer living in a tragic place. God desires our good.
3. God will never leave us or forsake us.
God created us to live in relationship with Him, each other, and with connection to our own hearts. He created us to find fulfillment in relationship, and He promises to be with us, though we often doubt Him, and attempt to run from Him.
4. God makes us strong and courageous.
We are created as feeling creatures who have needs. We are created to find our greatest strength and courage in relationship with Him. Our surrender to God and our dependence upon His presence and power gives us the courage that only He can provide.
Again, ultimately, every person who becomes addicted to any substance or behavioral process is running from:
• knowing how to contend with the four realities and four promises
• being willing to contend with four realities and four promises
The way to find full life is through facing, feeling, and dealing with life as we are actually created as emotional and spiritual creatures who seek connection for fulfillment.
Facing and feeling life on its own terms allows us to struggle.
Struggle is the way to deal with the conflict between the four realities of life and the four promises.
Struggle is the ability to:
• Face life and its difficulties
• Feel the feelings that come with facing life
• Deal with what we face and feel by living in relationship
Addiction is a counterfeit fulfillment of escaping from how we are created.
Recovery moves us into being able to struggle, knowing that we are not alone or “terminally” unique.
Struggle allows us to find genuine fulfillment that comes from bringing our hearts to living.
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center