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Of the many questions and conversations we may find ourselves having with family or friends, should any mention be made of addiction and its grief and hardship…
few of us feel alienated from the topic…
because we “know someone” or are “related to someone” whose life has been damaged or completely ruined by this insidious seeming foe.

As I am continuing a study of Ephesians, I have found understanding there in an exposition on faith…
from Chapter 6…
on the shield of faith…
that speaks of the central differences between faith and unbelief…
and that uses the addiction to alcohol as an illustration to drive home the point.

Faith, as we know from Romans 12:3, is given…
the giver is God…
and, comes in measures that He has assigned for us.

(It should be noted that the focus of Romans 12:3 is not the “measure of faith” given us but is an important, though secondary, point in the verse.)

Why does any person give his/her life over to any other person, place, or thing that has the potential to destroy them?

Is the reason insecurity, fear, possibly guilt? 
That’s the direction my study is suggesting…
though the person in the throes of the addiction may never be able to admit that to him/herself, much less to anyone else.

If any one of these is the reason, what do we make of it?
Does insecurity, fear, or guilt denote unbelief?

Does this question take us back into a search for a better understanding of the culture of darkness versus the culture of light…
darkness, of course being unbelief…
and light, obviously being faith in Christ?

What are the secrets of the hold that addiction has on those we love and care for?  If we knew, would we be able to help them bridge the chasm separating them from us?  Would we be able to throw them a lifeline?  Would they want to come back?

Is it as simple (and complex) as faith versus unbelief? 

If it is, then there are many we know who are not addicted to substances that qualify.  How do we reach any of them?

Are we reaching them?  What effect can we have on them?  Isn’t the answer between them and God?  What do we do or say when we see the unbelief in their eyes…
and feel helpless?

You can see that I have a lot of questions…
I am thinking that you may as well.

If we find an answer, and our loved one still says no, are we willing to face the consequence of no as their answer?  We have decisions to make, too.

How do we love someone consumed with thoughts and determinations to stay as they are…
convinced that to even try to change will be worse than where they are now?

How can we not love them…
knowing that unless or until they choose Christ…
they may be as blind and as morbidly deaf as Helen Keller was before Annie Sullivan finally reached her.

Maybe it’s like that.  Someone thrashing around and lashing out at everyone who draws near because the darkness intends never to let them go…
never to allow a sliver of light in.

Do we have the patience, wisdom and resolve to see them as far along as we can…
even when they are mean and hurtful…
and we know it is only the darkness talking? 

It is a question that can give our hearts pause or reason to faint.  What will we do?

How do we apply what we believe?  What does our faith say?  How do we reconcile what we see and hear with our faith in God when nothing appears to be “working”…
when the formulas aren’t issuing forth the promised results…
when the applied “truths” do not grant immediate relief?
Do we have the stamina and the courage to stay the course?

It is much to ponder?

So many of us have almost comforted ourselves with ideas that tell us that because we won’t stand before multitudes or be expected to preach or teach…
that not as much may be asked of us…
you know, it won’t happen to us…
and then there comes across our path that someone so obviously living in darkness, however it manifests itself,
and we just know that they are living in danger…
and now they are in our space…
maybe in our family…
and we can’t pretend not to see.

Suddenly, it’s all very up close and personal…
and we have to decide what our part will be.

Of course, we can’t “save” them.  That transaction has to take place between the person and God, but we do have to decide and resolve what our actions will include and what they will not include.  God allows us to weigh these circumstances and decide a course of action.  Isn’t He trusting that we will do that?

What will we do?

I haven’t raised this question to give a nice, neat, and “spiritual” answer so that we all feel better.  I have raised the question because all of us have people in our lives that are living in the culture of darkness.  Their substance is ruled by insecurity, fear, and, possibly, guilt.  It is their way, the rule of their lives.  It is the thing that they “live and breathe and have their being in”.  It is what they are, or are becoming, “one” with.

There is no quick fix and no amount of Scripture quoted will “snap them out of it”.  Their lives and the lives of their families are being devastated…
and we preach the answers to ourselves each and every week…
until we are face to face with the “problem”…
and realize that we haven’t made a plan…
haven’t really torn apart the scenarios…
just plain don’t know what to do…
and feel powerless.

None of this is easy.  We are not powerless…
but we can really feel like we are.

There are opportunities in these kinds of circumstances to do what we can do. 
That’s what is asked of us…
to do what we can do…
and not to faint in the face of what we see and hear and feel.

There is hope…
we are not alone…
oh, yes, there is hope…

Every time we pray, our own faith is refreshed.  Every time we practice what we will do and turn it over and look at it from every angle and stay the course, God is with us.  We will not be judged for what we cannot do.  We are not judged for the decisions of others.

But we must try to love in patient, yet concrete ways…
and we may be asked to do hard things…
but everyone who does finally come out of darkness comes out with some memory of the battle…
and of who those were who fought for them even when every effort was being made to resist.

We have to try to do what we can do.
How can we not?
And we have to decide what that means…
what we can do.

Faith can be a shield to quench all the flaming darts of the evil one.

Faith is given measure by measure.

Jesus Christ is the author and finisher of our faith.

We must raise our shields and risk the dangers of the battleground.

We have to put hands and feet on all these images and walk into these dark places.

Those we love may be perishing. 

But what does any of that look like in the real world? And what does it translate to in action?

Faith is the only antidote to unbelief… even when the responses don’t come in ways that we expect…
even if, in what appears to be the end, we must let them go.

We don’t know the middle from the end and we don’t have to know that.

Again, we do what we can do…
and we don’t skimp on what it means to figure that out…
and we have to risk being touched by the mess and chaos of others’ lives…
and we trust God for the rest.

If we take it up, it is a cross to be carried. It doesn’t end in a day or a few weeks, or even in a month. Our own faith will be tested and stretched. We may want to quit many times because it’s more than we bargained for. Is another life that valuable to us? Is the power of God great enough for us to persist in?

The questions have to be asked and the answers weighed if we are really willing to “go in”.

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