Vices are often our poor attempts to find life apart from God. We naturally search for relief when the stresses of life wear us down. But rather than our convenient vices, we must diligently search for life with God.
After a long day of trying to keep up with the many demands of life, our tank is empty and our souls are hungry.
We crave beauty and desire ecstasy, but these require purposeful action to cultivate well. So we settle instead for whatever is easy and convenient.
We turn to food and abuse substances, pornography and mindless entertainment in our attempts to experience some taste of life.
Part of us knows we’re self-medicating and that our vices cannot truly satisfy. All the same, we tend to confuse our symptoms with the problem.
We beat ourselves up for indulging in our various vices without stopping to consider our souls are desperately crying out for more life.
While it’s certainly good to fight against anything that’s unbecoming of the man we want to be, we end up simply replacing one vice for another when we don’t pay attention to the deeper desires of our heart.
Success is not defined by merely eliminating vices. True success comes when we can discover the deeper life the vice is pointing to.
Vices are clues to our heart’s desires.
The challenge is to listen and not just suppress – to satisfy the problem and not just manage the symptoms.
Too often we’re spread thin with the demands of life and have few outlets to refresh and renew our souls. We’re overburdened and lonely and our vices function as a Band-Aid to get us through the day.
As we address the deeper issues, the Band-Aid is no longer needed.
Work to eliminate the ungodly vices from your life. But don’t miss the deeper life your soul is craving as well.
Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash
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