NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

May 17 - Keep it simple, II

Scripture focus: The LORD protects the simplehearted; when I was in great need, he saved me. Psalm 116:6 (NIV)

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Nagyrapolt

When it comes to understanding the nature of self-destructive behaviors and unrecovered living, the insanity of our choices demands a complex answer. Who would disappear for three days and leave a baby unattended? Who would go hang out at a bar while three small children sat out in a car in the parking lot on a cold winter's night? What person in their right mind would steal from an employer to feed a habit – especially when the boss was a relative? Why would anyone choose to lose their "real" life because they won't leave their "fake" internet obsessions alone?

Anyone who has managed to untangle themselves from addictive behaviors and other repetitive bad choices knows this one simple truth – it all comes down to quitting, not engaging in the behavior, refusing to indulge the next temptation – one temptation at a time. No matter how alluring the quest to answer the "whys" of repetitive, loveless, cheap choices that kill, steal and destroy our lives, anyone who quits, one day quits.

"In addiction, as in all of life, we overcomplicate things in order to avoid facing their truth. The systems of our brains are intelligent, and they love to go crazy with their intellectual abilities. We can use our time thinking about the intricacies of our addictions instead of quitting them. We can fill all the potential spaces God gives us with thoughts. We can think about praying instead of praying. This does not mean we should stifle our intellects, but when we find our minds trying to pick their way through Gordian knots of thought, it would be wise to take a breath and see if we might just be avoiding some simple truth – the simple next thing we need to do, or the next temptation we should simply avoid. Ideally, the quality of simplicity will undergird and flow through all that we do. The simplicity of addiction is not to do the next addictive behavior. The simplicity of the spiritual life is living with love." Addiction and Grace by Gerald G. May, M.D., p. 178.

Keep it simple.

Do the next right thing.

Recommended reading: Deuteronomy 30-32

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