Once a Problem, Always A Problem

Each of us, to a person, has something for which we must inevitably recover.

Many of us have wrestled with that recovery, and are some way, or wholly, there. Being healed or healed. Then, there is the next thing; the next sin or struggle. Then the next. And so forth.

Some of us continue to wrestle. Many are involved in impossibilities, of which Susan Schneider Williams’ story of her devoted husband, Robin, is a testament.

In a life where we’re called into a solitary worship, we find every other distraction and make of some, always more than one, idols.

Life is about worship; one thing or many. That’s our choice. This is not about hating a God who ‘inflicts or allows suffering on good people’. It’s about the way that life works.

I had to give up alcohol. Thirteen years ago now, having tried everything else to cut down and to control my drinking, finding everything else failed, I stumbled across a grand truth. Instead of worshipping alcohol, and the effects of inebriation, and the different drinks I could make, and how I could impress people with how much I could drink, I found a supremely beneficial worship to replace a horrible worship. I swapped a woeful stress reliever for the ultimate peace, fear because of guilt for guilt-free power, cold sweats and nervousness for confidence, among a plethora of other astounding transactions. But the most important thing I swapped was the knowledge that I could ever drink again — for a better knowledge; I had drunk my last drink, ever.

If it wasn’t alcohol, it was cigarettes, and if it wasn’t cigarettes it was food. All these are drugs. All idols are drugs, philosophical imposters set out before us by the devil himself.

Once a problem
(with many things in life),
always a problem.

Once we step away from a problem,
we must continue to keep stepping away.

Wisdom contends with the folly we can control our desires, and Wisdom tells us that we will all have a thorn in the side to prevent us from being conceited (2 Corinthians 12:7).

The essence of worship is trust:

“At core, worship is trust in God.”

— Dr Evelyn Ashley

Trust in God. It’s the gospel in three words. It’s the Old Testament and New encapsulated. It’s the trinity for power, for truth, by the Holy Spirit.

“And Elijah came near to all the people and said,

‘How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.’

And the people did not answer him a word.”

— 1 Kings 18:21 (ESVUK)

Let us respond to what God is saying to us through how our lives are. Let us not be limp. God plus anything is as idolatrous as choosing other idols to the exclusion of the only solitary worship that can help. Each of knows the idols that God wants us rid of.

There is but one worship, or many. One worship will help us wrestle to freedom. Many worships will just continue to confound us.

Recovery is about a worship of trust in God.

May God truly bless you in your decision — if you choose to accept — and journey by worship — to follow Jesus, and Him alone, along the road toward freedom,

Steve Wickham.