Starting Sunday afternoons in January, I'm going to take a few people through a ten-week course on addiction. It will include some were are personally struggling and others wanting to learn how to help those who are struggling. We will be going through a study called Crossroads: A step-by-step guide away from addiction. By "addiction," the author, Ed Welch means, "temptation, desires run amok, or voluntary slavery." So, those sins that appear to be controlling us are our addiction. Whatever you call it, we all know what it is like to feel out of control.
To get a sense of the wisdom Welch offers, here is a bit of encouragement with which he starts the course:
Your struggle is a common one. Don't begin with the idea that your experience is out of the ordinary. It is, of course, unique--no one completely understands your struggle (not even you). Still, we are all cut from the same cloth. All of us, if we are truly honest, would have to acknowledge a familiarity with that tug of addictions. A lot of wanting is in the human heart. The desire for drugs, alcohol, sex, and food are the more dramatic ones, but they aren't fundamentally different from our cravings for comfort, significance, relationship, money, love, and so on. Try to find one person who has successfully and consistently said no to any of those wants. You won't succeed.
I hope that Mount Vernon will be a place where people who have lots of problems can come and find a home--so long as they are willing to take those problems to the Cross and submit their lives to Christ. This is what this study will be about. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Lord ministers to others and to me.
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