A key for recovery and healing for all sex addicts is their ability to answer three spiritual questions. In one of my three new books, Becoming A Man of Valor, all three of these questions are elaborated. The three are:
1. Do you want to get well?
2. What are you thirsty for?
3. What are you willing to die for and are you willing to die to yourself?
All three are taken from stories of Jesus' interactions with people in the Gospel of John, Question one is the question Jesus asks an invalid who has come to lie by the healing pool of Bethesda as described in John 5. For addicts, we must be willing to heal despite our questions, misgivings, and even anger at God. Question two is from Jesus' conversation with a Samaritan woman at a well near Sychar in Samaria. He tells her that earthly water never heals thirst but that "living water" does, the healing water of salvation that he has to offer. Addicts need to know what their soul has been thirsting for and what false attempts they have made to satisfy it. Finally, questions three recognizes that addiction is selfish and that recovery is self less. What better question to ask than what would a person be willing to die for, the utmost act of selflessness. John 11 is the story of Lazurus who Jesus allows to die and later raises from the dea to demonstrate his resurrecting power. Addicts do need to die to themselves. It is only in that what that Jesus can come into their life in a powerful was and heal their hearts. Recovery is, in fact, resurrecting!
Found this through link in your latest email, you might email your list with just news of the blog because it (the link) was way down at the bottom, not everyone will find it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, for a blog to be really successful, you have to do it daily, it becomes, I'm sure a slave in some ways, but all the blogs I've ever followed with any seriousness were done by daily bloggers.
All that said, thank you for starting the discussion.
You'd emailed me some months ago with a question I had about your book, by moving those types of questions to a public forum, more people can be helped, imo.
Anyway, to answer your questions:
1. More than anything.
2. True intimacy.
3. I am willing to die for my family and much of my community, those that have stood by me through my self-destruction come to mind. I am working on being willing to die to self, that is the hardest thing.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteI have a question about your first question. How does a recovering addict reconcile that part of himself that *truly* wants to get better with that part of him that clings to the addiction like a lifeline? How perfectly does an addict have to align with these before he can start seeing real progress in his recovery?
I'm excited that Mark is geting his info out to a needy world... Cheeers from down under.
ReplyDelete