Faith/Spiritual
Ever turn to a toxic habit to escape? Steve Arterburn describes it this way, “Addiction is a radical commitment to escape reality.” In many ways, addiction is like chasing after the wind—one can feel the wind but never hold it.
Addiction always begins as an experiment. Someone starts by trying to taste life’s pleasures and find fun and excitement to escape their pain. They attempt to find fulfillment by using drugs, alcohol, overeating, shopping, porn, working excessively, or something else.
Though they find temporary relief from the pain by using what they believe they can control, the pain returns, and it’s much worse than before. (more…)
Faith/Spiritual
Hardships weigh heavy on us all. Whether we have financial struggles, relationship difficulties, or health issues, we’re all struggling with something. It’s easy to feel discouraged, depressed, and depleted. Even our souls can feel powerless against the problems we’re facing. No matter how weak we may feel, the Lord promises to give us strength.
Here are 7 strategies for keeping our soul strong. (more…)
Life Issues
Take a look around you. Can you see everything in your surroundings? Most of us would say yes. But the truth is, whether your vision is 20/20 or corrected by lenses, the answer is the same: no matter how hard you try, you cannot see everything around you.
The human eye has a blind spot—a small area on the retina, about the size of a pencil eraser, without photoreceptors. We usually aren’t aware of this blind spot because our brains fill in this blank area with the surrounding images, making our visual field appear seamless. But this is an optical illusion. With one eye closed, any object passing through this small field will disappear momentarily. (more…)
Life Issues
God has a plan to deal with that sense of lack in our lives. – Steve Arterburn
Do you feel empty? You’re not the only one. We all struggle with emptiness from time to time. In the Bible, even David struggled with loneliness and emptiness. He cried out to God, “Turn to me and have mercy, for I am alone and in deep distress,” (Psalm 25:16, NLT).
Feelings of emptiness can give us a desire to turn to God as David did. But it becomes unhealthy when we turn to addiction to fill our emptiness.
Some people who struggle with codependency may turn to an unhealthy relationship in an attempt to fill the void in their lives, while others go shopping or binge on food to make themselves feel better. Still others turn to a bottle of pills or alcohol to numb their feelings of hopelessness.
No matter how hard your situation may seem, if you’re trying to fill the emptiness through unhealthy ways, you’ll relapse and things will get worse. To recover, you have to learn how to fill your inner emptiness in healthy ways. How? Here are a few tips to help you get started. (more…)
