Today we want to talk about addictions and I’ve got of course my good friend Jim Crest here who is licensed professional counselor and Dr. Dr. Joel Mudamali and we want to approach this both from a therapeutic standpoint also a theological standpoint and lastly an experiential standpoint because addictions are something that are quite prevalent and even if you’ve never had an addiction chances are there’s only a onederee separation between you someone you love someone you do life with that is struggling with an addiction so we
think this is a very important topic I first want to open up with a story that I think really illustrates why it’s so important important to go there to talk about this and to discover what we can do in situations where we are struggling with an addiction or living with someone who is struggling with an addiction.
Several years ago, I was over in Florence, Italy, and I went to the Academia Museum. The purpose of me going there was because I was very excited to see Michelangelo’s David, the big statue of David, and what a masterpiece it was. I remember though when I walked into the long hallway that leads to the ratunda where the David sits, it wasn’t the David that captured my attention, even though it was a masterpiece and it was beautiful and I was eager to walk closer to it.
But what captured my attention were the statues that were lining the hallway leading up to the David. These were statues that still look like big pieces of rock of marble. And there was maybe like a head sticking out with an elbow and a leg of one. And then the next one there was no head. It was still the big block, but there was like a shoulder and an arm and another, you know, maybe foot or something.
And each of these statues were unfinished. And it looked like there was a beautiful sculpture that was trying to emerge from the rock. But this unfinished collection was called the prisoners. And what made me think about this, and I still think about it to this day, is what it looks like when someone is forever locked in their hard places.
You know, it was kind of eyeopening to stand there and look at what the master artist had finished. chiseling and it got to this beautiful this masterpiece called the David and how stark it was to compare that to these unfinished statues that were called the prisoners. And so I started praying this, God, chisel me. I don’t want to be a prisoner forever locked in my hard places. Chisel me.
Um work on me, Lord. And and you know, in order to be chiseled, that means you have to be like worked on, chipped at, and it doesn’t always feel pleasant. It doesn’t always seem good at the time. But all of God’s work to get us to the place where God has this good in mind for us, it is good work even if it doesn’t feel good in the moment.
So that’s why I wanted to tell this story just to give us a picture of someone who’s struggling with addiction and how they really are stuck in this really hard place. And so Joel, I want to turn to you first and I want to just know from a theological standpoint, does the Bible even talk about addictions? Where do we go in the Bible to read about addictions? So what do you have for us today? Yeah, I think the first place I’d like to start is actually picking up on that chiseling kind of story.
um and to point out how that’s such a great illustration of the work of sanctification in our lives. And so, you know, imagine you’ve got this big thing of block of marble and it’s a little bit different from how we do art today where uh depending on your medium, you’ve got an image in your mind and then you draw that image out, you know.
