I wrestle with addiction. Thankfully I’m no longer enslaved to pot. I also used to smoke clove cigarettes. But addiction can take many forms. Addiction is any time that we feel helpless to control our actions. It’s as if we are puppets being controlled by an outside source.

There are a few things that you can do to defeat addiction. One is just do something. Wash the dishes. Sort your sock drawer. Write a letter. Go for a walk. Doodle. Make sure it is something where you are being active, even a little. Watching TV and reading don’t count. Those are passive activities and won’t help in this situation.

There is a method of education called the Waldorf method. One of the things that they hold to be true is that the environment reflects the inner nature of the child. If the child is being disorganized and chaotic in play, then the way to fix that is to tidy up the area around the child. Sometimes we have to re-parent ourselves. So in this instance, if you are feeling scattered or sluggish, then what you need to do is start picking up your area. Start moving and tidying up. You don’t have to do your whole house, and in fact I suggest that you not even try all it right then. Balance is important. But rather thanbeing afraid of doing too much it’s also bad to not do anything at all. Get started. Have small goals. That way you can see progress.

I like to think about Judas. He didn’t want to betray Jesus. He was one of Jesus’ followers, disciples, and friends. When Judas realized what he had done, he hung himself. But earlier on in the text we read that Judas didn’t even do it. It wasn’t intentional. An evil spirit entered him and made him do what had to be done. I’ve written about this extensively in a previous post so I’m not going into all of that here. But where I’m going with this is that sometimes despite our best efforts things don’t go the way we want or plan or expect. Sometimes we mean to do well and yet we do the exact opposite. It’s entirely possible that we are being controlled by God, and there is another part of the plan we aren’t aware of.

Now that may sound backwards in light of what I just said about Judas. Remember how I said that he was controlled by evil spirit? If we truly believe that there is only one God and that God made everything, we also then have to understand that there is no such thing as an evil spirit. It is simply an agent of the Lord acting in a way that to our eyes seems backwards and not correct.

How did this does not mean that we are off the hook from trying to do our best? We should always try to do everything we can in our power to do the right thing and to improve ourselves and the world. But part of what I’m saying is if you have tried your best and yet you still fail don’t beat yourself up. Don’t be Judas and kill yourself. We kill ourselves all the time by making fun of ourselves or attacking ourselves with disparaging words.

Think of Balaam and the donkey. Balaam wanted to go forward and yet the donkey he was riding on saw an angel standing in the path in front of them. The angel meant to kill Balaam if he went any further. The donkey stopped and Balaam got really angry with the donkey and started to beat him. Then the donkey talked to him and said “Why are you beating me?” Balaam then saw the angel who was going to kill him if he had continued on that road.

Maybe if we keep trying to go forward and we are blocked perhaps it is best to trust that God is in charge. That maybe there is an angel standing in our way preventing us from getting hurt or doing something wrong.