God and heroin

Christians are divine heroin addicts. (Say what??) Don't worry, you read me right. You're not having eye problems. We are divine heroin addicts. Let me explain why this metaphor, bizarre as it may sound, actually is appropriate.

One snort of even the tiniest amount of heroin can get a man hooked for life. It can enslave any man, from the filthy rich celebrities in Hollywood, to the vagrants who listlessly wander the streets of Los Angeles.

On the other hand, a single beam of the Light God sheds on the man whom He chooses can miraculously take his dead heart captive -- not only in this life, but in the next. More so, this God-Light, like heroin, ignores age, tongue, culture or color.

As time goes by, a junkie will crave for ever-increasing doses of heroin to "get high," to experience the euphoria of heroin coursing through his brain. His neural receptors, having been blocked by diacetylmorphine molecules, will signal the brain to drastically reduce the production of natural endorphins, or pain-killers. This causes the junkie an irresistible physical dependence to heroin.

And just like a drug-dependent junkie needing larger doses, a growing Christian will slowly be dissatisfied, little by little, with the fleeting glimpses of God in Isaiah 6 and Daniel 4. He will want so much more than that. He will long to see God -- to actually see Him, to feel His awesome radiance overwhelm the depths of his soul.

A junkie can't live another day without snorting or injecting heroin. If he doesn't, he suffers withdrawal, an agonizing set of symptoms that include cold sweat and goosebumps and body itches -- hence the colloquial term, "cold turkey." In some extreme cases, an addict trying to quit suffers unimaginable pain (even in the absence of physical trauma) that can only be relieved by another large dose of heroin.

A Christian can't live even a minute without God. He humbly recognizes that his entire existence -- everything in him -- is dependent on Him. Though he may run away from Him countless times and plunge into the stinking quagmire of sin he was rescued from, he will inevitably retrace his steps back to His fold. Because he knows, he knows deep inside that He alone satisfies.

The great tragedy with heroin addiction is it can lead a junkie to take a step too far, one irrevocable step into his pitiful habit: he can die of drug overdose. If he takes a milligram more than heroin's LD50 (50% lethal dose), that odious snort could be the final nail on his coffin.

But unlike heroin junkies, a Christian can never be OD'd with God. Though his thirst for the Living Water is unquenchable, the fountain of Living Water is inexhaustible as well. It will take eternities for God to reveal His hidden glories to the Christian, and for the Christian to scale in awe and wonder the breathtaking mountain peaks of the glory of God.