The Point of it All

I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. Micah 4:5

The addict’s life, singularly focused on the drug, is eventually consumed with obtaining and using that which he craves above all. As the disease progresses, he will sacrifice loved ones, possessions, career, integrity, and faith, in pursuit of that which destroys him. As he abandons everything that was once important to him, the addict’s life becomes all about the drug. The commitment to this destructive goal is absolute madness, but this is addiction.

The Biblical prophet maintained a similar commitment, only not to his own self-destructive appetite, but rather to God. Sacrificing everything, he focused himself on the Father and spent his time, energy, and money, guiding others to him as well. To the prophet, the point of life was to know God and to encourage others to know him as well.

Malachi, in the final words of the Old Testament, stayed true to his life’s purpose. In the passage, he tells of his successor, which we now understand to be John the Baptist, who would be the herald of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Though it didn’t happen for another 400 years, Malachi’s words predicted the coming savior, who would free God’s people from slavery to themselves.

I’m no prophet, but this is my prayer every day, that God would use me to help others to find recovery in him. I don’t live perfectly. I still fail in miserable, painful ways. Daily though, since I’m no longer exhausting my life in pursuit of a drug, I can be of service to God, encouraging others to find recovery and faith in him.

The point of these words, and the point of this blog, is not to tell of what I’ve done. The point of it all, is always, to point others to God and to what he can do for the addict. The message of Malachi, and of the Bible, is that God doesn’t desire that we live in slavery to our self-destructive nature. We can, if we will daily abandon ourselves to follow God, find recovery and freedom in knowing him. That is the point of it all.

This is the last entry of this Old Testament Blog. The blog originally walked through the New Testament, starting back in 2016. The Old Testament started in January of 2018 and finished today in Malachi. The blog isn’t done of course. There is more to come.