After the Next Bottle

Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. 2 Samuel 12:7-8

While using opioids, I told myself that every bottle of pills was the last one, then I’d be satisfied, and I’d quit. I craved opioids constantly though and while I found immediate gratification in using them, there could be no lasting satisfaction. Once the high wore off, I needed more. Always more. So, even though I promised myself I’d be done, it was always after the next bottle. I had an insatiable appetite that could only be temporarily relieved, but never truly satisfied. I honestly fantasized about having bucket-loads of pills, but no matter how many I got, I always needed more. What I had was never enough. There simply couldn’t ever be enough – that’s the nature of addiction.

We’ve all got that thing which we crave, which brings immediate gratification, but which can never truly satisfy us. We seek satisfaction in sex, money, or shopping but as long as we try to find our contentment in the wrong place, we’ll never be satisfied. This is illustrated in today’s passage, in which the prophet Nathan confronted David for killing Uriah and taking his wife as his own. Speaking through Nathan, God told David that he’d given him everything – power, money, women – but it wasn’t enough. Though David had it all, he didn’t have that one woman, and so, he took her.

We all want to be happy. That’s not wrong. Where we go wrong is that we often reach for immediate gratification, confusing pleasure for joy. Pleasure is momentary and immediate gratification doesn’t last. We may feel full momentarily, but that goes away and the hunger returns. Then, there’s usually some painful price to be paid. If we truly desire to experience joy and contentment, we must recognize that God made us to find those things only in a loving relationship with him. Then, we must daily invest in that relationship – reading, praying, listening, obeying – so that we may know true satisfaction. If we find ourselves discontent and unhappy, we must do what it takes to abandon our self-destructive pursuits, so that we may find joy and peace in God alone.