The Voice of Evil

And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.” 2 Kings 6:28-29

When tempting you to use drugs, the Voice of the Drug doesn’t mention addiction at all. Rather, the drug speaks with a voice of promise. The drug promises a better life. It promises something good and it tells you that you can get away with it. And you do get something good . . . briefly. As the high wears off though, the consequences begin to set in. Then you’ve got a choice to make. You can face the consequences of your bad choices, or you can choose the one way you know how to feel better right now. Again, the Voice of the Drug promises a lie. I can make everything OK. Only after you’ve fallen for this many times do you recognize that you’ve been duped. It’s too late though. Now you’re addicted and the Voice of the Drug simply laughs.

Though the passage isn’t about drugs, today’s passage tells of a similar Voice of Evil. In the story, Samaria was besieged by the Syrians and famine had begun to take its toll. The king was approached by a woman who told him the following terrible story. Mad with hunger and desperation, a second woman convinced this first woman to kill and eat her infant, sharing it. The second woman promised that the next day, they would do the same with her infant. The first woman complied, but the next day, the second woman refused to follow through. The first woman had been duped. She’d been promised that if she did something terrible, she’d get something out of it but all she got was a mountain of shame and regret. Only the next day did she realize her mistake in trusting this evil voice. By then though, it was too late. Her son was gone and she was still starving.

This evil voice is the same voice that tempts all of us, and it’s none other than the Voice of Our Appetite – promising something good but then delivering only misery. The Voice of Our Appetite tells us that we can have the affair, enjoy some porn, or indulge in the chemical, getting what we want and then getting away with it. Once we’ve done the terrible thing though, and once the euphoria wears off, the regret and consequences set in. Only then to we realized we’ve been hoodwinked. There’s always a price to pay for instant gratification. If we desire recovery, living free from the misery of instant gratification, then we must recognize the Voice of Our Appetite and learn to say no to it. Daily, we must follow God, instead of our stomachs.