Foolishness

As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness.

Proverbs 26:11

JEFFREY MOTTS WAS executed by lethal injection for the 2005 murder of a fellow inmate at the Perry Correctional Institute in South Carolina. He also murdered two elderly people in 1995. What was particularly revealing was a comment he made in his final statement, which was read by his attorney: “I was the child everyone wanted their children around until I got on drugs. Drugs will destroy your life.”

Jeffrey Motts was a good kid who became addicted to drugs. He is not alone. Many people today struggle with addictions—if not to drugs or alcohol, then to food, exercise, pornography, shopping, work, or the Internet. Habits that were once called compulsions or weaknesses are now described as addictions.

Addictions destroy lives. They undermine confidence and self-respect. They produce painful, destructive patterns. They create a black hole of despair. They make people insensitive to the feelings of those who care for them, because addicts will stop at nothing to feed their addictions. Addictions rob children of loving parents. And they rob people of health and well-being.

Solomon painted a grotesque picture of the addict as one who keeps going back to his “drug” over and over again, thinking that surely this time it will satisfy. But it never does. It will only continue to get worse apart from God’s liberating intervention.

BOTTOM LINE

Addictions are not glamorous. The next time you are tempted, flee to God for strength and help.

Moment of Strength: Proverbs 23:29-35