Bear Hunt: You Have to Go Through ItSýnishorn

Let’s talk about drugs, alcohol, and sex. 

When we talk about medicating, those might be the forms that pop into your mind right off the bat. But it’s actually much bigger than that. 

I define medicating as the dependence on something external to relieve something internal.

Medicating sometimes looks like exercise, food, religion, music, relationships or even isolation. There are thousands of reasons we medicate and thousands of ways to medicate. That’s why what we use to medicate isn’t really all that important. What IS important is the answer to this question: Am I depending on something other than God to get through this challenge?

The Bible has a word for this: idolatry. We serve a very jealous God. He wants all of our attention, all of our worship, and all of our heart. He doesn’t want us to turn to anything other than Him when we are in a place of need. That’s why He makes promises to be our strength and give us power when we are weak (Isaiah 40:29). 

The only way we will ever grow in our pain and become more like Jesus is when we decide to address our challenges and depend on God to do the heavy lifting. 

When we choose to medicate, we’re believing we don’t have the power to withstand the challenges we’re facing. But 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 assures us that we have been given the authority through the power of Christ to demolish our strongholds. 

It’s about changing our perspective from “I can’t” to “He can.”