It was about this time 6 years ago that I quit smoking. I smoked for 12 years. It’s not something that you’re typically proud of, because I certainly wasn’t. But I will say this, I think God used the experience of that, in a very profound way, to understand the nature of what it means to be an addict.
And the line between an addict and a misfit is unbelievably close. As an addict you just have a craving for something and you just fixated on the wrong thing. All along what you were fixated and hungry for was God.
Sometimes that addiction, a distorted hunger for God, gets very oppressive and it can redefine the way you live your life. God wants you to rise above it. Maybe you’re watching this and you don’t smoke, or you’re not addicted to any substance. But maybe you’re addicted to other people’s opinions about yourself. And maybe your addicted to your own thoughts about yourself. Maybe you’re addicted to fear. Maybe you’re addicted to drama and you don’t know what do if there isn’t drama in your life.
Whatever your circumstance is, it doesn’t have to be earth shatteringly horrible, you could just be stuck in your life. God wants a break through for you. And that’s why I wrote the song “Rise Up.” I wrote it because there are people with small and real problems and some people with big and real problems. Any single one of those God is saying, “Look at me and I’ll raise your head and I’ll lift you above your circumstance.” And I think that Church does that together corporately, then we’ll see lambs that roar like lions. Not because of what they’ve done but because of what God is able to do through them.
