HIGH
Seems like everyone is looking for the same thing. What you ask? To get high.
On one side some focus on lifting God high as Isaiah 57 suggest, while the other side is looking for a different high that will take away all their struggles. What is the difference you may ask? Let me see if I can bring some light to this one.
Avoiding struggle sounds like a great plan, but is it? Is victory not the joy of overcoming the struggle? As courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to face fear and moving forward, is this not the same thing when it comes to facing struggle? Is success not a combination of highs and lows? Can you even have a high without a low? Can you have a mountain without a valley?
In today’s world are we helping our kids by telling them that they can’t lose? Not keeping score and everyone gets a prize no matter how they perform? I’m sure some of you just thought about throwing some guilt my way when you read that. Before you do so, let me explain how I define losing.
I am a John Wooden disciple. Coach Wooden said that winners don’t lose, they just run out of time on the scoreboard. If you work your tail off, if you do all you can, if you avoid cheating, if you demonstrate character, but fall short of your goal then you are the definition of a winner. Winners sometime lose, but they never fail. Failing is quitting or finding something that will remove the struggle. The most successful inventors never saw failure as the enemy. Great men see failure as their ally and a necessary door to go through on their way to success.
A warrior is made in the war. His most prize possessions are the scars that came from the battle.
It hurts me when I hear someone say that someone is high as a kite, knowing that it is a false high achieved through running from the heat of the battle. What is a false high? It is running from the truth, pretending to have done something that you know you have not accomplished honestly. It is ignoring the truth, and taking something that gives you a fake or false high. It is addiction to chill and the inability to deal with your weakness. You see The Truth says in your weakness, through Christ Jesus, you are made strong.
Failure is trying to cheat the system to win. Instead of working hard, standing strong in faith, and overcoming the struggle, you choose to avoid pain through a pseudo substance. You learn short cuts and ways to cheat success. You listen to and follow the lies of those who do not speak the Truth. Sadly the media and the movies give you horrible examples and role models and sell alcohol, immorality, and drug use as the answer.
“No pain, no gain” used to be a statement that the was a foundation principle. Now people seek to avoid the pain, because they simply don’t want to deal with it. One false truth or answer is to medicate your problems. Become numb or just walk away from reality. When things get tough, the tough get going, but under this new foolish strategy, when things get tough, just get high without the struggle of overcoming the challenges of life. The challenges are the steps in the process that build character and endurance. James 1:2 and James 1:12 show you the path to Godly success.
What picture is the world and the enemy painting for you? What does this picture look like? Just transfer as soon as you don’t get your way. Transferring in college athletics has become a tidal wave that is challenging the divorce rate. Is it any surprise that our kids will follow the paths of their parents. Fatherless homes are a result of removing Christ and values from the home and the school room. The majority of colleges have become breeding grounds for immoral behavior and liberal agendas. You don’t have time to teach your children values and hard work because you are too busy working, so you depend on a coach, pastor, or professor to do so. When you don’t take them to church, then just tell them to transfer when a coach attempts to discipline them, then allow a liberal professor to fill their heads with false truth, then what do you expect is going to happen?
The result is young men learning to get high on weed in order to get away from their struggles. The result is a young man or woman not even knowing what sex they are because someone suggested they may not be a male or female. I can promise you the LGBTQ are recruiting on every corner, sadly while Christians were hiding in their churches the last 50 years playing social club, the enemy has been at work. Instead of learning to lean on God to overcome, the answer has become medical marijuana. It used to be called illegal drugs, but now just get a card and that makes it right.
My hope is that 2020 is going to be an awakening to the body of Christ. It is far past time that the church leaves the comfort of the building and becomes the Church, the ROCK that Jesus called us to be. To stand and be courageous and take the heat and the persecution that we were told was part of the decision of becoming a follower of Jesus Christ.
Where does the other road lead to? It leads to alcohol dependence, tobacco dependence, then to prescription pain killers. Oxycodone or Xanax are just a couple of the highly addictive drugs that doctors are prescribing like Tic Tacs these days. I speak from experience as I have watched the enemy’s old weapons of alcohol and low levels of weed, become stronger even more addictive drugs available and thanks to many state governments now legal higher levels of potency often laced with other drugs.
Under what theory of ignorance can we claim that this is equality? The right to do whatever you want. Our country was built on the moral values of Christian faith. You remove this Truth and America will not stand. We will not have a Republic for which we stand. Call the enemy whatever you want to. I know who the real enemy is.
Isaiah 40:31 says that those that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar HIGH on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
I have yet to meet a person that went down the path of alcohol, weed, and drugs for a high, that did not come to the point that they regretted that decision. You may have started down that path and have not come to this point yet as satan has you believing a lie, but I can promise you it is just a matter of time that you reach this point in this hopeless journey.
The awesome truth is this though. Today, you can change all that and turn right into the storm. Look it in the eye and tell the struggle, that you are no longer afraid of it. You know the Truth and the Truth can and will set you free. Jesus Christ is waiting on you and all you have to do is ask. He will forgive all and welcome you with open arms full of hope, peace, and love. A love that never fails.