Psychological Shots

“A German philosopher many years ago said something to the effect that the more a man has in his own heart the less he will require from the outside; excessive need for support from without is proof of the bankruptcy of the inner man. The average man has no central core of moral assurance, no inner strength to place him above the need for repeated psychological shots to give him the courage to go on living. He has become a parasite on the world, drawing his life from his environment, unable to live a day apart from the stimulation which society affords him. No one with common human feeling will object to the simple pleasures of life… such things if used with discretion may be a blessing along the way. The abuse of a harmless thing is the essence of sin.” AW Tozer

This passage hit me hard today. The notion that so many souls have lost (or never found) that thing which fills the heart and makes it want to continue onward in spite of difficulty is devastating. That so many among us really do require “psychological shots” just to keep going is absolutely terrifying.

We put everything we have out there for the world to approve, and then die a little inside when they don’t. Take a shot.

We spend money that we don’t have on the latest fashions we think will satisfy us, but they don’t. Take a shot.

We travel to the far corners of the earth but it’s never far enough. Take another shot.

I am in awe of a culture that has acquired so much knowledge and information and yet is totally devoid of any wisdom or useful truth. We follow the well-beaten path to happiness only to find out it’s a dead-end. We pop the pills the commercial says will make us less depressed and we feel worse. I was talking with my boys yesterday about the importance of just being in community and helping people out. The gist of the conversation was that we are blessed when we bless others, tis better to give than receive, etc. It sounds cliché, but the truth is that until we understand we are created for more than the seeking out of our own happiness, we are doomed to a life of futile searching.

This thing that Tozer writes about, the idea of being unable to live without the constant stimulation of the world, the little ‘shots’ of temporary happiness, this frightens me. We are addicted to all the wrong things and are conditioned to crave temporary fixes. People charge ahead, taking hit after hit of their drug of choice and eventually just smack right into a wall. It’s that abuse of the harmless things and the neglect of the necessary ones that has us so desperately mixed up.

Some people obsess over work, others fixate on exercise. We have our social media accounts, our video games, our alcohol, you name it. We crave diversion and entertainment wherever we can find it, but whenever these things become our main thing, they’re going to disappoint. I was stunned when I came across this display at the bookstore the other day:

Now, to each his own in the entertainment department and I realize you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover and all that, so I looked up the synopsis for the this little gem on the left: “The sinister mystery of how a teen girl named Brooklyn became the epitome of evil in this terrifying prequel to the series MTV calls “Mean Girls meets The Exorcist.” Please note to what group of readers this is marketed towards. And we wonder why kids are so nasty, so mean, so utterly lost.

Friends, we are absolutely created to enjoy life, but not at the expense of our souls. We are created to live from the inside out, not the outside in. No amount of stimulation from any outside source is ever going to satisfy that proverbial “God-shaped hole” in our souls. Our hearts can be downright deceitful at times and lead us off to follow after the wrong things (Jeremiah 17:9). We are not meant to go at it alone, not ever. It’s natural that we hunger and thirst and seek… but we have to go hard after the thing that will fill us and steady us in an unsteady world.

Some will say that following Jesus is too simplistic for todays problems. Others will find the burden of picking up ones cross and following entirely too complicated. The truth though, is that it’s the only cure for what ails us.

“Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and revive me in Your way.” Psalm 119:37

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” —Proverbs 4:23

We can’t overcomplicate it, nor can we underestimate the power Christ has to infuse lasting joy into our sin-sick hearts. Take delight in Jesus first and foremost, and He will satisfy those deepest longings (Psalm 37:4).