and it's not nice...
Beware
of the False Lover
Weeping may
endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Ps 30:5)
When a
measured assault enters our life we often respond in two different ways. The
pain caused by the assault drives us to a place of either embracing the pain or
we embrace anything that will make us feel better. That becomes the entry door
to a false lover. Men and women each seek to avoid pain in different ways.
Larry Crabb has summarized these two unique strategies often used to avoid deep
pain:
All of us
are trapped by addiction to a desire for something less than God. For many
women, that something less is relational control. "I will not be hurt
again and I will not let people I love be hurt. I'll see to it that what I fear
never happens again." They therefore live in terror of vulnerably
presenting themselves to anyone and instead become determined managers of
people. Their true femininity remains safely tucked away behind the walls of
relational control.
More common
in men is an addiction to non-relational control. "I will experience deep
and consuming satisfaction without ever having to relate meaningfully with
anyone." They keep things shallow and safe with family and friends and
feel driven to experience a joy they never feel, a joy that only deep relating
can provide. Their commitment is twofold: to never risk revealing inadequacy by
drawing close to people and, without breaking that commitment, to feel powerful
and alive. Power in business and illicit sex are favorite strategies for
reaching that goal.1
Many
times we seek to deal with our pain through various forms of addictions
designed to resolve the inner pain we feel. All addictions represent a
counterfeit desire for genuine love and intimacy. We conclude these lesser
desires are legitimate needs instead of band-aids of our fleshly soul. These
addiction lovers become isolation chambers created for ourselves designed to
mask our pain.
Every human
being has a desire to be loved. When we do not feel loved because of some event
in our lives we seek to reconcile this emotional pain. So, if you are fighting
any kind of addiction--over control of people, sex, drugs, alcohol,
workaholism, shopping, overeating--you are seeking to fill a void only
God can fill.
Pain has a
useful purpose in our lives. Facing it, rather than medicating
it, allows us to move to a place of discovering a capacity for a different kind
of joy. That is the purpose of pain. We must let inner pain do its work by
experiencing it fully. It feels like a contradiction to actually embrace the
pain, but it is the only remedy for moving past it so it can yield its purpose
in our lives. Otherwise we will remain unaware of our deeper desire for God and
be driven toward a false lover.
1
Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, Waterbrook Press, Colorado Springs, CO
2001, p.95
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Source: Today God is First, October 15, 2012
