This is the fourth and final segment in our series of
excerpts from the book “The Sacred Romance,” by Brent Curtis and
John Eldredge (published by Thomas Nelson (c) 1997)
The list of our adulterous indulgences is
endless: There is the exotic dancer, the religious fanatic, the
alcoholic, the adrenaline freak, the prostitute [male or female] with a
man or woman, the eloquent pastor who seduces with his words, and the
man or woman who seduces with his/her body. There is the indulgent lover
who never really indulges physically, but spends his life in a kind of
whimsy about what is lost, like Ashley in Gone with the Wind.
What these indulgent lovers have in common is the pursuit of
transcendence through some gratification that is under their control.
In the religions of the Fertile Crescent, access
to God (transcendence) was attempted through sexual intercourse with
temple prostitutes. Perhaps, as we indulge our addictions, we are doing
no less than prostituting ourselves and others in the very same way.
“Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel [or today engages in
Cybersex] is looking for God,” said G.K. Chesterton.
At first glance, those of us who live by
indulgence-illicit affairs of the heart-appear to have a certain passion
that is superior to those who live by anesthesia. But it is a passion
that must be fed by the worship or use of the other, and so it is a
passion that does not leave us free to love. Indulgence leaves us empty
and primed for the next round of thirst quenching in an endless cycle
that Solomon described as “vanity of vanities.” Jimi Hendrix, one of our
modern-day poets, just before his death of a drug overdose, said it this
way: “There ain’t no livin’ left nowhere.”
Life on that first road where the signs promised us
life would work (it seems) if we just applied the right formula. The
road that seemed so straight and safe when we first set out on it, gives
us no wisdom as to what we’re to do with the depth of desire God has
placed within us. It is desire that is meant to lead us to nothing
less than communion with Him! If we try to anesthetize it, we become
relational islands, unavailable to those who need us; like the father
who lowers his newspaper with annoyance at the family chaos going on
around him, but makes no move to speak his life into it.
If we try to gain transcendence through
indulgence, soon enough familiarity breeds contempt and we are driven to
search for mystery elsewhere. So the man [or woman] having an affair
must have another, and the alcoholic must drink more and more to find
the window of feeling good. “There is only One Being who can satisfy
the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus
Christ,” said Oswald Chambers.
