by Deanna Johnson
Sister Deanna Kay Johnson felt a distinct burden from the Lord to pen the following words. She knows firsthand the destructive influence of alcohol, having grown up in a family with an alcoholic father and a godly, hard-working, and long-suffering mother. There are many things that Satan will use to gain a hold even in some of God’s people. Peter pictured the devil as a “roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8. He wasn’t writing to unbelievers. We can never defeat Satan’s strong holds in our own strength but God’s grace is greater. May each of us lay hold of it according to our individual need.
Are you a slave to alcohol? Why do you drink and what is its impact? When you give yourself to the spirit of alcohol it begins to take control of your life. You feel like you can’t make it through a day without a beer or some other drink. The more you give in to this desire, the more you become its slave until it has you in its grip to the point you have lost all control over it.
You feel compelled to drink. At first it might be just one beer, then two, then maybe a six pack or more a week and soon it becomes a six pack a day. You feel justified in drinking, telling yourself, “It just helps me to relax.” You tell yourself, “I have worked hard all day and I just need a few minutes by myself to relax.” Before long you are spending an hour or more drinking, sometimes alone, sometimes with “friends,” people just like you who understand your need.
You neglect your wife and your children to indulge your own desires for a drink. Your wife and children begin to lose respect for you and resent your weakness. You are planting seeds of bitterness in their lives and every time you drink you are watering that bitterness. You are bringing shame and reproach upon the wife that you promised, before God, to “love, honor, and cherish” and to “cleave only unto her until death you do part.” You have turned from her to your “drinking buddies,” leaving her hurt and alone.
Although you may still work to provide for you family financially, how much “family time” do you have? Are you being the spiritual head of your family and leading your family to a closer walk with God? Are you there when your wife needs you, your companionship, your guidance, your love? Are you there when your children need your authority and guidance? Are you missing out on their lives?
Where are you and what are you doing? Are you leading your family down the same path of sorrow, death and destruction you are on? What is your future, what is theirs? Is your family living in shame because of your weakness? Are their hearts growing cold toward you? Has your heart grown cold toward the Lord. What has all the drinking brought you? Has it brought you peace? Has it brought you joy? Has it brought you rest?
Is it time to examine your life honestly before the Lord? Do you have a fear of God in your heart? Do you seek His wisdom and guidance in your life daily? Do you put on a “front” when you go to church so others won’t see “the real you”? When you sing or speak in the church is it really what is in your heart or are you just doing and saying what you think is expected from you? Are you one person at home and another at church? Are you causing your family to love and respect you by the things you do and say or causing them to despise and reject you because of your hypocrisy?
Are you being open and honest before God or presuming upon His grace and mercy? Where is your life headed? By the choices you are making are you headed toward death and destruction? Are you in danger of losing your wife, your children, your home, your job? If there was an enemy who was breaking into your home to attack and do harm to your family, would you not do all in your power to protect them and keep them safe?
Do you put your family at risk by driving with them when you are drinking? When you drink, you are that enemy who is destroying your family from within. Yes, you have liberty to drink. You also have liberty to make the choice not to drink. What will you do?