Sobriety as an Act of Worship

“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.” - Genesis 1:26

I understand why the Israelites felt they needed more than 10 commandments. Nuance is hard; moderation is hard. I get it. So they asked for clarification upon clarification until they ended up with zero shades of gray and not an inch of wiggle room. By the time they were done clarifying all that gray, they had earned themselves a whopping 613 commandments.

I grew up with my own subculture’s version of 613 commandments, and when I entered adulthood I did my best to whittle them back down to 10. Or fewer, if at all possible. I ended up with something like this:

Love those around you, even when it’s hard.
If it gets too hard, have some wine.

If my Two Commandments of Christian Motherhood hit a little too close to home, read on, Dear One.

It is neither right nor wrong to drink alcohol. But it is wrong to desecrate art. For years I looked in the mirror at God’s artwork and declared it “not good enough.” I looked at the story of my life and I saw the fractures. God may have meant me to be a fine piece of pottery, but I had long since been shattered. And not only that—my brokenness was painful. The least I could do was take the edge off with another glass of wine.

“It is neither right nor wrong to drink alcohol. But it is wrong to desecrate art.”

Photo by Vinicius "amnx" Amano on Unsplash

This is how we survive, right ladies? This is how we endure the anthem of “never enough” that society chants over us. It’s how we will our hearts to keep beating even as they break. We numb the emotions we cannot bear until one day, exhausted, we arrive at the end of ourselves. We throw up our hands, collapse in a heap, and surrender our control, our need to escape, and our refusal to feel. All that running was way too much work. Surprisingly, paradoxically, it’s in this surrender that we begin to heal.

The human heart was made to heal. Ever thought about that? Our hearts and our minds and our bodies were made to heal. God made us wildly resilient. But I’ve yet to see the Spirit heal without first being asked. And I’ve yet to see a person ask without first feeling the pain.

I am broken, yes. But I know the Potter. I am wounded. But I know the Healer. I am lost, but I know the Shepherd.

In my drinking, I could never have truly admitted those juxtapositions because I refused to let myself feel them. In my addiction, I could only say that I was. What was I? I was numb. I was fine. I was certainly not desperate, nor in need of saving; I was not desperate for a Savior.

But the invitation to sobriety was an invitation to feel the weight of my own powerlessness, (Step One: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable) and then, almost immediately, to offload the weight of that burden onto the only One who can carry it—who can carry me (Step Three: Became willing to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.) Sobriety was an echoing in my spirit of John the Baptizer’s words in John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” I needed to get out of His way, and let the Great Physician go to work.

I’ve been on this road for a little over a year now, and along the way, I’ve met quite the band of travelers. Seekers of truth, defenders of goodness, and lovers of the art we are becoming. And I know that Jesus travels with me, sober, by my side. (His sobriety date is Maundy Thursday, AD 33, by the way. See Matthew 26:29.)

Sobriety has become for me an act of worship. It’s a sacred surrendering to Jesus’ kingship in my life while actively anticipating the New Kingdom, where we will drink priceless wine together (Isaiah 55:1.)

This Easter, I remember that every reason I had to drink was defeated on the cross. I marvel at the new creation I am becoming, resurrected from death to life. And I reflect on the artwork that God is crafting in me—no longer being desecrated, but recovered.

“I marvel at the new creation I am becoming, resurrected from death to life. And I reflect on the artwork that God is crafting in me—no longer being desecrated, but recovered.”

Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash