We hear it all the time,
“My life is missing something, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.”
We try to fill the desire with worldly things such as relationships, money, and drugs, when what we’re really craving is a relationship with God.
This is a trap that we’re all vulnerable to, no matter our age, gender, or occupation. Past body-builder and present radio host Kent Paul shares how addiction can act as a dangerous form of escapism that people use to try and avoid the gap in their life.
“Whatever’s allowing us to escape away, and sin is an escape, and addiction is an escape, it’s almost mechanism that once we escape and do something once, we need even more of it next time.”
Along with the attempts to escape and fill the void of not knowing God, our brain is wired to recognize what causes a release of dopamine and to crave stimuli that produce similar or greater responses every time. If the same stimulus doesn’t produce the same results, you have to change the stimulus to try to get a new amount of dopamine to at least meet or exceed where you were. Before you know it you are trapped in what seems to be a never-ending cycle.
Kent has always been talented at sports and excelled in bodybuilding. Growing up and through adulthood he was able to achieve through self-discipline, denial, and the kinds of qualities that a lot of people aren’t willing to put the work into. Drugs came into his life as an attempt to fill the hole in his soul; they have the power to ravage anyone down to nothing.
“That’s why people must know [drugs are] not just for the hobos and the homeless, I mean this gets the top CEOs. It doesn’t matter about the discipline or the drive, who and what you’ve accomplished in the world; we’re all subject to have this addiction, we all have an empty spot in our soul.”
We all are born with a God-shaped hole in us, and what we choose to put into that hole is what defines our lives.
“It’s a hole that only God can fill the shape of; it does not matter who or what you are on this planet. It can only be filled with God. So it doesn’t really matter the character of the person, the discipline of the person, the success of the person, we’re all the same in that way.”
Likewise we are all the same in the sense that God can fill the hole in each and every one of us. His love for us is so deep and so strong that no matter who we are or what we’ve done His love for us remains. We all have the ability to be all-in in our walk with God. He is the only one that fills the missing-something feeling in our lives and reinforces us to keep on going.
Kent Paul is the host of My Recovery Radio, which broadcasts out of Boca Raton, FL, on Sunday nights. Kent’s passion is to help others to recovery by encouraging them to seek healing through God.
The hole in our lives
