Yes, Christians Do Get High.

-Here is a small piece from my book, Freedom From Myself (Woah, who would have guessed I would name it that?)-

Yes, Christians Do Get High

     By the looks of the title, hopefully you’re not thinking that I smoke pot or something. There is a thing called getting “spiritually high.” It happens usually when teenagers go off to a camp. They get a small taste of what it is like to truly study and read God’s Word every single day. Obviously at the end of the week they are pretty fired up for God. You can probably see them singing the songs they have sung all week long like it’s their last day on earth. To be quite honest, a lot of them are in love with the lifestyle that they are in. Not Jesus.

     Your faith is really tested when you are in a lifestyle you do not want to be in. With that being said, when they return home, they tend to go back to old habits. They get caught up with the wrong crowd, (who were already their friends to begin with) and God slowly get’s pushed out of the equation. That is basically a spiritual high. It’s really sad. This is something I've dealt with in my own life several times, and watched others too. We ride that high all the way into the ground instead of maintaining it to grow in Jesus. If we could only see the joy found through freedom in Christ. Youth camp turns into a taste of true joy, which we think we can only get at youth camp! After crashing from our high, we give up on Jesus all together as if it never worked in the first place. Was that person you? It was me.

     I remember when I had my very first spiritual high. This was the first time I had ever thought about taking God seriously. I had just started getting involved in youth group. It gave me a completely new perspective on how I should see Christianity. Instead of going over the Bible stories I’ve heard a thousand times, they seemed to show us how they applied to us. How Jesus loved us. He died for us, and how all those stories ultimately led up to, and pointed towards the Crucifixion. I went to youth camp in Alabama soon after I joined. I had really just started learning what it was to be a Christian, and I, along with every other kid my age, had also just joined the teenage world. That basically means we were fresh-meat for all kinds of temptations. If you’re a church kid (or anyone for that matter), there are traps you must be careful not to fall in.

     Anyway, going to Alabama was my first getaway from the normal life. We never really went on vacations as a kid. I went to see family, and that was all the vacation we ever went on. I had never gone to a condo overlooking the beach like I did at camp. It was an amazing experience. God really worked in me at that time too. The very last night I remember Matt Chandler was speaking. At any normal, youth, Christian conference they would always present the gospel at the end. It usually goes something like this: “There is a God out there, up in Heaven. He sent His only son down to earth so that He could take the place of your punishment. His son was named Jesus, and He died on a cross to carry the burden of sin for you. If you have never accepted Jesus, I want to offer Him to you today…”

     At that point, teenage girls would slowly walk up in tears begging for God’s forgiveness. Then the guys would get brave enough to do the same and then they would all say a prayer, and it would be done. Now that’s great, but it doesn’t teach the kids that their past life they have lived in is wrong. It tells them, “Hey, you’re a sinner, take this and you can go to Heaven.” Our hormone-crazed minds get over-emotional and take that offer without even thinking about it. (Sure we’re saved at that point, but it’s about following Jesus too. Even though our old habits might take years to throw out, we still strive.) But that is not what Matt did that night, what he said resonated with me.

     He didn’t throw Jesus at us, he showed us first what was wrong with us to begin with. To be honest, I don’t remember what he said exactly. I just remember he was naming off all the things teenagers struggled with: drugs, alcohol, porn, and so on. Near the end he mentioned what I had never heard anyone say before. He talked about one problem that I had always had. For the sake of privacy, I won’t go into detail. All I remember was that it was my Achilles heel. That was the wound that kept me from growing. When he said that, I thought, “Woah, did he really just say that?” It set one of the heaviest guilt trips I had ever experienced. I should have responded to God, I should have talked about what had happened to my friends. But I didn’t, I kept it all to myself. And just like everything, if you ignore it long enough, it goes away. (Or does it just hide itself?)

     Now, to clear things up, I believe that God works through our problems. The wrong answer is pushing Jesus aside until you can bash-in your sin by yourself. We can never truly get rid of it. God works through our problems and reaches the heart. All we can do is fight our problems. Imagine for a second that our sin is a weed. For someone uneducated about the matter, they would just clip the weed. The problem with that is, it grows back. Only Jesus knows how to completely get rid of our problems. He kills it at the root: our hearts.

     In this sinful world, we can never fully get rid of the problem. Jesus is there to take our place so we don’t have to keep trying. I may not be able to explain why I keep struggling, but I can say I’m covered in the grace of my redeemer. Hallelujah! If you are caught, now is the time to find Jesus. Joy can be found in the midst of all this darkness. Just ask.