Why Prayer Alone Isn’t Enough to Break Free from Addiction

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The Men of Iron Minute

by Tony Galati | Iron Rep – Lancaster, PA

Why Prayer Alone Isn’t Enough to Break Free from Addiction

I get frustrated when I constantly hear people struggling with sexual addiction continuously say, “Please pray for me.” Obviously I believe in prayer. The part about it that frustrates me is when we use that in exchange for actually putting the work in. Prayer is great, we need it, but there is work to put in, and prayer is not a substitute for the work. I don’t want to offend anyone, but just ask yourself, What am I actively doing to help myself? Is there a meeting I can go to? A book I can read? An accountability partner or mentor I can find? Better yet, start with this, Have you made time with God a priority? If not, that’s OK, because we have to identify a problem before we can work on fixing it.

Without spiritual disciplines we will be thrown around and beat up by our feelings and situations that are outside of our control. I want to encourage you to intentionally spend some time looking into spiritual disciplines as I only have time to briefly touch on it here. I will list some below.

 

The focus of spiritual disciplines is getting closer to God, experiencing a deeper connection than ever before.

 

In John 15:5, Jesus says “If you stay joined to me, and I to you, you will produce plenty of fruit. But separated from me you won’t be able to do anything.” So, What spiritual disciplines can help us stay connected to God?

Here are the ones I have researched over time and use daily.

  • Prayer
  • Reading
  • Solitude/Meditation
  • Fasting
  • Accountability (Mentorship & Fellowship)

If any of these seem weird, intimidating, boring, or confusing, that’s OK. Discipline isn’t something we usually run to embrace with open arms, and unfortunately, we can incorrectly confuse discipline with punishment.

 

But spiritual disciplines, when done with a purpose of intentionally drawing closer to God and not just checking off boxes, will completely change your life.

 

Look over the list of spiritual disciplines above. Which ones do you practice? How often? I encourage you to take inventory of your time and see what you can cut out so that you may replace that time with a spiritual discipline or two. I will talk more about spiritual disciplines next time, but if you haven’t already, listen to the podcast as I go into how they changed my life. Also, a good book to check out is Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.

 

 

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