A Letter from a Friend
This morning, I received another letter from my friend Miles. Yesterday, he wrote about rigorous honesty, recovery, and the exhausting business of trying to become someone we’re not. Today, he wrote from Tyrone, Georgia, where he’s visiting Bethel Atlanta School of Supernatural Ministry.
His first words made me smile: “You did it again. Great job! Thank you for sharing! I am really enjoying this correspondence.” And then, as Miles tends to do, he went straight for the heart.
He’s looking for something. He isn’t entirely sure what he’ll find, but he’s there. He told me about a book he read during a relapse crisis this summer. He told me how he’d drifted from his roots in the Christian church—not necessarily in belief, but in practice. He doesn’t have a congregation. A church family.
He has Alcoholics Anonymous. And he’s grateful for it. But he wants more.
Miles calls AA a spiritual kindergarten. Not as an insult. Quite the opposite. It’s where he’s learning the practical steps of putting faith into action. Where spiritual principles become something more than beautiful ideas. It’s a beginning. But Miles doesn’t want to stop at the beginning.
And then came my favorite line: “C’mon man, I’m an addict. I WANT IT ALL!”
I laughed. Because there’s something wonderfully honest about an addict admitting that he wants everything. But what happens when that appetite begins turning toward God? What happens when the hunger that once threatened to destroy us becomes a hunger for the One who created us?
Miles wrestles with contentment. He remembers something a friend once told him: “There’s no end to worse. It could always get worse. But there’s also no end to better.”
That’s worth sitting with. There’s no bottom to human misery that couldn’t conceivably get deeper. But perhaps there’s no ceiling on spiritual growth, either.
Scripture tells us: “But godliness with contentment is great gain.” — 1 Timothy 6:6 (KJV)
And Miles finds himself wrestling with both words. Godliness. Contentment. What does it mean to be made in God’s image? What does it mean that the Creator of the universe would choose to dwell within us? What does it mean to live and move and have our being in Him?
Miles isn’t asking these questions academically. He’s asking them as a man who has been through the fire. A man who knows something about weakness, fear, confusion, and defeat. And a man who is beginning to understand that none of those things must have the final word.
He writes: “The LORD is a warrior. The LORD is his name.” And then: “He gives me strength, to fight my battles.”
There’s a difference between believing God will fight every battle for us and believing God gives us the strength to face the battles before us. Miles seems to be discovering the latter. He’s not looking for a life without struggle. He’s looking for a life in which struggle has meaning.
He wants to be better. He wants to be godly. He wants to be more than a conqueror. And he wants to understand the immeasurable love of God. Not merely as theology. As experience. As life itself.
I think there’s something beautiful about a man in recovery saying he’s not satisfied. Not because nothing is good enough. But because he’s tasted something so good that he cannot imagine turning away from its source.
Maybe that’s the difference between addiction and devotion. One consumes us while leaving us empty. The other invites us to be filled. And perhaps contentment doesn’t mean the end of longing. Perhaps it means finding the right thing to long for.
Miles ended his letter with a question. I don’t think I can improve upon it. So I’ll let him have the last word: “I have tasted the nectar of heaven. How could I ever be satisfied apart from being completely consumed by and a part of its source?”
Amen, brother. Keep walking. We’re all miles from perfection. But there’s no end to better.
From an ongoing correspondence with a friend about faith, recovery, honesty, and the grace of God.
“Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” — Romans 8:37 (KJV)
