There are times when we feel as though the message is meant just for us.

  "There is, we must all have felt, a singular personality in the language of the Bible. We hear in the Scriptures the living voices of living men speaking to ourselves. Phrases of the Bible startle us by their direct application to our own needs, by their clear revelation of our own thoughts; they cling, as it were, to us; they reach where no friend's voice could reach. They stay even where the counsel of love could find no entrance." Bishop Westcott.

  "People cannot live without an ideal. Wealth, power and pleasure cannot supply an ideal. But the Bible not only offers us an ideal of service, and sympathy, and fellowship, of love to God and man, which answers to the noblest aspirations of all men, but also supplies us with a motive to seek it, and a power to approach it -- the sense of Christ's love for us, and the sense of Christ's Presence." Bishop Westcott.

   "We cannot remove the conditions under which our work is to be done, but we can transform them. They are the elements out of which we must build the temples wherein we serve. In one sense God gives nothing, while in another He gives all things. He requires us, that is, to make His Gifts our own, by using the power which He inspires. Not all at once, and not as we should have expected, and not without many delays, does that which indeed is ours become ours."

Bishop Westcott.

  "An Archbishop was given an ultimatum by the Huns who surrounded his cathedral. “You have 24 hours to bring your wealth to these steps”, the war-leader demanded. The next morning the Archbishop came out leading the poor, the blind, the lame, and the lunatics. “Where is your treasure? Why have you brought out these, people?” The Archbishop quietly responded, “These are the treasures of the Church, these who are weak are our valuables. They make us rich.”

  I wrote the following poem, not to suggest that there is no remedy in the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, but to illustrate the descent into addiction.

Addictions

I peaked into the gates of hell past a silky net

Where, by charms with a suicidal smile, I was met.

The sun began to set, or was it eclipsed,

By a hit, a smooth substance over my lips

From a cordial that caused my senses to dull

Flowing from a cup made of a bleached human skull.

Hysterical laughter, friendship; flowed free

Soon the frenzy wouldn't let hold of me.

Down winding corridors I had never been

To a place that the old leather bound called sin.

Potions, smoke, spirits I swore I'd never drink,

Deeds and thoughts I thought I'd never think.

But the party had just began, guitar music blaring,

Then all my friends changed to strangers staring,

As I crossed lines I swore I'd never cross,

Promises of gain, soon turned to loss.

Worst enemies: closest friends, carried off my wealth,

Mirror revealing, the phantoms stealing, even my heath!   

The stairs led up but never ended,

And with each step I took, I descended.

So I ran to the gates, though the way was blocked,

But I pushed through to find, the gate was locked.