Now that you understand your cycle from an addiction recovery viewpoint, it’s time to revisit the big picture yet again. Speaking spiritually, your Acting-Out Cycle is your personalized, miniaturized Wilderness experience, and your addiction is your Goliath awaiting decapitation. That’s right, it’s back to the Israelites stumbling around Sinai and Jesus in Gethsemane, because this is not about masturbation or sex or drugs or alcohol—the idol right in front of your face. Instead it’s about the unseen Promised Land of your destiny awaiting fulfillment.

You have been put on this planet for Purity, Maturity, and Destiny. But here’s what’s crazy: Your Acting-Out Cycle is a critical part of God’s testing process that helps you fulfill your destiny and take your specific Promised Land. That’s right. THIS IS ALL A TEST! Indeed, the first test is that you get that this is all a test.

There’s no such thing as a Testimony without a test! It’s a basic Biblical fact that God tests His children. I will cite but a few instances to prove my point. A mere 2 chapters—count them—into the Bible, we get the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil! God knows that this tree is going to FUBAR everything for everyone—to unbelievable extremes—and yet the importance of testing His children outweighs the trillions of tragedies caused by knowing right and wrong. Stop and think about that sentence for a moment—the implications are universe-shaking!

Jump from Genesis 2 to the very end of the Bible, and God is still testing us. Revelation 3:10—I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth. From beginning to end, and everywhere in between, God is always testing His people. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands (Deuteronomy 8:2).

God’s tests expose the depths of our hearts because we don’t have a clue. The truth about us is buried in the desert sands of denial, lies, dysfunctions, woundedness, trauma, generational sins, etc.—and of course, addictions galore. God obviously knows everything there is to know about us, but He feigns ignorance and forces us—literally—to discover what lies within, good and bad. Indeed, in 2 Corinthians 13:5 God commands us to both “examine yourselves” and “test yourselves,” so that in effect we get a double dose of testing even as we acquire the personal know-how we so desperately need. God will use almost anything to test us—people, demons, persecution, disease, money, sex, success, events large and small—but regardless of the means, no child of God ever escapes His testing process.

As a Christian, you’ll spend your life aimlessly wandering and wasting away in the cyclical Wilderness of God’s testing—or you’ll pass His tests and successfully take your personal Promised Land. Your Acting-Out Cycle, your addiction, your divorce, your sickness, your sucky job, your trauma, your depression—well, welcome to the Wilderness! You can’t stop God from testing you any more than you can stop Him from loving you. Indeed, if God doesn’t test (discipline) you, He doesn’t love you, as Scripture states explicitly in Hebrews 12:6.

He loves us—but do we love Him, truly and utterly? Are you a modern-day Esau? Would you rather have the Cheeseburger and Golden Calf? Utterly focused on his impulsive, short-term lifestyle of an addict, Esau lived oblivious to the big picture of his Abrahamic legacy and destiny, and he therefore completely missed the fact that the stew was a test!

Are you a 21st-century Israelite? Every time the Israelites pined for the good-old-days back in Egypt (talk about denial!), they revealed their mind-boggling cluelessness. No other group of people in history has ever seen such an open display of God’s supernatural power and presence, and yet the Israelites can go all of 3 days before they are testing God. Promised Land? Who cares? Get us some water and some meat! God Himself manifesting on Mt. Sinai? We’re so bored, there’s nothing to do in the desert! Ten Commandments? Hey, anybody else up for another orgy? This is the testament of an entire nation utterly missing the point of their Wilderness experience, failing the same old tests, reliving the same old pain, and wearily stumbling through a living death.

Cheeseburger, Golden Cow, or bloody Cross? Are you a modern-day Jesus Christ, a little Christ-ian? I mean, who in their right mind picks a Cross?! Consistently choosing purity (and turning away from sexual sin) is picking up your personal cross. A mature Christian chooses the short-term pain of sexual crucifixion that leads to delayed eternal glory; you pay the price to become consistently pure in order to fully mature as a follower of Christ.

Indeed, Agent Hunt, your Acting-Out Cycle is just as much about maturity as it is purity. Maturity is nothing more than the ability to consistently produce the same results no matter the circumstance—in other words, it’s the long obedience in the same direction. When you pass God’s tests and are faithful in the little He has given you, God promotes you to the next level and gives you more responsibility. Purity combined with faithful maturity inevitably turns into destiny as God reveals—one step at a time—the personal Promised Land that only you can win.

Your Brother in the Battle,

Timothy

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Excerpt taken from Pureheart Ministry’s Basic Training! Stage 1: Operation Purity

Copyright ©2023 Timothy Davis