This insatiable hunger for more didn’t originate in the bottomless pit it has become. We don’t realize our need for the truth until we find ourselves sitting on the shores of our own desolation after the splurging waves wrecked our ship, drowned the crew, and washed us ashore. Now we have no option but to sit in silence like a castaway. The sound of our labored breathing is all that’s left to keep us company. Everything, everyone is gone. We’ve never felt more alone, though we’ve been here many times before. These familiar feelings are nauseating. But we can’t just sit here in our own vomit. So we shuffle down the shoreline like a prisoner dragging a ball and chain, looking for a message in a bottle to tell us how we got here. It’s only now that we see – the message in the bottle is the pills we love to swallow. They fill our heads with dope, yes, but the point is they masked our true need. We’ve been deceived.

Now uncovered, the toxins still lingering in our bloodstream throw us into convulsions as madness grips our minds. Falling facedown, our body seizes up. A mouthful of sand chokes out the screams. We try to clutch our chest, but the attack on our heart is more than flesh deep. We buried our demons instead of casting them out, now they’re tearing apart our insides. This is how it ends. Our body finally shuts down in hope of preserving what life may still be left. Suffering damage so severe, our system can’t combat the intrusion any longer. This self-administered poison can’t be reversed by man made substances. “There is no cure for a broken mind, no rehab for a dead heart,” was our last thought before our eyes knew only blackness…

With a shot of adrenaline, we jolt awake. Our eyes snap open and without thinking we quickly sit up. Thoughts lazily drift in and begin to connect into a stream of consciousness. The vacant stare on our face dissipates. A few blinks clear up misty eyes. It registers that our mouth is gaping wide in a silent scream carried over from last night’s events. We close our mouth and try to swallow through a dry throat. Wincing at its rawness, we look around and gather in our surroundings. We’ve woken up in a clinic of sorts. The room is as white and clean as the sheets we lie between. Overhead, a thatch roof gives away, this is not a normal hospital. In fact, we are the only one here, noticing now, our room is actually a small building. Tropical music plays softly from the radio on our bedside table. A breeze carries the joyful song of a bird riding ocean waves down the rays of sunlight streaming through the open window. But that isn’t all our senses pick up in this wonderful and pleasant place. We smell something delicious cooking over a fire. The savory smell reminds our empty stomach how we threw up everything, overdosing on the world’s medicine.

Pulling back the covers, we swing our bare feet off the bed. As we sit facing the window, we see what’s going on outside. This new environment is an island, very different from where we had washed ashore. Never before have our eyes gazed upon such a place. Like a storybook, the scene appears to have been painted with only imagination, held together by whimsical design. A shoreline harboring blossoms instead of sand, emits a lush radiance of color. The water, smooth as glass, just has to be made of ice because it surely looks like we could glide across it with a good running start. Tranquil peace calms our frayed nerves. Moving on to the trees, our eyes are delighted to linger upon them. Strong yet slender, they vibrate with energy and we can tell they are alive. Peculiar fruit never tasted before hangs from their branches. From the tree’s center, limbs curve down towards the ground instead of skyward, like a hand offering refreshments to those beneath its brilliant canopy. Here, everything is fresh and pure, ready to pop with life. I swear if we sat here long enough, one of these trees would suddenly explode with laughter. The whole forest sways, this way and that, in an enchanting dance. Leaning out the window for a better view, all around us, the sky, the water, the grass, are alive and shimmering with excitement. Nothing is standing still, in anticipation of something incredible that is to come.

Amidst all the beauty, what captivates our attention most is the person down by the water’s edge. There is something about the man, that causes us to remove our eyes from the glory around us to gaze upon him. Like it wouldn’t be the same without him here. He’s on the beach and it looks like he is setting a table, whose end extends far into the horizon, out of sight. He is making preparations for a feast of ages. Like nothing before experienced by creation.

“A feast prepared for you,” he says without turning around, his voice somehow carried across the distance between us. Shocked that he noticed us, we duck inside our little hut. Sliding down the wall and grabbing our knees, we shift our eyes down to ourselves, where we are struck by how dirty we are. We feel so out of place. Why would the man bring us to a land so perfect? What does he see in us that would cause him to let a diseased, stray dog, itching with fleas, into his mansion? He must be mistaken, but just in case, we arise and start for the door. Strangely enough, there is no door, only a doorway, always open. Just as we nearly reach the opening, something halts our approach. With all there is to take in at this wondrous place, we failed to notice the IV in our hand. Like a leash it prevents us from going to the feast. Chained to the man made formula we have come to rely on, to survive on. It drips, drips, drips into the plastic bag connected to us, withholding us from the festivities outside. We know deep inside, in a place untouched by narcotics, that the Host of this banquet can sever the tubes transporting an ever-flowing dosage into our bloodstream. Promised to make us better, it keeps us sick. We know this. But we don’t know if we want to go free. We would suffer greatly from the intense withdraw that would follow. Is it worth it? Indecisiveness causes us to falter to the wayside, though freedom is so close at hand.

Most are unwilling to trust Him, refusing to come to Him to have life. As if He doesn’t know already of our life long addiction, we still won’t risk our soul’s exposure. So we skip the remedy and go back to sleep, choosing comatose over living awake. God provides breakthrough, but we crawl back through the hole in the wall. Back into our world if sickness and gloom, because it’s where we’ve made our home. We struggle and toil to find our place in this world, but we never will because we aren’t of it. We relapse and inject that familiar numbness back into our veins, when we could have life coursing through them instead. We select synthetic truth over the real Truth. We shut our eyes and roll over on our cardboard mat, sleeping in the cold on an empty stomach. Dreams may bring us comfort, but some won’t have the luxury of waking up again. Not like this.