God has so many good plans for our lives. He would never want us to use a substance that kills our ambition, and makes us OK with spending our days being high while we make no progress toward higher goals. Goals that will actually move us forward in life to new levels.
Hello Readers, hope all’s well. Time for another #shorts post.
Last year I wrote a post about the Spiritual dangers (and other dangers) surrounding alcohol. The post was called Alcohol: A Gateway to Sin and you can check it out with the link.
In that post I said that alcohol is the main driving force between a few different major sins. Sins of wrath, lust, and gluttony to be precise, on top of other problems.
The views expressed in Alcohol: A Gateway to Sin are still my views today. I choose not to drink because of those views, and I haven’t had any alcohol since New Year’s Eve, 2014. That means I haven’t drank alcohol for seven years now (starting January 1, 2015). But to be honest, because I never even liked alcohol anyway it wasn’t a big deal for me to quit and it wasn’t a tough battle of self-control. But I can still remember what it’s like to drink alcohol, and to be drunk.
Although I do encourage sobriety for everyone, I don’t judge those Christians who do decide to drink in moderation. (I feel sorry for the ones who drink to excess and get drunk.) A great many Christians have decided that they can square up moderate drinking with their Christian Faith. I don’t, because when I read 1 Peter 5:8 I feel in my Spirit that God is telling us all to be 100% sober right now, in the End Times. But although I can explain my thinking, I can’t change how another Christian feels in their heart. So some will keep drinking.
(8) Be clearheaded. Keep alert. Your accuser, the devil, is on the prowl like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
1 Peter 5:8 (CEB)
But today’s post is not about alcohol. It’s about the Spiritual dangers of another substance that’s very popular and legal in many places. And that substance is marijuana.
Like alcohol, marijuana also carries risks of its own, both Spiritual and otherwise. Today I want to take an honest look at some of those problems from my point of view as a former smoker (over two years clean from it now).
Let’s Be Clear
Before I start, let’s get two things clear.
The first thing is that, as a former smoker myself, I am not judging anyone in today’s post. Judgment doesn’t belong to me, or any human, that’s the LORD’s jurisdiction. Many Christians look down on those who smoke, well, I look down on the act of smoking now, but I don’t look down on the people. I also know that anyone who drinks alcohol for reasons such as “to take the edge off” or “to unwind” is using their substance of choice for the same reasons as a marijuana smoker. Like Jesus Himself warned us, none of us should ever judge others. God will impose on us the exact same measure we impose on others.
Anyway, I will always remember what my clean date from marijuana is. The last time I ever smoked was November 8, 2019. That means ever since November 9, 2019, I’ve been sober from marijuana. About two and a half years at this point.
But just because I have over two years clean time does not mean I’m judging anybody, OK. I don’t judge you but I do admonish you to stop smoking. I hope my post today can give you a few reasons why you should quit.
Second, what name will I use for marijuana. Marijuana goes by many names, like pot and weed and so on. For the rest of this post, I’m going to call it weed. I choose to use that name because it grows like a weed. Hot climates, cold climates, mountains, valleys, the side of a road … this plant can survive and grow anywhere!! Just like a weed.
Alright, with that out of the way, let’s get to it. What do I see as so dangerous about weed??
Smoking Weed Leads to ….
Like alcohol, weed is a gateway to many kinds of sins. I’ll speak to a few of them.
Sloth / Low Ambition
This is the main danger I see with weed, especially as I reflect on my own experiences with it. No, you can’t overdose or get sick on weed. It’s not going to kill you. But what it does kill is ambition, energy, and creativity.
When I used to smoke weed, all I would end up doing was playing video games, eating, and listening to music. Weed subdued any motivation I had to practice skills like the guitar, or check out other hobbies besides video games. I was content to sit around staring at a screen. I kind of zoned out while doing so. This is sloth; sitting around doing nothing important.
It was nothing but dissociation, zoning out and retreating from reality. The whole time I was getting high and playing video games, I was making zero progress toward any kind of meaningful goals in life. And I didn’t care, because I didn’t have the ambition for it. Weed kills ambition, I say.
Now some people will counter-argue this, and bring up the example of this or that famous person in the entertainment industry. (And other industries too.) “But this person smokes weed every day,” they say, “and they’re creative and successful!!” To that I would counter-argue with my own example. For every one person who unlocks their creativity and productivity with weed and does something useful with it, there are nine other people who do nothing but play video games and zone out.
The person who finds creativity and productivity with weed is the exception to the rule. We all have to be honest with ourselves about which one we are.
Since giving up smoking I’ve read 100 books, and gotten so much knowledge from all this reading. I’ve grown so much as a person in so many areas from all the reading I do. I never had the ambition to read any kind of book, back when I smoked weed. Now I read every day, and look forward to my reading time!!
There are so many other little examples of how giving up weed gave me back my ambition to work on life goals and bettering myself. When I smoked, I never wanted to work out. I didn’t have the energy while I was high. Since giving it up I exercise most days of the week. Reading, writing, exercise, I’m always working on things that build myself up now, without the draining influence of weed in my life.
I hope it goes without saying that Spiritual people on the Christian Walk need their ambition and drive. We need our energy and the desire to pursue goals. Anything that drains our ambition, drive, and energy without adding to it is a huge hindrance on our Spiritual journey. Anything like this is a major obstacle to Spiritual growth. So that is my opinion on weed: Not acceptable for Christians following Christ’s Spiritual journey.
Gluttony
Like with alcohol, weed also leads to the sin of gluttony. It stimulates the cravings of the appetite, so people smoking weed tend to eat lots of junk food. This effect is called the munchies.
I say this speaks for itself. I ate a lot of junk food when I was high, with a preference for fatty, salty, fried foods. I ordered a lot of takeout. And I gained a lot of weight because of that. And that’s never good for our health.
Since giving up weed I eat a much better diet with far fewer fatty, salty, fried foods. My body thanks me for it, and my mood and energy levels are so much better!!
Retreating from Reality
This problem I mentioned up above, in the sloth section. I said I zoned out a lot playing video games back when I used to get high. When we smoke weed it’s very tempting and easy to get sucked into alternate realities because these are more fun than the actual reality we live in. But to stick to the topic of weed, even the act of getting high is a kind of retreat from reality.
What do I mean by that?? Well, when we get high we medicate the pain of our inner experience, ignore reality temporarily and put off our problems for tomorrow. It only hurts, and never helps, to run from our problems in this kind of way.
What’s so much better for us in the short and long-term is to learn to stay in reality, and deal with our problems. Instead of trying to medicate our inner pain, it’s better to learn how to explore that pain, figure out what’s wrong, work through those issues and Forgive as needed, and move on and grow. But we will never make this kind of personal growth progress if we medicate ourselves with weed or anything like it that provides an escape from a painful reality or inner experience. Many things besides weed can provide this kind of escape—video games, TV, sleep, promiscuous hookups, you name it.
We never get anywhere in life by running from our inner problems. Weed is a common way to run away like that, by medicating our emotional pain and turning away from our internal experience. We need to have the courage to face our emotional pain if we ever want to be free of it!! That means we’ve got to put down the weed, for good. And any other thing we use for those mental or emotional painkiller purposes.
Our God did not give us a Spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7). So if we’re walking with God He will give us the courage to face our inner struggle, and conquer it.
He Didn’t Intend this
Is there really no use at all for weed?? What about medical marijuana??
Hey, look. If you believe, like I believe, that God created this planet and everything on it, including all the plants and animals, then that means there’s a legitimate use for every plant and animal on this planet. This is why I’m not opposed to medical marijuana that comes in non-smokable forms that doesn’t get people high (stripped of its THC content).
If medical marijuana is the only thing that can stop a child’s seizures and so on, I say the Merciful thing to do is allow that child to have the seizure medication that works for them. Don’t withhold it from them, I say. If God created all the life on this planet then there truly must be a use for every single plant. The medicinal uses of non-smokable marijuana with no THC could be God’s intended use for the plant.
But He most certainly never intended for us to get high off marijuana. He never intended us to get high and zone out on video games from it, or abuse our bodies by eating tons of junk food while we sit around. Most of all, He most definitely never intended for us to sit around wasting our time and our talents, dissociating from reality and not making any progress toward any kind of constructive life goals!!
God has so many good plans for our lives. He would never want us to use a substance that kills our ambition, and makes us OK with spending our days being high while we make no progress toward higher goals. Goals that will actually move us forward in life to new levels.
Marijuana has no use for a Spiritual person on the Christian walk. It’s a hazard to be avoided on this journey; it has no place in our Faith. Non-smokable forms that don’t get people high and are used for medical purposes may be an acceptable exception; Pray for answers on that one.
That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it for 2.5 years and counting.
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