break the cycle
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Break the Cycle

Ever feel like you are caught in a vicious cycle that you just can’t get out of? You know where you find yourself in this pattern of behavior that you know is destructive, and that you really don’t want to be a part of anymore but yet, you do it anyway. Cycles like these:

  • You’re out on a Friday Night (or a Tuesday or Thursday for that matter) and one drink turns into three and then six. Pretty soon, you can’t put 2 sentences together and when you wake up in the morning, memories and decisions are nothing but a fog. You know it’s not a good pattern but that’s the only way to have “fun” right?

  • You are one person at home, another one at work and still another at church. Each place you go, you are wearing a different mask. You wish you could “just be yourself” but you wear so many masks, and you are a mixture of so many people, that you are even beginning to wonder who the heck you really are.

  • You are happily married and trying to follow Christ but the lure of the “beauty of God’s creation” on the internet and in movies continually draws you into viewing images that are causing you to be owned by lust and a slave to sexual sin. You want to be faithful and you want to stop but it’s too easy to access and just to difficult to stop.

  • You are feeling lonely and alone and you so desire to be “loved” that you willingly throw yourself at the first person that will notice you at school, at a bar, at a coffee shop, or at the office. Conversation quickly turns to “going back to my place” and you go home a few hours later, feeling empty, having given some of your heart and life away again and saying “that is the last time I will do that” – knowing full well that it probably isn’t.

  • Your grandma was an alcoholic, your mom was too. Your grandpa had affairs, as did your dad. Your mom left your family. Your dad was abusive. Destructive behavior has been a part of your upbringing. You don’t want that to “be you” but you do really have a chance? Or even a choice?

All of the situations above are real things that are happening to real people – maybe that’s you…but check this out: it doesn’t have to be. Really…..it doesn’t! YOU CAN BREAK THE CYCLE! Seriously. You can. But how do you break the cycledo it when the deck seems to be stacked against you? When the power of your addictions seem to be too strong? When the reality of your sin being passed down from generation to generation causes you to believe that you can’t?

Listen, I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy but you CAN do it. If you really want to, you can. First let me tell you how you CAN’T though. You can’t do it alone. Our society, our culture says that you can. But believe me…you can’t. You need people beside you – friends, family and others (your horizontal relationships) to link arms with you and encourage you. And even more importantly, you need Jesus (your vertical relationship) in control of your life.

For more on how Jesus can help you Break the Cycle, Click here