Blessed Are Those Who Fiend?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Today I continue the journey through the Beatitudes with the fourth statement from Jesus that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled. When Jesus said these words, He was speaking to people in metaphor. He used the words hunger and thirst because He was talking to people who understand the feelings of the early stages and the threat of starvation and lived close enough to the desert to truly understand what it means to thirst.

Now in my experience, I don't truly understand these things. I have gone without solid food for 40 days, but there was food all around me. At any point I could have eaten, and I knew it. I was not in any danger of starvation. I have been hungry when I haven't eaten in a while, but honestly it's a mild discomfort and these days I don't go a day without eating without a good reason to do so. Never in my life have I been in danger of dying from lack of water. So in the core of who I am, I don't understand the neediness in the statement hunger and thirst for righteousness.

But I do understand the verse a different way. I am an alcoholic and an addict. And in order to understand the driven desire and need for righteousness that Jesus spoke of, I simply need to remember where I've been. I know what it feels like to need a fix so badly that I feared I would die if I did not find one. I remember what it feels like to have my body convulse and shake because I needed a drink and the sure knowledge that I would die without a drink and just as afraid that if I drank it would kill me. When I wasn't drinking or drugging before I found recovery my entire thought process and all my energy was consumed with the need for them. I was thinking about what it would feel like to get drunk or high again. I was scheming of ways to score without getting caught. I was working or conning or stealing funds to pay for alcohol and other chemicals. I was planning excuses to be alone so that loved ones would not see how messed up I was going to get or how much or which chemicals I was filling my life with. This need and focus I understand, and believe me, when I was driven by this, I would be filled. Sooner or later I would consume what I was being driven for because I would never stop searching, scheming or striving for that next drunk or fix.

Jesus loved to use parables and metaphors that those in His audience would understand well and relate to. That's why there are so many references to shepherds and fishermen. I believe that if Jesus were here physically talking to me and other addicts with this message today He'd be more likely to say blessed are those who fiend for righteousness, for they shall be filled. That I understand. I have to seek it wholly, completely, passionately and above everything else. How often have I heard in the rooms that if someone will pursue recovery with the same passion and need that they pursued alcohol and drugs that they are sure to find it. This is the same idea spoken by the One who understands what drives us the way an engineer understands why what he designed functions the way it does.

So now I understand how driven towards righteousness I need to be filled. But what is righteousness. Isn't it one of those "Christian" words like holy which are basically there to remind me that I need to be perfect to please God and can't? That's pretty much how I used to feel about the word. When legalistic religious folk talk about how I need to be holy all I see is how I don't measure up. I feel such condemnation, but that is due to my reaction and lack of understanding as much as it is due to anything in or about the lawyer. But when someone says that when unsure what the will of God is and or at every decision or choice strive to simply do the next right thing, I get that. I realize that I won't always succeed, that's why we need grace, but I need to try to the best of my ability to always do the next right thing in everything and every situation. This cliche often heard in the rooms is true, and it is another way of saying righteousness.

The word ‘righteousness’ comes from Greek word “dikaiosyne”, meaning rightness, quality of rightness or justice.It is justice held in love, both within the man and in the world. It is the rightness judged by the standard of God’s code. It is being right with God.

One of the foundational principles and virtues behind the steps of recovery is justice. Specifically, justice is the virtue upon which Step nine, "made direct amends to such people [those we have listed that we have wronged] wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." I have seen time and time again an unwillingness to clean up our side of the street and make amends lead to relapse. Making things right is so important.

Patience, love and tolerance is the code of recovery. But how can I love someone if I won't treat them right and if I won't give them justice for wrongs I have done to them? That's self-preservation and fear motivating me, not love. In Step Three I surrendered my life and my will to the care of God. I can not be surrendered to God's will for me if I am not striving with everything I am, if I am not fiening, to do what I know He wants me to do. If am avoiding doing the next right thing then my relationship with God suffers and I can not be in right standing with my Creator.

But I have found through experience that when I fiend for relationship with God, when I put being right with Him above all else, when my every action displays a desire within my heart to do the next right thing then I have found myself filled with contentment, peace, joy, recovery, satisfaction, conscious contact with God, and everything else I need to meet every spiritual, mental, emotional and physical need that I have. It has never failed me. This is my experience, strength and hope about hungering and thirsting for righteousness.