A river runs through it: beauty amidst addiction.

Today the movie “A River Runs Through It” came on TV. If you haven’t seen the movie it is about two preacher’s sons who grew up under the watchful eye of their father. Both sons were good men, brave and courageous in their own ways. Yet one of them is very conservative while the other finds himself with a bent towards the “seedier side” of life.

The “troubled” one’s name was Paul. And you couldn’t help but love his character. He was an extremely likeable person. Devoted and faithful to the ones he loved, not moved by opinions of man, and not one to be pressured by others into doing something he didn’t want to do. All noble traits in my opinion, but ultimately he found himself in a self destructive pattern and made some very unwise decisions that ultimately led to his being beaten to death because of gambling and debt.

His minister father tried to understand everything that had happened with his now deceased son, tried to understand how his son had gotten lost in the self destructive patterns of gambling and alcoholism, how his son had found himself in such an insidious environment that it would lead to his murder. All these questions drove the father to continuously question the still living son for answers. Eventually the other older brother with nothing left to say told his father, “Maybe all I know about Paul is that he was a fine fisherman.” In which his father replied, “”You know more than that. He was beautiful.”

There have been people in my own life, who just like Paul, were good people and yet found themselves betrayed by their own carnal nature into self destruction. I think of my good friend Darrell Peters who, also just like Paul, was someone that you could not help but love. He lit up a room when he walked into it. EVERYBODY liked him. You couldn’t help but do so. Yet I remember Darrell laying on his death bed in the hospital with yellow skin dying from liver failure because of alcoholism telling the nurse, “If I was able to get to the case of beer in the back of my truck I would go get it right now.”

Darrell was an amazing man. A true and loyal friend, he was good to me and my family, but he self destructed. But, as Paul’s dad from the movie said, “He was beautiful.” And that’s what I remember Darrell for, not for the alcoholism or his vices, but as a beautiful, vibrant, loving human being.

That’s the way we should view everyone we come into contact with who is bound to an addiction or a vice. We shouldn’t view them through the lens of their addiction. That’s not who they really are. We should see the true person, the beauty, that still shines brightly beneath all that. After all, that’s what God does for us.

Every single one of us have vices that would betray us to our demise were we left to ourselves. There is NO DIFFERENCE between you and the alcoholic, drug addict, porn addict, cutter, sex addict, gambling addict, those living in a perverse lifestyle, etc. We like to put those people and ourselves in two different categories in our minds in order to feed our misguided sense of self righteousness, but in reality we are all in the same boat. None of us are different than the other, EXCEPT that some of us have allowed a rescuer to come in and save us from ourselves. We must never forget that it was NOT our own hand that saved us, it was a hand far stronger and greater than anything we could ever muster up on our own. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US would be bound were it not for the saving grace of Jesus Christ. And it His grace alone that should get credit for our freedom. Not your will power or strength.

Remember that next time you’re dealing with someone overcoming addiction, whether it be a family member, friend, or just a random stranger on the street. Give them the honor of viewing them the way Christ viewed you. With dignity, as a person created in God’s own image. See the beauty inside of them. See them for who they truly are, not what they’ve become on the surface. Don’t despise, hate, or shun them. Love them. That is the only hope they have. In the movie Paul’s dad ended with this:

“Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them – we can love completely without complete understanding.”

Living to touch God’s heart,
Chris Ulery