Reality is you are in for a life or death game. There is a strategy – a winning game theory a sure bet. The win is free an all-in bet on a supernatural wild card. Grace is the card. Faith, trust and belief are the way. All-in they are game changers. But required is an all-in life sacrificial gambit –or opening move. The right move guarantees a forever win. Are you ready to wager all to win by going all-in?
Allin is the product of generations of seriously dysfunctional family, perforated with addictions including but not limited to alcoholism, gambling, emotional manipulation and cross addictive behaviors. Life admittedly was punctuated by sporadic flashes of seeming sanity but he found it hard to identify because insanity was his reality. His given middle name is Allin (All-in) a legacy of his card-playing father, who gambled, drank and raged with great passion. He was born in February 1947 in Cheyenne, Wyoming at the leading edge of the Baby Boom (a boomer). His parents were products of the struggles, depravities, and poverty of the Great Depression and fears, frustrations, separations, phobias and dysfunctions of that period compounded by the horrors, tragedies and triumphs of World War II era.
Growing up on a small farm Allin was imprinted with a jumble of fears and insecurities the red threat, nuclear annihilation, and alcoholic rage. An excellent student he learning to trust no one, bury feelings and emotions with self-critical brutality and confused relationships. His spiritual upbringing was pegged to a cult religion whose doctrine and covenant teachings were scripted by a false prophet gazing at a seer stone in a hat. This man made religion has grown from it beginnings in the US in the 1830’s. Today it is based in a western state. His dysfunctions coupled with religious confusion splintered into multiple cross addictions from childhood and pre-teen years into his fourth decade of adulthood.
The first four decades of his life were a jumbled journey, he could get NO SATISFACTION. He rarely drank alcohol, wagered on business deals, worked obsessively, went on material and thing gathering binges, gambled and won or lost on a sure thing that he didn’t like. If he liked it, he wanted more of it. If he tried something once and liked it the next time he was hooked. It was a life of compulsive insanity.
Living large in compulsion Allin consumed increasing quantities of alcohol in episodic binges while playing long and hard to win, to succeed, as a farm worker, fruit picker, grave digger, shoe salesman, delivery man, construction labor, college student, teacher, professional skier, paid athlete, avalanche control consultant, emergency medical technician, bartender, waiter, cook, janitor, town councilman, mayor, board member, rotary club founder-officer, community festival and arts center founder, Fortune 500 corporate community relations executive, advertising public relations executive, real-estate broker, property manager, corporate broker, international traveling marketer salesman, media and government relations specialist, recreational golfer, sailor, diver, hunter, runner, mountain biker, back country skier, hiker, camper, motorcyclist, entrepreneur, volunteer husband and father. He could get NO SATISFACTION.
Addiction, insanity, darkness, isolation and always failing by my own measurement were the hallmarks of addicted life with alcohol. Allin could find NO SATISFACTION. It hasn’t changes much for the many who labor under the bondage of addiction. The insanity takes many popular forms in our culture as was learned through recovery and healing. It is wide spread and at epidemic levels. He grew up in it, played in it, fought it, denied it and came up a loser. Generally the phenomenon of addiction symbolizes much of what plagues the fallen human condition. It certainly was that way for Him. But losing to sin addiction was the pathway to freedom, winning and SATISFACTION.
Sin goes by many names in society often labeled addictions, mental illness, compulsive disorders or behavioral problems and diseases. As a culture we drink liquids that dehydrate us, get us drunk, or pop pills to numb out the pain. We compulsively buy objects that require us to buy more objects. It is called shop-a-holism or materialism. We make more money and spend or gamble it away. We ratchet up our lifestyle in response, and find we work obsessively harder and longer to make more to sustain our compulsive life-style addictions. The harder we work the more work there is to do. We balance on the edge of or fall into work-a-holism. And the harder we play, the more elusive the feeling of relief. Ask anyone in extreme sports, deal making businessman, or in the sex trade industry, all will tell you the same thing: Yesterday’s thrill or deal is today’s old news. Addictions are the spiritual dis-eases of the millennium. They are known by legion names in the digital, techno and physco-babble of the postmodern age. We can’t get NO SATISFACTION.
Allin’s spiritual awakening came in a white light instantaneous conversion, incorporation by the Holy Spirit, and transformation as the desire to drink was lifted. This spiritual rebirth has led to a new life. He found ancient pathways to a better life are in step recovery programs. One way has its origin and basis in ancient healing scriptural wisdom found in the Bible. The origins of AA began in the Oxford Group where recovering participants practiced absolute surrender, guidance by the Holy Spirit, sharing in first century Christian fellowship, faith and prayer that was life changing. Acceptance of powerlessness is the point. He found that the “ALL-IN” bet of a “life time” leading to SATISFACTION is absolute surrender to a personal Lord and Savior Christ Jesus. His passion is to share that spiritual reality.
Food is place Allin continues to struggle. Comfort foods call out to him in temptation the sins of gluttony and excess. He knows addictions by name those which lead to behaviors desiring relief with the wrong people, in wrong attitudes and in wrong places. The demons of compulsions increase and grow strong in their demands to be fed unhealthy behaviors and habits. Their games demand substances or activities that intensify the problems causing crisis, chaos, illness, destruction of relationships, insanity, institutionalization, incarceration and even death.
Allin has been to the dark side, done craziness and experienced the consequences. He knows step recovery programs offer a solution but biblical spiritual recovery is the way. Repentance and turning to God is the absolute SATISFACTION solution. Allin understands we fail but God never fails. What is impossible with man is possible with God. He continues to fail learning life lessons and experiencing God’s healing, rewards and freedoms. ALL-IN Ministries Inc. has been established through his desire to share the spiritual SATISFACTION solution with those trapped in the human condition held captive to bondage by legion addictions.
Those in bondage to sin addictions always need more. One of the hallmarks of addiction is an ever-increasing amount of a particular substance or behavior required in order to get any SATISFACTION. However temporary it may be. Logically and rationally we can acknowledge the addictive nature of alcohol, chemical and prescription dependencies. But addiction is harder to spot for those who are compulsive about work, gambling, food, approval, perfectionism, control, possessions, intimacy, social media, co-dependent relationships, security, or any number of more human failings known in Biblical terms for thousands of years as man’s sin nature.
Addictions are, at their roots, spiritual issues; every human is addicted to sin in some way. A variety of substances, behaviors, and thought patterns create holes, tears, sores or scars in our soul that we try to fill and assuage with medications or our drug of choice. When the desire for God is misdirected into compulsive addiction, we experience pain. We deal with that pain in two ways. We deny or repress the longing, or we attach it to a compulsive negative behavior, substance, person, place or thing. Those attachments “bond and enslave the energy of desire” until we are obsessed and possessed by the minions of compulsion. Sin never truly satisfies. Tragically, our sin attachment to other than God suppresses our desire for God. The addictions become our “go to” for comfort. They are our “false idols” and “false gods.”
Modern western culture is not likely to worship crass “false idols” made of wood or stone as described in the Torah. Our present day idolatry is more subtle and far more dangerous. We are prone to place addictions, people, places, things, money, material items, work, relationships, and other pleasures before our pursuit of God. So we should always be on guard against sophisticate idolatry and incipient denial. We turn to them for relief from life’s problems, fears, challenges, trails, tribulations, anger and pain. The wisdom scriptures call any and all addictions that are barriers to God “false idols” and sin. Our temples of worship or hoped for satisfaction are the places our addictions hang out and take over, whether in the bar, at work, the casino, the kitchen, the gym, the office, or on the Inter-net. We can’t get NO SATISFACTION.
The need to fill the hole in the soul can only be healed with God as our higher power. It is only possible by absolute and complete surrender admitting our powerlessness. As step recovery programs recognize the addiction “is a spiritual issue caused by our dis-ease.” SATISFACTION comes by going ALL-IN with Jesus.
On our own we cannot defeat the cruel masters of addiction. Their master Satan and his demons are hell bent on winning their game for our souls. Only God can save us. Never give up! SATISFACTION comes only when you ALL-IN with Jesus and incorporated by the Holy Spirit. Where He dwells in your heart making you the man or women He has created you to be for His plan and purpose. Without God we can do nothing.
This truth is the only way out of sin addiction. It is the only way to enjoy the sort of productive, satisfying existence He intends; is to spend time in a personal relationship with JESUS, reflecting and taking action through prayer, meditation, and reading the Bible. Fellowship is sharing our faith, confessing our imperfections, problems and sin addictions and serving our neighbor are requirements for recovery. JESUS is the Bread of Life and Living Water for thirsty and hungry. The Messiah alone can cover our sin.
Make a GAME CHANGE BET YOUR LIFE on JESUS. He bet His life on you. Get SATISFACTION that lasts for eternity.
