Obsession

" If I eat one chocolate, I just know I'll eat the whole packet - I just can't stop myself"

All of us have our obsessions - or at least are vulnerable to becoming a slave of an obsession.

You see it from a young age - boys start collecting sport star cards, a young niece of mine has fifty "Barbie Dolls", suddenly kids are texting 2,000 times a month...it's part of our culture - whether you like it or not!

On the news the other day, they were saying that there was an increase in New Zealand of the numbers of people being diagnosed as having a "sexual addiction". After reading Ian Wishart's "Eve's Bite" and exploring his magazine http://www.investigatemagazine.com/, I found a link there to a pastor called "The Porn Pastor" http://www.xxxchurch.com/ who helps people who work in the pornography industry or who are addicted to Porn, to take charge and rehabilitate themselves.

He was talking about the number of Pastors and priests who contact him who find themselves being addicted to searching porn sites on the Internet. You hear about people in all levels of life, eventually falling from grace, being disabled from doing their good works, succumbing from their obsession.

- People are obsessed with collecting shoes, phone cards, cars, art, rental housing - you name it - people collect it! And some obsessions are tolerated by our society more than others!

Honest, upright people become depraved, desperate and morally corrupt as their obsessions drag them into their fall from grace. Ordinary people become law breakers, convention breakers and outsiders as their feeding of their obsession creates a monster that consumes their lives, their energy and everything they stand for.

They are in fact a mirror of what we could become if we surrender our lives into the funnel of an obsession.

And this could be over an object like a shoe, a lover, a rare stamp or as in Gollum's case, a ring.

Gollum is an amazing analogy of a human becoming so obsessed, that they become a creature that is no longer recognisable as being human - naked, shameless, homeless, forever tortured in their pursuit of their object of obsession.

Their lives have been taken over by their obsession - they are a shell, an empty carcass devoid of any moral fibre outside of the pursuit of their object of desire.

So, we have to be careful of our obsessions - they can take us over!

Obsession does not always destroy us - it can also be used to create heroic and productive lives.

Martin Luther King spent years obsessing with his "dream", Nelson Mandela had a lot of time to obsess over his country's future and many, many political and business leaders have "magnificent obsessions" that deliver incredible focus, unstoppable actions and amazing results.

It looks to me like you can choose your obsession. Lots of alcoholics and drug addicts have overnight religious conversions, where they pour their lives into new values, new actions and a new focus.

If you don't want to spend the rest of your life eating boxes of chocolates, getting fatter and more desperate, what could you focus your obsession onto?

What in your life is worth being focused on such that it benefits you, your loved ones, your friends, your community and your society?

Aren't your goals worthy of your obsession?