Psalm 14 (NIV) - The LORD looks to down...to see if there are any...who seek God

From Psalms

Psalm 14 (New International Version, ©2011)
(For the director of music. Of David.)

¹The fool says in his heart,
     “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
     there is no one who does good.

²The LORD looks down from heaven
     on all mankind
to see if there are any who understand,
     any who seek God.
³All have turned away, all have become corrupt;
     there is no one who does good,
     not even one.

⁴Do all these evildoers know nothing?

     They devour my people as though eating bread;
     they never call on the LORD.
⁵But there they are, overwhelmed with dread,
     for God is present in the company of the righteous.
⁶You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
     but the LORD is their refuge.

⁷Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
     When the LORD restores his people,
     let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

Rarely was I successful in my recovery for more than two weeks before I would relapse, again.  I bring this up because Psalm 14 marked the two week period of my sobriety.  I believe my previous attempts at sobriety failed because I didn't have anything positive to focus on.  During these failed attempts I was focusing on not acting out, not watching porn, not relapsing - Since I was focusing on the negative behavior I was doomed to fail.  Psalms, and praying psalms to God, were the positive outlet that I needed to be successful.  Eventually, I would start to see God working in my life as a result of my prayers.

My behavior didn't change overnight, though.  I slowly began become more aware of my triggers - that lead to my acting out.  A few things, like stress at work, lack of sleep, would lead me into my home office where I would previously log in to my lap to initiate the process of acting out.  Previously, I would use my laptop to find some new exploit, looking for strip clubs, massage parlors, or free internet porn sites.  However, with the project of re-writing psalms, instead of opening my laptop, I would open my NIV Bible.

In these moments of clarity I began to see how things, common in other addicts, like H.A.L.T. (Hunger, Anger, Loneliness, Tired) could trigger my previous behaviors which would lead me deeper into my hole of addiction.  Psalms made sure I would not allow these things to lead to my hole of addiction.  From there, not only could I stop these things from leading me astray, as time went on, I began to be able to prevent those triggers in the first place.  Praise the Lord, indeed.  That is part of the true path of recovery.  Obviously this led to even bigger and better things - like being able to rely more on God and understanding that my addiction was simply a symptom of larger problems in my life.  Nevertheless, initially, simply being able to avoid the behavior which had previously consumed my life seemed like huge progress.  Something I know I could not have done without God's healing hand - something that seemed only possible with Psalms.

Thanks for letting me share.