"I WILL give up the partying scene to spend more time and meet more ppl in fellowship."

I read the above quote on my friend Abby's blog (which I'm not linking to, because she wants to keep it private), and it got me thinking about the sacrifices that I've made over the last few months.

I remember when I first was brought back to Hong Kong by my parents from college in Australia, broken completely by my alcohol addiction. I remember then wanting to change so much, because the fear of staying where I was, was greater than the fear of change. And for a while, I did change...until things got a little better.

It's so funny how quickly us humans forget. See, as soon as life was a bit brighter, I forgot all the reasons why the change I had begun was necessary. Suddenly giving up life as I had known it for something different seemed stupid. And hard. Boy, was it hard. The constant daily sacrifices of cutting of contact with all my old friends, avoiding places where I used to hang out, and not using alcohol to stop the thoughts in my mind just became too painful. Too heartbreaking. Too difficult. So I gave up, and turned back to drinking.

See, one thing that I didn't learn back then was that when you give up something, you have to fill it up with something else. Because I didn't fill my life with something else, all that these daily sacrifices did was to show me the emptiness and darkness of my life. I had no friends, no purpose, no peace of mind. If only I had known then to fill my mind and heart with God's love and Word, to fill my life with new Christian friends and my family, and to find a better outlet for my emotions instead of using alcohol.

I wish I could tell you that I learnt this and then began to apply it to my life and change. But I didn't. I had to go right back to the point where I hit further rock bottom than I had in Australia before I was able to change. But once that happened, I clung so tightly to God and my family, and He and they have indeed been so faithful to fill my life with all the goodness and love that I need.

When you give up a bad habit or take something bad out of your life, be sure to fill it up with light, or you will surely fail. It's like in Matthew 12:43-45 where an evil spirit went out of a man, but couldn't find a place to rest, so it decided to return back to its old house. It found the house "unoccupied, swept clean and put in order" and so because the house was empty (the man had not filled the previously occupied space with anything else), it brought seven other spirits more evil than it to live in the house, and the final condition of the man was worse than before. From experience, I can assure you that each time I went into recovery and fell, the harder it was to get back up, because each time I failed, I drank a little harder, a little faster, a little more reckless.

Make sure God is filling all the empty spaces in your life with His Word and love.