Unbelievers In Need Of Jesus Christ

A verse was brought to mind today while I looked up the requirements of becoming a nonprofit today here in the state of Washington.  It is Titus 3:5, which says,

he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

That drew me deeper into thinking about how there is a need for a Christian perspective and teaching to those who have an opiate addiction, such as the growing homeless population here in the United States.  I thought about how I had founded a small nonprofit in the past to deal with issues related to supporting people living on the dark side of life, but I wasn’t a Christian then. 

Maybe I should delve back into the world of nonprofits and lend a hand into a world where addiction has permeated the homeless population in cities along the west coast.  I would feel empowered knowing I had done something to help share the gospel to those in need of a helping hand.

Using a background in counseling, in teaching and using my writing ability could be used in writing something that can be used for those reaching out to know God and want His help to break their addiction.  Heroin is an area I have worked in and I’ve always felt sadness over seeing how the homeless have lived. 

I was raised in an upper-middle class family but my recent struggles with keeping a roof over my head in a lifestyle I would say is more fit for gypsies leaves me thinking that this shouldn’t be happening in America where so many good people are struggling for a better lifestyle. 

It is a strange time we are living in yet I know I am saved and want to branch out into doing something I feel good about.  I need a livelihood I am cut out to do and yet having a regular livelihood is important to me.  My feeling is that my counseling experience should be developed to further my walk with God yet come in out of the wanderer lifestyle I have felt uncomfortable in.   I am trying to find that job that I am cut out to do that earns enough money to pay the bills.  As yet I haven’t figured out what to do and this idea of creating something that benefits those addicted to drugs and want to know Christ is something I’ve often thought about over the past few years. 

I have frequently asked the Lord about my livelihood, and have had some problems along the way converting to my Christian faith, but as a Christian I am very concerned about which industry to earn income from, with the culture becoming more liberal and “progressive”.  

Getting sued as a Christian business has become more threatening to earning an income and saying one is a Christian.  Some will put us under attack just for letting them know we are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Having a safe job working in an office can kill the desire to serve God and people with the dullness of working in an income bracket where one barely can survive.  The cost of housing where I live has gone sky-high being near Seattle and I don’t see myself becoming an engineer at Facebook or Google any time soon.

Tonight I viewed a video at the online library where I frequently take courses to learn about subjects I am pursuing.  Making money is always a concern for me.  I want to start a business but don’t know what it is and have asked God for guidance and blessings in my walk for financial wellbeing and security.  It’s hard nowadays.

“Methadonia” was the name of a video I watched through the online library site that focused on the lives of a handful of heroin addicts who were attending a recovery group in New York each day.  They were given methadone and attending a group to kick their heroin habits and find ways to live clean and normal lives. 

I was looking at how normal modes of drug treatment such as this excluded Christian belief and the saving grace of God and from the Christian perspective.  What is supposed to happen with people trying to kick a habit such as heroin, and they have no Lord and Savior that can teach them the right ways to overcome addiction?  Who is to break the chains of addiction in these people?  

Addicts in the video talked about a “higher power” but it wasn’t focused squarely on Jesus Christ as being the key to change lives and gain the strength people needed to make positive changes in their lives.  They were not introduced and encouraged to this mode of living, learning and becoming part of the Christian family.

Methadone is one treatment for heroin addiction that is prescribed and given to addicts daily as a liquid that is overseen by an M.D. and dispensed by a nurse.  I worked in a methadone treatment facility as a drug and alcohol counselor years ago in Sacramento, California where I met many addicts who were wanting to maintain relationships, have families and have jobs.  Some feared that with drug testing as part of  an interview process that they would be outed as having a heroin addiction and didn’t want to face the shame or possible negativity by employers for being in methadone treatment.  They feared they wouldn’t get hired as well.  

Methadonia is a word meant to explain how addicts on methadone would use other drugs, such as benzodiazepines, after taking their prescribed methadone, to produce an almost identical “high” as heroin.  These people were really not in treatment seeking treatment; they were using medical treatment to find ways to feel the high that they were getting treatment for.  Methadone, although habit forming, is meant to take people out of a life of crime to seek medically monitored treatment and get them directed into normal, mainstream lives.  

The video states that methadone combined with benzos would make them feel high, so methadone treatment can be gamed.  Drug addicts are known to be shady, needing ways to feed their habits.

Even though methadone is supposed to fill their brain’s receptor sites so that they can no longer get high off of heroin, drug addicts find ways to get high on other substances.  This is the nasty addictive process that affect changes in the brain and lifestyle habits that these addicts often will find their way into and why they are brought down to a level of drug-seeking and getting high as their way of life.

Using heroin brings people into crime to support their habit whereas using methadone as a prescribed medication is supposed to keep people on the path of leading lives that are crime-free.

But it doesn’t always happen.  Addicts may try to quit methadone or other drugs, but they are most likely to relapse and either die or wind up in jail.  Often they lead lives of crime all to support their habits that take over everything in their lives and losing families and everything they own do not stop them from getting high.  They will lose their lives over this addictive process and suffer from health issues, violence and other torment on the way to their deaths. 

Why are we allowing such shallow forms of treatment to address these issues?  Is there not a god to solve their sin?  I feel we may not have the way to save every person from their lives of sin but we should bring the light of Christ into the lives of darkness, otherwise they cannot see.  Many are lost but a few will be saved if they want to seek Christ and are given ways to meet Christ in the crossroads of their lives.

I wonder at the meanness of addiction and how it leads to utter destruction.

This is why I think these addicts need recovery that gives them a chance to learn about the gospels and know Jesus Christ.  They must be able to address issues of sin which is universal to mankind after all.  These people create families having children, and the cycle is passed to the next generation of their children.  Our schools don’t give children a way to learn the gospels.  Where do they learn these things if there are no Christians teaching them and making the gospels of Christ known?  Some addicts want to become clean and recover and a few said so in the video, “Methadonia”. 

We have to become more vocal but where do Christians come in to offer help, take federal money to start an assistance or teaching program of some kind where someone won’t take offense and try to sue?   

Yes, if just one person is healed of their addiction and becomes able to serve God, He would be pleased, I am sure, but I am a human being who sees how society has treated Christians and I have become concerned about how to go about forming a Christian nonprofit and not having some wild-eyed nonbeliever attack us in some way.

As I become more bored at a regular, low-paying office job, I dream about the good I would be doing in some form of company where I could earn a decent living and serve God at the same time.  In that line of thinking, I think I should learn more about calling myself a Christian conservative company so that I serve anyone who seeks what I offer but yet I have stated in the mission statement that I am a Christian company so legal issues might not rear their ugly heads, in a manner of speaking.

It is greatly needed for those in big west-coast cities where the use of fentanyl and street drugs proliferate greatly causing the homeless to fall into sin in ever greater numbers.  Policy is not working and our big west-coast cities are dying under the leadership of liberals.  What more can I say?

I can ask for help in this endeavor as I hopefully grow in this venture that is an answer to prayer.  I have not been a drug addict or alcoholic, but I have known many in my journey to becoming a Christian. 

Family members wouldn’t believe that I have become a Christian, and they are not in my life at all at this point so I have no family, per se, just friends who I want to share my life with.  We are a Christian family, after all.