Drugs?

I have to share this story with you...

This past week a friend of mine asked me about drugs. Are drugs a sin and why?

You see, his lifestyle leads him to a group of people that live and die by the gun. God is an absent being to them; why else would their lives reflect such hardship.

I honestly had to look my friend in the eye and tell him that yes drugs and this lifestyle are a sin. This took him back. I guess a street evangelist from the night before had confronted his friends and their life style. His had the hardest time wrapping his mind around this. "This isn't fair, his friends are just making life work. They are doing the best they can with the hand they have been dealt", right? I can’t say I blame him. I have been there too. I was once very much involved in the street life.

The question I possessed to him in response was, who is God? You see, we all set up images of who we think God would be if we were God. And when life doesn’t add up to what we want, we think God doesn’t exist. This lifestyle is about the fast and furious temporary highs; Sex, drugs, alcohol, fast cars and guns. All of these are highs that make us feel like we are in control. It is not about the lifestyle they have been dealt, but instead the lifestyles they have chosen to deal with life. When we look away from God, we find darkness, desperation, hopelessness and broken hearts. The drug is not the sin, what we do with the drug is the sin. Sin is choosing or own ways. Sin is us worshiping ourselves or materials in place of God.

Do we worship creation, or Creator?