Recently, I watched the Disney animated version of the classic story, “Alice In Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll. The story has gotten many years of pop culture attention and references. The rock band, Jefferson Airplane notoriously captured the drug aspect of it in their song, “White Rabbit.”
And, as I watched the film, yes, I was struck by the “drink me” and “eat me” scenes. Alice, bored with her current existence, encounters a utopia of Wonderland, but is faced with the obstacle of a locked door.
And her “solution” was to partake of these provided substances to alter her size. She believed she could, indeed, be “just the right size” and obtain her perfect life of this magical world.
So, she encounters the “drink me” bottle, does just that and shrinks. Likewise, she follows the advice of an “eat me” cake and grows to a mammoth size.
But, taking these substances still doesn’t solve her problem. When she was tiny, she was too small to reach the key and unlock the door; when she was too big, she couldn’t fit through the door.
And it started me thinking about our views of our solutions. Scripture cautions us about drawing our own “perfect” conclusion to our life issues:
There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”
Proverbs 14:12
Isn’t that exactly the case for us when we turn to our addictions, disorders and crutches of all kinds? We think we’re solving our problems. But the reality is we are compounding them. We often find ourselves having gone further, lost more and experienced more pain, all through the path of choices which kicked off from one thought: “this will be my answer.”
But it never is. Only God is.
“…And God said…I AM THAT I AM…”
Exodus 3:14
He is Who/What we’re seeking. Anything and everything else is an illegal substitute…
“They chose new gods; then was war in the gates…”
Judges 5:8
That’s what happens eventually in our lives when we pursue an idol: war. That pursuit WILL fail us:
“Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.”
Judges 10:14
Whatever we eat, drink, focus on and give energy to, apart from God, will fail us and create further problems and complications. And is that what we want? Of course not!
So let’s confront the Alice “solution” in each of us. Why is the object of our focus our answer? Why isn’t it God? What can we do today to make God our true “I am?”
It’s worth pursuing, isn’t it?