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“I don’t know at which point I crossed the line. Maybe it was the first hit that first night, or maybe it was after the first year of regular use. In one sense, it didn’t matter; once I stepped over the line, the rest was history. They were in control from that point on, not me. I may have initially done drugs to feel good, to fit in, to escape the pressures of daily life, to party hard, to feel cool, and to make scandalous memories, but now I was doing them because I had become dependent on them.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“Every time I faced a judge, I went in with a sense of impending doom. They always told me, “You’re innocent until proven guilty,” but I knew that was a bunch of rubbish. I wasn’t innocent, period. It didn’t matter what I told myself or how I justified my actions, I wouldn’t be there if I was innocent.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“Each time I failed, it may have surprised me, but it didn’t surprise God, who sees and knows all things, even before they happen. That’s when it struck me. God knew I was going to stab Him in the back. God knew that if He saved my life, I was going to abuse these drugs. He knew that I was going to turn away from Him toward all the other things I loved more than Him. He knew I would relapse, yet He still chose to save my life.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“The extent of my depravity was ruthless: graduation, family events, weddings, funerals, Grandma’s birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and every other holiday. The one common denominator amongst these occasions was that the only thing I gave thanks for was an inebriated state of being. If I had to go a day without drugs, it was a bad day. If a day went as I preferred, I would get high in the morning, at lunch, and in the evening.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“My trust and wellbeing aren’t placed in my own abilities any longer but in the God who fights on my behalf. He empowers me to stand each time I fall. I didn’t just win because I got to go to heaven when I died, I won because I got to bank on God being here with me in the rat race of life. I would still struggle and fail, but I would never be alone in the battle again. The shortcomings and insecurities could no longer define me in the way they once did. As a Christian, I may still lose as many battles as the next person, but I won’t lose hope.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“She quoted Jesus and told me I needed to learn to turn the other cheek. “These things hit you,” she said. “They punched you in the face and now you have a choice. You can keep focusing on them and judging people who do them, or you can turn your cheek and focus on something new. Before you were obsessed with loving drugs, now you’re obsessed with hating them. Either way, your life is still ruled by them.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“As I sat on the floor in the corner of the concrete block, it felt as if the last domino had fallen in my crumbling world. For the first time in a long time, I starting weeping, and I couldn’t stop. The impact of what was happening was steadily sinking in. For the third time in my life, my eyes shot heavenward.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“The more I excelled at this life, the more drugs I sold, the more girls I got, the more parties I went to, the more messed up I felt. I was running a race to see who could screw up their life the most, and I was winning. The higher up I climbed and the more successful I became in this lifestyle, the more messed up things were.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“If I believed in karma, I would probably be a fly in my next life because of all the messed-up crap I’d done in this one.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“It didn’t seem to matter whether the goals I set were constructive or destructive, both led to cycles that felt like hamster wheels with occasional treats. The constructive goals like careers, vacations, degrees, adventures, luxury and status seemed just as futile as the destructive goals like drinking, drugging, sexing, relationships, and partying. None of them brought lasting objective and subjective meaning to life. At best, they gave a temporary blip of euphoria before they faded into obscurity.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“The harder I fought against the law and its representatives, the more messed up my life became. At some point I had to ask myself, why did I keep choosing drugs and rebellion when they only ended in chaos and despair? Was it really worth the fleeting blip of euphoria when it cost so much?”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“According to these theories, in order for our species to thrive, the weak must die out. It is not only okay for the weak to die, but essential. It is best for our species if the oppressed, the addicted, and the afflicted die, because it will rid our gene pool of the weak. Those at the top of the food chain can do whatever they want, even if it means harming and exploiting others, because as long as they reproduce their dominant genes, they will give future generations of humanity a better shot. This is what an existence looks like that is reduced to evolutionary biology and is void of morality.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“He continued, “If you want to follow God, you have to turn away from whatever it is you were trusting and instead turn to Him. What do you turn to when you’re having a hard time to make you feel better and to give you relief, confidence, hope, or pleasure? Whatever you turn to, that’s the thing you worship. That’s the thing you love most. Whatever is at the core of your life, that’s the thing you are actively turning to and trusting in to give meaning to your life and help you through the hard times. That thing is your functional god. If you put drugs or money or sex in the center, your wellbeing will be dependent on those things. In essence, they will rule you.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“I suppose this anger and manipulation was my pseudo-conscious method of giving the system, and all it entailed, the big fat birdie finger. What I failed to realize was that my inward disposition of fuming vindictiveness and self-justification only caused me to rob myself. I was giving myself the middle finger, not them.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“I led the counselor, probation officer, my teachers, my parents, and everyone else to believe that I was a good kid who’d just slipped up and made a few blunders. I made them think I was putting my all into recovery when, in reality, the only thing I was putting my best effort towards was deceiving each of them. My intellect allowed me to maintain the style of life I wanted, right underneath their noses.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“Putting good things out into the universe didn’t undo or negate the negative things I’d done. It also didn’t negate the fact that every action has its own consequence.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“It was terribly embarrassing, but for the first time in my life, I didn’t really care what the cute girls thought of me or what my friends thought of me, for that matter. God kept winking at me this whole trip, so I figured that even in my sullied state, He must still find me pretty desirable.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“Some would just run up to me, kiss me, and then run off, giggling. I know men are shallow, but half the dudes I know live for this. Our pride is completely and irrevocably intertwined with the women we associate with. The hotter they are, the more of them there are, and the more they like us, the more confident we feel about ourselves.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“At my core, I was seeking the wrong things. I did not even know what I wanted in life, let alone what I needed. What good was the law of attraction when all the things I wanted, desired, and attracted ended up being more harmful than they were helpful, and when all the things I longed for and sought did not satisfy me in the way I hoped they would?”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“When the eternal God looked at my record and said, “Michael is found guilty, the penalty of his crimes is death and his crimes must be paid for in hell,” Jesus didn’t just sit there pleading for my forgiveness saying, “Please forgive Michael. Please have mercy on him.” No, He made a case for me and got a verdict on my behalf. He took the penalty on Himself and fulfilled everything that the law required.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“What I found was that solving the puzzle of addiction was not as simple as refraining from certain substances, people, and activities, and replacing them with healthier ones. Physical and social changes like these helped and were a necessary part of my recovery, but they were not enough.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“I wondered how many years they would wallow in the mud before they realized there was something more to life than fleeting pleasures. Some would end up like me, throwing their lives away for the rush and thrill of it. I wondered how long it would take them to find out the best that drugs, alcohol, and partying had to offer was fleeting, temporary satisfaction that led to dependency and a compromised ability to find joy without those things. The more they turned to those things, the more their emotional, social, and psychological wellbeing would become dependent on them, and the harder it would be to be happy without them.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“It was easy for me to start good habits like taking advanced classes and doing more sports, but weeding out the bad habits was not as simple. I still went to class high sometimes, but at least I wasn’t doing it every day. Before, I could not function without drugs, could not live a single day. Now, very gradually, I was changing the purpose for which I lived. Before, I was a druggie. Now I was a super studious, highly advanced student who was only on drugs sometimes.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“After my sentencing from the judge, I started getting drug tested regularly. As a result, I had to stop smoking weed. In place of weed, I started doing other drugs that stayed in my system for shorter amounts of time and were harder to detect. It started with nontraceable substances like mushrooms, acid, and 2-CB (a derivative of mescaline), but it quickly turned into hard drugs. While weed was detectable on tests for up to a month, hard drugs were only traceable for a few days or a week at most. Ironically, the drug tests which were meant to discourage me from drug use, turned me on to hard drugs.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“I kept zoning out as the various shapes and symbols flashed across the computer's glowing screen. My most strenuous efforts to combine those symbols into words failed drastically, sentences eluded me, and time passed in a chirping swirl of incoherent madness.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“I cried out, and He answered. He helped me, just like He had every other time. I thought of the Milky Way and those magnificent and grandiose beams of light, tunneling downwards. Then I thought about how the God who’d created all of that kept answering my prayers and inserting Himself, a Being more glorious and powerful than those incalculably massive stars, into my life.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“I was like a train, headed full steam, down an old set of tracks that would eventually drop me into oblivion. Instead of heeding the warning of the conductor, I annihilated him to remove my guilt as I passively and regretfully watched my life go slipping by. I considered anyone who tried to warn me of the dangers ahead to be an enemy: the law, the authorities, the police, my family, the educational institutions, God. I silenced all of them so I could live in the way I pleased.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“Thank you,” I said, and I resumed my shivering, gazing up into the sky until dawn broke through and the stars themselves started to fade. I couldn’t sleep for even a minute that night. All that night I lay up shivering and thinking about the brevity of life. How one misstep can take any of us out of the game indefinitely. I thought about the style of life I’d chosen and where it had led me. I hoped with all my might that I’d be able to change.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“I believed in every form of religion that I personally deemed inclusive and befitting, while rejecting and ignoring the ones I didn’t like.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“And yet, God is different than the law; God is faithful to us, even when we curse ourselves by rejecting and being unfaithful to His law.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“When everything was said and done, I blocked the event from my memory. I didn’t realize it at the time, but if that girl wouldn’t have come in and sat on the ketamine, I would’ve ingested twice as much. If I were already overdosing, the full amount probably would’ve killed me. That one minor alteration in history, a moment which deprived me of my true desires and
seemed tragically disappointing at the time, probably saved my life.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“Why are we so moved by a good love story? Why does it touch our hearts so deeply when a hero willingly takes the fall on behalf of others? These stories touch us because they are wired into our hearts and modeled after the greatest story ever written, the story of God’s love for His creation.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“Instruction manuals are not intended to restrict or diminish an object’s functionality, but to ensure that it functions as it was designed, at its optimal capacity.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“The more I sought to understand things, the more they baffled me.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“Is what we were doing really wrong? If the point of life is to find meaning and purpose, and my purpose in life was to enjoy myself, was it really wrong to live like that? Was our country not founded on the belief that every human has the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”? Did it violate some greater universal law if my actions to please myself harmed and caused pain to others, or should they just mind their own dang business?”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“I didn’t mind this because it enabled me to justify the reckless lifestyle and actions I wanted, but if I’d had the choice I would have preferred an unbiased education where I could’ve learned about each viable theory.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“Though my life is like grass that grows one day and withers away the next, God is so permanent, so unbending, so eternal, He makes the rocks look like vapors in the wind, the earth itself look like a drop in the ocean. So vast and immeasurable, He makes the boundless depths of space and the endless lengths of time look meager and insignificant. And this Being, Creator of all, set His love on me. This Being chose to make me an object of His eternal love.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“I felt so lost in my addiction, I believed that no one was capable of understanding or helping me. I thought I was uniquely broken, so messed up that no other human could possibly get me. Turns out most addicts feel that way. I knew he drank occasionally, but I had no clue how much he drank, how much it meant to him, or how much he was offering by his willingness to forsake it for me. To this day, I wonder what things would have been like if I would’ve opened up to him and let him fight alongside me instead of blocking him out. I can’t count how many times I have wished that I could go back and take him up on that offer.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“Whatever it was, having the drugs readily available and prescribed to my name was enough to tempt me into abusing them.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“For many of us, drugs and drinking were still our concept of the good life. Somewhere deep down we still believed these things to be the ultimate pleasure in life and regretted not being able to enjoy them.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“Our culture tells us to want sex, pleasure, and instant gratification. Every hit song raves about it. Consumerism tells us that we need it now. There are a thousand voices that will sell us on these things; they’ll tell you everything you want to hear, being sure only to leave in the good parts and leave out the bad. They’ll sell you 'til you’re hooked, then you’ll sell yourself. Heck, at that point, you’ll sell your soul.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“We weren’t just looking at how we could help others; we were looking into our own lives as well. Whenever we were together, we would talk about what was preventing us from from honoring God, what things were keeping us stuck, or holding us captive. They would share portions of God’s Word that gave me clarity on why I had become stuck in certain areas, as well as how God could help me heal and move forward.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“It didn’t seem to matter how many boundaries I’d put in place or how much I’d grown in self-discipline. As I found myself acting in a way that grieved me to watch, I had to admit that I wouldn’t be doing this if part of me didn’t want it. The very fact I was doing it showed this is what I really wanted. How could I both hate something and want something at the same time?”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“Since I didn’t like the law or the consequences for breaking it, I lived in denial of it. But pretending as if it weren’t there did not make it disappear. So, I retaliated against those who represented it. If I couldn't divert the consequences, I diverted the blame. I blamed the police for my consequences. I blamed them for “ruining my life.” I blamed them for my arrests. I refused to accept that it was my fault for breaking the law in the first place. Blaming others allowed me to keep believing whatever I wanted and acting however I wanted.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“The moment the father so much as glimpsed him, he ran to embrace this stealing, slighting, self-absorbed, whoremongering, drunkard. It was this same Father who now held me in the undying steadfastness of His love.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“God could not overlook the plight of the orphan or the widow, the victim of genocide, war, or rape; He could not turn His head away from any singular hurt, sin, or pain. He strapped Himself to our judgment seat to ensure that every evil act would be accounted for, and to ensure that justice would reign in eternity, He strapped Himself to my cross.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“I was finding that sweet spot of balance and moderation. Maybe, at some point, the drugs and partying would be gone, and I’d just be a successful student, employee, and citizen. It seemed to me that the two most common paths for finding meaning in life were partying or prosperity, and I was excelling at both.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“A heavy weight of guilt drove me in my success. I felt like I needed to make up for all the money, stress, and time I had cost my family. So, I pushed myself, trying harder and harder to be a good person and do well in school. I knew I had done them wrong, but without fail, they had always been there to bail me out and help me get back on my feet again.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“That God was cognizant, independent from me, and powerful. Maybe it didn’t matter so much that we prayed, as it mattered to whom we prayed. The God I’d met in that jail cell was a being who could listen and respond, not just through my subjective feelings or emotions, but objectively. He really changed things, which meant He existed outside of myself. He wasn’t just the product of wishful thinking. He was real.”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose
“The bottom line was, if I could outsmart the judicial/legal system, then I could keep my addiction. But was that really what I wanted? Here I am, talking about my addiction as if it were some small and innocent pet, something that merited my unconditional affection. Wasn’t it tearing my life apart?”
Source: Pursued: God’s relentless pursuit and a drug addict’s journey to finding purpose