Does anyone ever compare love to drugs?

If you keep your radio station and MP3 collection to just "positive, family" music you might not know that many songs compare love to chemically induced states. Lately, on our long drives to and from grandma's my family listens to the "scan" station. We experience a wide diversity of music, We introduce the kids to songs we know from the 70's and 80's and they tell us what they like from their world. Tonight I heard for the first time Kesha's, "Your love is my drug." Since I wrote last week about our common pursuit for the transcendent, some choose drugs, some choose love, some choose religion, some get Jesus, I was interested in her version. Her lyrics mention things like,

Because your love, your love, your love, is my drug
Your love your love your love
I said your love, your love, your love, is my drug
Your love your love your love

I don't care what people say
The rush is worth the price I pay
I get so high when you're with me
But crash and crave you when you are away

It's got a good dance beat and perhaps conveys her acquaintance with chemically induced rushes and finds her beaux's love is reminiscent of that. Nothing like ripping the soul out of song like that sentence does. But, then, this isn't high level poetry. But I was reminded of a song from my high school days by Huey Lewis and the News, "I want a new drug." He talks about the negative side effects of his chemicals, but the difference of his love high. He wants, "one that won't make me nervous, wondering what to do, one that makes me feel like I feel with you." The lyrics are worth reading to learn vicariously all the problems Huey has had with the chemicals.

People take drugs in search of something. I contend they are in search of love. The drugs don't provide that, but they provide a quick, but expensive, route to the sensation of love. But the song writers tend to admit that despite all the costs of love, they are worth it relative to the costs of drugs. As I said last time, drugs kill. Romantic love can provide transcendence over a life time. It's such a good and powerful thing that there is an entire book of the Bible that is strictly about a romantic relationship, The Song of Songs, a book I blogged through a couple years ago. Also, as I said in the previous post, it's one of those relationships that God created to testify of his own relationship to his people. The most intensely happy marriage one can think of is only a shadow of the intensity of Jesus's love for his church. When Christians try to help addicts, they get them to focus on the true satisfaction for their longing, a relationship with Jesus. When Christians try to help those with unwanted same sex attractions, they get them to focus on a relationship with Jesus.

the idea of “gay-to-straight” therapy is not something that Exodus subscribes to. The mission of Exodus is to help those affected by same-sex attractions grow deeper in their relationship with Christ as they embrace God’s true intent for their identity and sexuality. While many have experienced change in attractions and orientation, that isn’t the focus of Exodus nor is it through any technique or tool that Exodus uses to get such a result. Exodus blog.

Exodus blog. When Christians help people leave the addiction of pornography, they don't make them sit down and watch The Waltons episodes over and over. Rather, they try to introduce people to an intimacy with their creator. This former porn producer concludes, My friends, we can talk all day long about accountability software, small group meetings, support groups and all the other things often mentioned when dealing with addictions and compulsions, but I'm telling you from personal experience, NOTHING works as well as intimacy with our Father. But like any relationship, it's something that must be included in our daily life schedule or it becomes distant, stale and ineffective.

One of Jesus's closest friends when he walked the earth, John, wrote simply and profoundly, God is love, 1 John 4:8. For some explanation of that statement try out this place, All about God. I write this stuff so people like my friends who are searching for something other than God will reconsider Him. Unlike any other religion, mine is one that worships a God who proved himself by walking out of a tomb several days after being tortured to death. The eyewitnesses changed the world as the world tried to force them to recant under threat of similar deaths. None of them did and the relationship they proclaimed has rocked the world.

I don't walk around high on God's love, but I do walk around confident in a life bigger and longer than this one in this frail flesh. The perspective changes everything. Sort of like falling in love.