Before my first baby was born, I made a decision: I wasn’t going to give her a pacifier. After all, I planned to breastfeed, and I didn’t want her to develop “nipple confusion”. Plus, why would I need a pacifier? If Ellie cried, I would pick her up and nurse her, rock her, or play with her, whatever she wanted. That would take care of the problem.
Things didn’t work out quite the way I had envisioned. I caved while we were still in the hospital. Poor Ellie was crying what seemed like non-stop (we found out later that she was having feeding issues), and nursing wasn’t working out as planned. I decided that having Ellie develop nipple confusion would be far preferable to having me develop lunacy. So I offered her a pacifier. Repeatedly. A few days later, our lactation consultant said, “You know, I almost never recommend that a baby take a pacifier. But I do for this one.”
Ellie took to her “bice” immediately, and she continued her love affair with it until she was almost two, when we weaned her from it by cutting a little bit off the tip. (She put it in her mouth, tried to suck, and realized something was different. “I know, it’s broken,” I said sympathetically. After that, she never tried to suck it again.)
My subsequent three children have also had long, close relationships with their bices. We broke Kenny of his bice habit the same way we had with Ellie, by cutting the tip off. We had to cut a little more off each day for another day or two before he gave up. Lindsey, on the other hand, refused to give up until we had cut off so much that she couldn’t even hold the bice in her mouth anymore. At this point, we haven’t yet weaned Jessica from her bice. We’re working on it.
Well, sort of.
My reluctance is because I always hate depriving my children of something they love so much. Sure, I know that taking it away is best for them, and even helps their dental development. But when it finally comes time to get out the scissors, I’m always nervous.
Will she cry? Will she hate me? Will I ever get any sleep at night again?
Fortunately, there’s nothing morally wrong with being addicted to a pacifier. After all, it’s not like my kids are guzzling vodka from a sippy cup or robbing the local Babies “R” Us. So addiction isn’t the problem. Addiction only becomes a problem when a person is addicted to the wrong things…or fails to be addicted to the right things.
Dictionary.com defines addiction as “the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma”. If that’s what addiction means, then it’s wonderful, even vital, to be addicted to the right things.
Like God’s Word. The word “enslaved” shouldn’t throw us off, as the New Testament clearly teaches that we are slaves to Christ. So wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were enslaved to the practice of reading God’s Word such that we form a habit, to such an extent that the cessation of reading His Word causes trauma?
Most Christians take God’s Word for granted. Many of us have several copies in different versions sitting on a shelf at home. They’re there for us to read any time we want. Sometimes, we take one down from the shelf and read it. But most of the time, we act as if we’re satisfied just to know that it’s there, available if we ever decide we want it.
Or maybe we decide on a Bible-reading plan, try to make it stick, and fail. I just don’t know how I can make a daily reading plan work, we sigh to ourselves, and days pass, then weeks. Maybe even months.
Our children are far more attached to cheap little pieces of plastic and silicone than we are to the Book that reveals God to us.
We know we should read our Bibles, but it’s head knowledge. There’s no heart yearning to be vitally connected to God through His Word. We treat as optional a book that Christian brothers and sisters around the world have died for the privilege of possessing because they knew its value.
Most of us don’t. In countries where Bibles are cheap and easy to come by, where we can have one any time we want, most of us just don’t get it. Maybe that was Satan’s plan. He knows that where Bibles aren’t allowed, people are willing to die for the privilege of reading one. In countries where they are freely available, people are willing to die without reading one.
Have we truly formed a habit of reading our Bible? If we were forced to cease reading it, would we be traumatized at all?
I pray we can always answer “yes” to both of these questions. But if we ever answer “no”, may God bring us to our knees (literally or figuratively), and may we beseech Him to instill within us a life-changing love of His Word. May we not stop asking until He grants our request, which He will, because it’s within the scope of His will for us.
We’ve heard a child scream when his or her pacifier was taken away or couldn’t be found. May those cries pale in comparison to the cry of our heart to know and love God’s Word. Because through His Word, we come to know and love God Himself.
That, dear sister, is worth far more than a piece of plastic.
Psalm 119:162—I rejoice in your word like one who finds a great treasure.
(I credit one of the devotions in Michelle Adams’ Daily Wisdom for Mothers, Barbour, 2004, for introducing me to the original idea from which this devotional ultimately developed.)