Luke 11.24-26: "When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings even other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first."
I'm a firm believer that we all struggle with some type of sin. Usually I just say "something" instead of "some type of sin" but I want to be a bit more clear right now. People that aren't clear give me heartburn and I don't like them for about 3 days. But anyways.
We all struggle with some type of sin. I've had people try to say that not everyone does, but I can promise you they do. Even Paul struggled with pride. Jesus struggled with different sins as well (and to struggle with it DOES NOT MEAN TO GIVE INTO). I've written about this topic before though. But I just want to establish that to bring it to the above passage. I think we can take this idea of sins that we struggle with and use the term "demons." We all have demons.
What we see in these few verses is that when we get rid of a demon that we have, it will come back and attempt to take up residence again, and this time it's going to bring its friends, and we'll be worse off then we were before. And that's not good to say the least. After we get rid of a demon, we attempt to put things in order, but we never think of replacing it. And that's what I think the point of this passage is.
Whatever your demon may be, there is the possibility of it leaving, through prayer, fasting, devotion to God, calling on the name of Jesus. But once it's gone, we tend to think, "Okay, I'm good now. Let's get things in order so I can go about my life." And we do just that. Then in a moment of weakness, a moment of temptation we weren't ready for, we're approached by our demon, the sin we struggle with, and we fall back into worse than we were before. It makes me think of a heroin addict that relapses after being clean for so long. They lost their tolerance, but don't realize it, and try to go back to the dose they were using before and OD. These two are incredibly similar in my mind.
Let's say you struggle with drinking. You get sober, you're doing well, you got your life back in order, then you just have a really rough day, your first one in months. Work sucked, your boss was riding you all day, you just had a horrible day. Screw it, you owe it to yourself to have a beer right? But then one turns into two, which turns into three, which turns into a 12 pack. The next day you're hungover, and have to go back to the job that was just horrible yesterday, and continued to be so today, so on your way home you grab another 12 pack with the intention of finishing it off. And you do so, and the cycle repeats itself until your worse off than you were before you got sober.
Why does this happen?
Because despite getting things in order, you never replaced the demon with something better. There was a vacuum in your life, and what got sucked in was what you got rid of, and it came back worse than before.
So what am I suggesting?
Find something to fill the void, to replace the demon. Maybe it won't be one thing that can replace the demon, maybe it has to be a few things, but it needs to be replaced. What to replace it with though? That's up to you. Obviously there are some obvious "Christian" answers that can be given, and I think they should be, such as crack open your Bible that only gets taken out on Sunday's for church. Spend some time just talking to God, letting him know your problems and stresses and life.
At the risk of sounding like a bad minister, I do want to say those may not entirely help with the void though. Sure they take time, and replace the demon, but sometimes we need other tasks to replace the demon as well, and this is where it's on you. Go for a run, build something, chop down a tree, write a book, read a book, do something fun or relaxing. Over time, you can work to turn what you're doing into worship towards God as well, then bringing together the devotional side of the filled void with the recreational. With this we have a venn diagram looking thing, where one side is "Devotional" the other "Recreation" and in the middle is a mix of the two. The more you do all three, the bigger the middle gets until there's only a little bit on either side. This gives you time for personal devotion with nothing to take away from that, time for your recreation where you can mindlessly do whatever, and in all the other times, you have both.
What all of this comes to then is a call to a change in character. I think this is the overall message that Jesus is giving here. Something nefarious is gone, something that wrecked your life, something that your entire character was based on. It needs to be replaced, and new character needs to be made, or created, or begat, depending how you want to view it. This is why the need for the Devotional aspect is so great, because if we don't build this new character with God, then something else will be in it. It's the idea that anything can be turned into an addiction, anything can pull you away from God, even working for God, such as church work or ministry, can pull you away from your personal relationship with God. So when the demon is replaced, God needs to be added into the mix in order to create a change in Character.
These are just thoughts that I have though that may not be articulated all that well, but I do think this is what needs to be said in relation to the above passage. Yes, we all have demons, and we need to get rid of them, but we also need to replace them with something.
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