A Vow of Obedience by Bryan Craig

The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man or woman wants to make a special vow, a vow of dedication to the Lord as a Nazirite, they must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or other fermented drink. They must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins.  Numbers 6:1-3 ESV

On October 16, 2023, I wrote a blog, entitled “Trust and Obey” where I talked about how God revealed an area of disobedience in my life. I didn’t say what that area was at the time. The danger of sharing my struggle with you is that your focus could be on my struggle. My admonition to you is to take what I’ve learned and ask the Holy Spirit how it applies to your life. I may struggle with things that are no problem or temptation to you, and vice versa for me. But since this is a big deal for me, I share it with you.

On October 1, 2023, I made a vow to abstain from alcohol. I am not an alcoholic, by definition, but in my younger years, starting at around age 17, I abused alcohol regularly. This seemed very normal to me as I compared myself to the culture. Most people I knew “partied,” and it did not seem to be a big deal. I was a believer in Christ, but I never read the Word, and I was never discipled, and I didn’t even really know what it meant to follow Christ fully. This carried on through college and after, even into my marriage, until Missy was pregnant with our first baby. She became concerned about me being a father to this new baby coming. She said one prayer, “God, get hold of Bryan.”

The baby was a girl, born in August, and we named her Natalie. A month later, I saw something in our church bulletin about a Promise Keepers trip at Texas Stadium, and I found myself signing up. This was the Holy Spirit! As I sat in a stadium with 65,000 other men and saw men worshipping and heard men talking about being the spiritual leaders of their family, I realized there was a life I never knew about available to me. I came home with resolve to become that kind of man. I told Missy that things were going to be different. I started reading God’s Word for the first time in my life, and I remember discovering verses about drunkenness that I never knew were there before. Thus started this wrestling match with alcohol, which I’ve written about and talked about many times through the past 28 years.

I’ve always had a “check in the Spirit”, as they say, regarding alcohol. I know that drinking alcohol is not a sin, but drunkenness is. I’ve given it up during Lent several times. I’ve tried limiting myself to a one drink maximum at times. I’ve drank too much at times. I’ve driven after drinking. I’ve lived with the daily concern of what someone might think if they saw me drinking, especially after I went into fulltime ministry. I’ve wondered if I’ve caused others to stumble, especially my own children. Some of you totally know what I’m talking about, and as I said earlier, some of you cannot relate at all to a struggle with alcohol…but you have something else.

Somewhere along my journey, I discovered the verse I quote here out of Numbers where it talks about “if a person wants to make a special vow, a vow of dedication to the Lord” they will follow a few regulations, the first being abstaining from alcohol.  This really struck me.  I want to dedicate myself to the Lord.  I want to be all-in.  I want to be a living sacrifice for Him.  This is called the Nazirite vow.  It is documented in scripture that Paul took such a vow at one time and Samson and John the Baptist were lifelong Nazirites.  So, I took this vow at one time, only to justify that it was for a season, and then I went back to my normal patterns.

I also have rationalized that the alcohol struggle was just my “thorn in the flesh”, something I wrestled with that helped me realize how much I needed the Lord.  But all along, I think I knew that this was a thorn I could remove.

In the last few years, God has been doing a deepening in my faith, calling me to a consecration of my life, a death to my old perspective.  He’s also been inviting me to know more of His Spirit.  And Paul tells us not to be drunk on wine but be filled with The Spirit. (Ephesians 5:18)  And as a part of this, I finally realized He was asking me to quit drinking. 

He had to finally show me that for me not to follow Him on this was a sin of disobedience.  I had previously made a vow on July 11, 2011 not to drink, and I did not keep my vow. 

Ecclesiastes 5:4 says, “When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow.” 

And James 4:17 says, “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”

Susanna Wesley, mother of John Wesley, famously said, “Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, takes off your relish for spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of the body over the mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may seem in itself.”

I finally realized last fall that drinking alcohol was getting in the way of my relationship with God, however innocent I wanted to tell myself it was.  It was weakening my reason, impairing the tenderness of my conscience, obscuring my sense of God, taking my relish for spiritual things and increasing the authority of my body over my mind.  I think, for like most of us, it was my escape, my pacifier.

Well, I’m proud to tell you that I completed my first year of a life without alcohol.  By the way, since, I started drinking at age 17 and stopped drinking at 57, it means it was 40 years.  This is interesting when you think about the 40 years the Israelites wandered in the wilderness.

I have truly discovered a freedom I did not have before.  As I wrote in my Trust and Obey devo a year ago, I don’t think God could fully bless me when I was living in disobedience.  But once I decided to obey, He was pleased to bless me.  It has been a total readjustment to my thinking and perspective and lifestyle, which has not been easy on those around me, but I believe it has been the best thing I’ve ever done.  Some of the benefits:

• Peace, joy and an overall filling of the Holy Spirit.
• Moral authority, which has tied the enemy’s hands.
• A greater witness to my family and those whom I encounter.
• I’m physically healthier.
• A feeling of His pleasure in me, His son.
• No more wrestling and struggle that I lived with for 40 years.
• A greater power over temptation.
• A loss of love for the world.
• Greater clarity in seeing spiritual things, through the Word and around me.
• Stronger leadership.

I feel like a soldier who is ready for battle at all times now.  No soldier who wanted to be equipped and alert would weaken himself with alcohol.

One more time, my struggle is with alcohol.  But what about you?  As you re-read the Susanna Wesley definition of Sin, what comes to mind.  If you are abiding with Christ and desiring more of Him and His purposes lived out through your life, I will tell you this “thing” MUST GO!  I’m ashamed to say it took me so long, but I praise Him for leading me where I needed to be.  I think I’m one step closer to the “abundant life” Jesus came to bring me.