Thank you
It is just unbelievably frustrating not being able to take things into my own hands and just try to make it right though... I have been praying for a very long time. I hope God listens
Katie, I have been EXACTLY where you are! I was unfortunate enough to be born with that lousy addictive gene. I was a habitual repenter, and a habitual back slider. I was at the brink of becoming an athiest because it seemed my prayers were just drifting off into empty space, but the Jesus I fell in love with when I was only four years old, and who got me through a very sad childhood would not let my heart go, and I decided to find out for myself what God had to say about anything and everything "in his word". That changed it all!!! Not right away, but I found that there is more power in getting as much scripture into your brain as time and circumstance allows than you can imagine until you take it to task. I had been reading as James 1.5-6 recommends for about six months, and still I could not quit smoking or pass up a line... One night I prayed, not to be delivered, but to tell God how sorry I was that I still did things that were not right, and I felt a wind blow through my whole being, and I never picked up another cigarette, and the next line that was laid out for me, I walked over and bent over to do the usual, and a great pair of invisible wings drew me back, and I was so free!!! As you can see I am old, but I am still young too. I still have my health and my youth, but all the prayers and sermons didn't do that for me, it was "--receiving with meekness the engrafted word--" James 1.21
Just to affirm this to others that might read this and have a negative reaction, John 6.63 says "--the words that I/Jesus speak unto you are spirit and life", and Eph.3.16 "that he would grant you, according to the riches of his gory, to be strengthened with might by HIS SPIRIT in the INNER man".
By all means, do not pick a Bible version that is easy to understand, because that is God's wisdom tampered with by humans. James 1.5-6 says to ask God for wisdom, and 2 Tim.2.15 says, study to show yourselves approved of God. So it is logical that you study to gain approval, and then wisdom is granted.
God's grace to you girl
Morninglory