more on addiction and grace

Here are the last three paragraphs in that section called "Deliverance" in Gerald May's Addiction and Grace (don't miss the last paragraph):

"I believe that grace's empowerment is present in all true healings, in deliverances of all kinds, and in any movement toward wholeness and love and freedom, however great or small. It is present in physical and psychological healing, in social and political reconciliation, in cultural and scientific breakthrough, in spiritual deliverance from evil, in religious repentance and conversion, and in the ongoing process of spiritual growth. It is present wherever love really grows. In every such situation, grace enables us to make necessary initial changes and to continue, over time, to nurture those changes in creative, constructive ways.

"God does not flash into our lives to work a piece of magic upon us and then disappear. To do so would eradicate human dignity; it would prevent our participation. Instead, God's grace is always present intimately within us, inviting and empowering us toward more full, more free exercise of will and responsibility. The more open and spacious our will and responsibility become, the more God and person commune in creative splendor.

"We are never simply visited with a healing or deliverance, which we can then safely forget. Grace is not a pill we are given or a method applied to us so that we can simply go on about our business. Grace always invties us forward. Every liberation requires continued attention, every healing demands continued care, every deliverance demands follow-up and every conversion requires faithful deepening. If we do not respond to these ongoing calls, if we deny our empowerments for continued growth in freedom and responsbility, our healings may well be stillborn. Then, as in Jesus' words about evil spirits returning to a house swept clean, our last condition may turn out to worse than our first." (pp. 154-155)