[Darris McNeely] The man said, "I want to see my grandson grow up." And I imagine that in doing that statement, he may have been smoking a cigarette, because he was an addicted 51-year-old laborer – addicted to cigarette smoking, knowing that it's a problem because many of his friends have died with lung cancer, and he wants to see his grandson grow up. How can he break the habit?

It's a sad story. It's one I read in the New York Times this week that was profiling the large gap between affluent areas of the country, America, and poorer areas of the country. The man they were interviewing? He was from Kentucky, one of those areas that are less affluent – where, in that area, in those areas of the United States, they say four out of ten people are addicted to cigarette smoking. In the more affluent areas, only one in ten.

Why the big gap? Well, that's what the article was trying to profile and come up with. They were talking about data that had come up from a recent survey put out by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation that was just recently released, that says that the national smoking rate has declined steadily, but there is still a deep geographic divide between pockets of affluence and the impoverished areas of the country – of the United States.

You know, I've lived in both areas – rich areas, and I've lived in poorer areas of the country. I know exactly what they're talking about. When you look at how people live, that dictates the habits that people get into and what drives their everyday life. One woman said, "We smoke because we're bored." And that's true. And that gives those few minutes of a cigarette, and the tobacco smoke, and the nicotine – energize a person and it does create an addiction but it also gives them a little bit of excitement. And even, in a interesting way, purpose and meaning. And that's why they smoke and then they get addicted and they can't get out of that tragic cycle. Now, it's not beyond their means to do so. But, you know, sometimes we have to have a positive hope and influence in our life to do so. If you're addicted to something like tobacco, or even alcohol – but we're talking about tobacco today – you can overcome that – and I hope that this would be an impetus to help you to do it, give you a little bit of something to think about as a means by which you can kick that habit. Because it can put us into an early grave. It can rob us of a quality of life, even while we're going through our everyday life. And if that's what gives us hope and meaning and purpose, then we're missing out.

After I read this article, I remembered the scripture in Jeremiah 29:11, where God says to His people, "'For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,' says the Lord, 'thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.'" We all need a future. We all have a future, and we all need a hope. And those hopes can drive us to better actions and better behavior.

This gentleman who said that "I want to see my grandson grow up" – that's a good hope. That's a future. I would hope that perhaps he and many others like him could get something into their life, a meaning and a purpose that allows them to kick a habit that can put them into an early grave. We all need to have that type of a hope and future that can drive us forward in positive things in our daily life.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.