Thursday, July 23, 2009

The First Step....


How is your life? Peaceful? Does your daily journey have purpose or do you simply hope you make it through the day? Before you go all religious on me and before you think I am going to go all religious on you, consider something. You are not alone with these feelings that are inside you.
You are not some kind of mutant or alien from another world. Even if you look at other people and they seem to accomplish far more than you can or ever hope to, consider this. They have the same struggles and problems that you face.
If you think that money, wealth and power is the leverage used to escape the troubles of this world, you are sadly mistaken. With money, wealth and power come problems that may surpass what you and I face. If this isn't true then why do the famous, the wealthy, the movers and shakers of our world commit suicide or die from drug overdoses or go through multiple marriages never finding someone they can settle down with? The answer? Their lives are unmanageable. They may not admit it but when the curtain closes and the lights go down and they are left to themselves, they struggle just like everyone else. What's the answer? We have a living problem. We don't know how to live. We look to all the wrong examples for guidance and if we don't like what we see, we make up our own rules. How's that working out? Not to good.
I want to put down for you to read a simple place to start in this really crazy non-living problem we are trying to deal with (unsuccessfully I might add). Are you ready? Here it is.
We admit that we are powerless over our dependencies (alcohol, drugs, what ever you have to have to get you through the day)----that our life has become unmanageable.
When I say admit, I am saying that you come face to face with the hard truth. This doesn't mean you are a failure, but simply powerless. No amount of will power, want to, strength, cunning, or manipulation can break you free from your dependencies. You must have something to help you cope (more like gives the appearance of coping) with life. You may be emotionally damaged and can't make decisions, instead of dealing with problems, you escape through drugs/alcohol or whatever you use). Instead of dealing with life, we seek to build a false reality to escape into where we are under the false impression that we are safe and not hurting anyone. This is the delusion that we live under.
Then the hard truth comes with "Our lives have become unmanageable." We like to think we are the captains of our own destiny, but we delude and deceive ourselves with this view.
Each of us is born with a nature that bends toward doing or behaving in a way that is selfish, self-centered and wants what it wants when it wants it. If you don't believe me, watch a group of young children (2-3 years of age). You put them in a group and put one toy in the middle and watch what happens. One of the toddlers will grab the toy and say, "Mine! Mine! You can't have it!" Now no one taught this child to be greedy and selfish.............it came natural. This nature we are born with is called a sin nature. As you grow, so does this nature and left unchecked and not dealt with, the things it desires become more and more destructive. This nature is such a part of who we are, we can't really see it. We think, "Well, that's just the way I was born." True, you were born that way, but God doesn't want to leave you there.
The first step? Coming to the place where you know that you know that you know, you are powerless and your life has become unmanageable. From here we can move on.
Tomorrow: The Second Step
God on you.......
Michael / Vicki Bynum

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