Every Body Is Working For The Weekend

Shades of the 80's/90's.
Sorry about the title of the posting today. As I was trying to decide what to post, that song just kind of came out of nowhere into my head. Maybe I'm having a "Big-hair-band" Flashback.

Still parked in the book of Numbers this week. The one thing that I have come to appreciate is how God equips us for a change in lifestyle. The Hebrews had lived in Egypt for 430 years. During that time, they had become slaves and existed under the heavy hand of oppression by the Egyptian government. God came and used a man named Moses to deliver the Hebrews out of this bondage. Fast forward to today. Millions of people are living in bondage and slavery to addiction. It takes the infusion and intervention of a higher power (In our case, we believe Jesus Christ to be that higher power) into the hearts and lives of those wishing to break free from the heavy hand of the kingdom of Satan.

Once they were free, God led the Hebrews out of Egypt on a journey to a new land....a promised land, where they would begin a new life. Isn't that truly what recovery from addiction is? The beginning of a new life. Just like the Hebrews, coming out of addiction poses some problems. We've never lived clean and sober before and, as such, we keep trying to apply the old principals of our former lives into this new way of living. It didn't work.

In the book of Numbers, we have a record of a nation being born. A nation of people being set right under the instruction of God. God had taken a people our of slavery and bondage who did not know how to live as free people. He set up laws and regulations, not to punish but insure the safety and well being of each person. He did this because the people simply had never lived under freedom. Freedom is not license to do what you want to. It is like recovery, freedom is to do what you ought to do. These laws and regulations would benefit everyone, not a select few. At the very heart of this new nation was one simple fact. The blessing of God would flow to them through their obedience to God's instructions.

Some view the Twelve Steps as an intrusion on their freedom.
Usually people with such a view as this are those who "have to get clean and sober," not those who have a desire to be clean. To those who seem to struggle with rebellion against this new life, there is still a tug and draw (some say even a love) for the old life. Of course we know that those who still have a longing for the old life style do so with a romanticized view. Like I wrote in a previous posting, God had to take Israel out of Egypt. Once accomplishing this, then God had to take Egypt out of Israel.

What I have found to be true in my own life is that God is wanting to weave HIS WORD deep into our lives, our families and our communities. This is the instruction and guidance needed to follow our higher power, Jesus, daily. These instructions are there to give us life and safety.

Hebrews 4:7-13
So as the Holy Spirit says:
"Today, if you hear his voice, do  not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert where your fathers tested and tried me. And for forty years saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation. And I said, "Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not  known my ways. So I declared an oath in my anger, they shall never enter my rest."
See to it, brothers, that  none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

Think of all the tools given to us by our higher power, Jesus Christ, when we surrender, repent, confess and accept Him as Lord and Savior over our lives.
1.) He puts His Holy Spirit inside us to guide us and instruct us.
2.) He gave us a simple, practical daily discipline to help keep chaos out of our lives. The 12 Steps become the daily schedule I follow.
3.) He provided His own thoughts, desires and plans in His word, the Bible.
4.) Through this new birth (II Cor. 5:17) He has provided a ready made family in which we can live and function as we grow and mature.
5.) This entire new life of sobriety is filled with promises from God.
6.) He has given us abundant life now, and eternal life when we cross over from death to the really, really new life with Him in eternity. I can't explain it, but I am sure ready to live it.

Have a great weekend.
God on you.....
mb