Jesus has given me "a life".
In this life, I have taken on rolls and occupied jobs. I have been successful in some...and, well, not so successful in others.
I am a husband....
I am a father....
I am a grandfather...
I am a pastor / teacher....
And in all of this, every decision of importance that I have to make is laid at the feet of Jesus.
I wait for His direction.
As my wife so aptly puts it...."If He ain't talking.....I ain't walking." In other words, I wait until I have direction and confirmation from God on what the next part of the journey is.
That is the beauty of the Twelve Steps.
It provides a template of how to live for someone who is coming out of a terrible time of spiritual darkness.
The Steps are a simple guide on how to get on track with living.
Step # 1 through 3 - We learn to trust God.
We come to some hard truth that (1) We ain't God and (2) He is. Such assumptions are made because of an inventory of our past accomplishments. We see that we are truly powerless over alcohol/ drugs. We have the want to...but lack the can do. We also see that our lives.........the daily affairs and relationships....have become out of control. In other words, our lives have become unmanageable. Funny part about addiction is that it will lie to you..it will get down into your psyche and tell you that you still are in control. What's even funnier is that we believe it. No matter that our decisions don't make any sense to rational sober people.The addicta-logic is operating at peak capacity. True healing begins when we know that we know we are in trouble. Life has become unmanageable.
Step # 4 through 11 - Clean House
These are usually the steps that trip up most people. Working this part of the steps produces some emotional pain and is accompanied by a visit to our past. Focusing on the past is painful to someone coming out of addiction. I've seen many a person get to step #4 and 5 and simply quit because it is to painful for them. In step # 4 you have to take a "searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself". Such a visiting to our past dredges up old emotions and memories. Guilt and shame surface, but this time rather than letting them rule over you and dictate to you, you are moving beyond the emotion to find real healing through the process. The real healing comes in step #5 when "We admit to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrong." Rather than let the past continue to dictate our emotional response, God has lead us to a place where we are dealing with the issues and behaviors that have kept us locked up for the better part of our life. Step # 6 and 7 deal with letting the Holy Spirit of God change our character. We are experiencing a Genesis week of creation in our lives. God is changing our character as we submit to the Galatians 5 / fruit of the Holy Spirit work that occurs. The old stinky, filthy deeds of the flesh are replaced with the fruit of God's Holy Spirit. Peace, gentleness...patience...kindness....joy...love. Good stuff happening inside.
Step #8 and 9 help us to put legs to the changes that are taking place inside. Step#8 is where we make a list of people we have harmed. Step #9, we become willing to make amends. Up to this point all the work of the Step's has been centered on getting to a place where we are healthier emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Now we are going to take this healing we've experienced and begin to physically right some of the wrong we have done.
Step # 10 keeps us on track as we continue to take a moral inventory daily, and when wrong----PROMPTLY admit it. No time delay between when we mess up and when we confess our wrong doing. Secrets are the death of any recovery. No matter how small the incident may seem....we are bound not to live transparent and honest. We are only as sick as our secrets. No secrets in our life.....we are living healthy and free from the pull back to that old life style.
Step # 11 -- We continue to work on our relationship with Jesus through prayer and meditation. Not prayer and Medication. We seek only His will for our life and the power to carry it out.
Step #12 -- Give it away.
Sounds crazy, but the secret to sobriety is very simple. You give away what has been freely given to you. You take the message of hope and restoration to others who are suffering as you once did. And you continue to practice these principals in our daily affairs. How did you reach this point? You had a spiritual awakening....or a spiritual experience that rocketed you into a new dimension of living.
May you find the peace of God for your life today.
God on you...
mb
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