Strength Through Weakness

I Corinthians 1:25
This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God's weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.

Flipping through my Recovery Bible this morning and came across something very interesting. "THE TWELVE LAWS OF LIFE RECOVERY". The passage begins with a statement about these 12 laws.

"These laws highlight irrefutable truths that you will discover in yourself as you experience recovery while following the Twelve Steps. As you experience these laws, you will find---perhaps to your surprise----that the laws of life recovery will give back what they initially seemed to take away."

Isn't that the view that most seem to hold to when they first come to treatment, or begin this journey to a new life following Jesus?  That their main concern is what the have to give up or lose? All they can think about is the friends that they are told they can never hang around with anymore. They resign themselves to the terrible truth that there are places they will never be able to go to again.  Such is the power that addiction holds over the individual. In the addicted mind, they are trying to resign themselves to the fact that in recovery they will never have any fun again....forever more....amen! What a bunch of hooey!

Law #1 of the Twelve Laws of life recovery
Powerlessness will result in STRENGTH.
The beginning of any journey begins with the first step. It's no different in recovery, except for the fact that this first step requires us to come to grips with some truth we have been evading and refusing to acknowledge. We are powerless over addiction.

Now this acknowledgment is not a mental thought that you speak...."Yeah, I've got a problem." It's more. It's the cold, hard truth that when you look inside yourself you find that you are helpless, hopeless and powerless. Ask yourself this question: "Have I gone to multiple treatment programs? Have I been able to sustain SOME sobriety only to fall back into old ways, old thoughts and old habits?" That should reveal the extent of your powerlessness over your addiction. The Recovery Bible makes an interesting statement concerning our powerlessness: "God works healing in our lives through what to us is weakness. As we experience recovery in our lives, we will find there is great strength in recognizing our powerlessness.

The admission of our own inability to live life on life's terms opens the door for us to seek help outside ourselves. To seek help from a power greater than ourselves. Such power has a name, and that name is Jesus. 

It's not enough to dance around with the idea of being powerless. Just like it's not a good idea to feel good about life simply because you are hanging around others who have found this Jesus and are living a life that you have never been able to engage in. Now when I said it's not good to hang around such, what I meant was that it's profits nothing if you don't engage yourself , your thoughts, your actions into finding this relationship with Christ we talk about. You can't live vicariously through others. They can point the way for you. They can be examples on what to do. They can encourage you, but you have to take that first step.

Ten birds sitting on a wire.....
One decides to fly away.....
How many birds do you have left sitting on the wire?
Ten!
He only decided...he never took action to fly away.
Recovery can be like this. You can think about it....you can plan for it....you can talk about it...but at some point for it to be real in your own life you have to actually do it.
And such begins with that first step.

God on you...
mbb