Action
How are the verses coming along?
This week, we dive into the New Testament and pick up a section that’s all about our attitudes.
A friend of mine told me that I have control over my attitude; feelings are information not instructions.
Food for thought…here’s week three’s verse(s):
12Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
13bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
14And above all these things, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
This doesn’t have to be hard. Practice it for a few minutes every day.
You got this.
Reflection
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5
We all bet our life on something.
The stakes are more immediate in active addiction, but they’re no higher. Each day that we trudge forward, we move toward something whether we admit it or not.
We don’t have to believe in God to stake our life on it. Non-belief is still a bet. If nothing is out there, we’d better be right.
It’s easy to push these thoughts out of mind, especially when we concern ourselves with the pursuits of self in our addictions.
The believer places high bets too, though. He’ll forgive me. I’ll change tomorrow. It’s not that bad. Worse still when the inevitable happens and our standards simply sink toward our current behaviors.
In recovery we will sometimes face a strange dilemma: to acknowledge that the power to get better isn’t within ourselves to summon; that we have choice in the matter but not ultimate power.
This is disquieting unless we take a leap and bet on God. If he is who he claims to be, and if others’ claims of grace received are true, then the upside to this wager becomes infinite. Literally.
Regrettably, there is a cost. We wager with our life, and it’s in this bet that we really feel the immensity of that choice.
Will he be as good a caretaker of my life as I need him to be?
How much can I retain control of and still get the benefits of grace?
Remarkably, though, if we explore the worst-case scenario—that he isn’t there at all—we will still have grown in character by self-sacrifice, and lost only the nagging self-centered core that led us into addiction in the first place.
God, reveal yourself to me that I may see the truth.
Resources
The First 90 Days (pdf) - a 90-day series not found in the book
Book List (amazon) - My favorite recover/faith reads.
12-Step Christianity (YouTube) - My thoughts on discipleship and sponsorship.