Resolving to not be a hypocrite

Resolving to not be a hypocrite means facing our hypocrisy, especially if you’re a leader of any kind.  I don’t know how other pastors and counsellors go, but I find the Holy Spirit is always counselling me as I counsel others — “See that, there?  Listen up, it’s in you too,” I so often hear the Spirit say.  Whether the wrongdoing is living and active in me is a moot point.  It’s the potential that it might rise in me, that it’s latent in me; that’s the point.

I know God is always raising questions of my hypocrisy as a husband and as a father — in those relationships where we’re all ‘normal’ until you get to know us.  How many pastors and counsellors are ‘less than they ought to be’ simply because they’re professionals.  Professionalism is possibly the biggest threat all helping professionals face, especially if we aspire to LIVE the integrity we espouse to others — as we should, and as society expects it of us.

The idea of integrity — back of stage aligning with front of stage — is absolutely crucial to maintaining the fabric of trust society needs to have with its leaders.  So it’s not a nice-to-have.  People who have power who work with vulnerable people must have integrity.  There is little or no room for hypocrisy.  And the only way of doing that — given that we’re all hypocrites! — is to continually face our hypocrisy.  That takes honesty and it manifests in humility.

If only we resolved to not be hypocrites by facing our hypocrisy, we would then exhibit integrity, which means that the foibles that are there in our back of stage environment would vulnerably be more worn on the sleeve (our front of stage) and not denied or covered over.  The most redeeming feature in any leader is their honesty.

Photo by Benjamin Rascoe on Unsplash

 

Living in the miracle of the in-between

We’ve probably all heard it said: “I’m not yet who I want to be, but at least I’m not who I used to be!”

It’s a variation of the old John Newton quote: “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”

The wisdom in this is in holding tensions.  Please explain?  All through life we’re given situations of opposite designation that we’re required to harmonise; situations that are impossible to harmonise, unless we hold the tension between two opposites — “like I’m not yet who I desperately want to be” WITH “but I’m not who I was.”

The in-between is also that place where we’ve lost what we once cherished, and because it’s gone, there’s grief.  The new normal hasn’t yet arrived and we may fear that the new normal is far from desired. Perhaps, we may think, THIS in-between place is the new normal, and that is not only frightening it’s demoralising.

So many of us (including yours truly) have spent years in the in-between.  I’ve had three- and four-year periods of being in the in-between.  We can easily start to think that it’s hellish and strongly desire that such periods come to an end.  But there’s actually a lot going on in the in-between time; it’s strongly sanctifying and when God has our attention, we’re in growth mode.  In the in-between we’re sowing hard and applying our faith to the maximum.  In the hope that compels us forward through the journey all the way through ‘hell’ to the other side we resemble a walking, talking miracle.  Faith like this is a miracle of God’s grace operating, living and active, in us.

The in-between feels anything other than miraculous, but it is a time when we shine if our allegiance is with God.  This is what I call living in the miracle of the in-between.  At a time when we would run to any other comfort, we resist all manner of comfort for the comfort of God, which seems least enticing to the world.  Wisdom dictates that within the in-between, God is preparing paradise for those who love him.  When we’re in the in-between, we can say with resigned cheer, It is well with my soul.

Photo by Jude Beck on Unsplash

 

What is God’s prayer for us?

I have often thought beyond what God seems to say to me via occasional revelations to what God might pray to me about my life.  Prayer is not just you and me to God, but God to me and you too.  We customarily pray prayers of request to God, so what if God prayed prayers of request to us — what would they contain?  And wouldn’t it be important to listen?

Perhaps if we knew what God would pray, and we faced these prayerful realities, then that might influence our thoughts and behaviour, even to the extension of what we might desire.

OUR RELATIONSHIPS

Surely God desires harmony in our relationships; that we would seek to outdo one another in love.  Therefore, we could only be satisfied in our relationships if those we relate with were satisfied in us.  If there were even one person who would seem to have a claim against us, we would seek to address that issue with that person (Matthew 5:23-24).  In knowing the nature of God, we know what God would want, so why don’t we do the will of the Lord?

OUR SIN

Surely God desires that we would wrestle with our sin, much to the point that we would repent of it, even to the extent of recovering from those sins that have entangled us over the longer period.  These matters are weighty, and they are a burden we are not designed to carry, hence the discord of dissociation that occurs when we engage in things, we know to be wrong.  Why do we therefore continue to entertain a fantasy life that pretends that God isn’t watching on?  It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a bachelor’s degree in theology, or a masters or PhD, or even if you know very little about God; we all struggle in the area of sin.  Could God be praying that we would take every thought, word and deed of sin captive?  Biblically, that’s a rhetorical question!

OUR IDOLS

Surely God desires that we surrender our idols, give them up and get back on with our heavenly allegiance.  This would include the idol of knowledge that puffs us up in pride, the idol of control that sees us lord it over others, the idol of power that seeks to project an image of control, the idols of greed and envy that see us covet things that aren’t ours, the idol of comfort for laziness’s sake, the idol of consumption, the idol of outrage that seems to be inculcated in all of us these days, the idols of popularity, exclusivity, partiality that actually project what is lacking in us more than how superior we think we are, etc.  We all have idols, and we can only grow in God if we are honest about this fact, much to the extent of identifying every single one of them and putting them to the torch.

~

These matters are matters of the heart, and we will never experience the transformation we are seeking unless we go to God, and desperately seek the only assistance that will help; a heart transformation that is ever unsatisfied unless it is satisfied in Jesus, alone.

I lived as a person trying to follow Christ and failing for nearly 13 years, never getting it.  Only when my life was turned upside down, and I had nothing left, did I reach out to God in desperation; the kind of desperation God desperately desires from us.  The last 17 years have been a completely different story, but I have grown lukewarm too often.  It’s not like I have not struggled with sin; we all do.  Unless we’re prepared to give up what we cannot keep to gain what we cannot lose, we will arrive at the end of our tenure in this life knowing we have wasted our opportunity to live.  That is eternal regret nobody wants if only they look back from a post-death perspective.

I lament days where I’m not desperate enough for God.  But it isn’t enough.  We need more of this God; much, much more.  Unless we are driven by a hunger to follow Jesus, we cannot know him.  Instead of pretending we have a great relationship with Jesus we would be better to tell the truth; we cannot know him enough.  We must stop boasting that we have mastered faith.

God knows that if only we put Jesus first everything else falls into line (Matthew 6:33).  Unless we put Jesus first, our hearts are enmity toward God.

God’s prayer for us must be, “I want your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength.  I want ALL of you.”  Only when God has all of us do our lives begin.

If only we gave God our all, God would give to us what we want, because what we would want would be what God wants.

With Jesus, it doesn’t matter how much we know if we don’t know how to live.

Photo by Daniel Páscoa on Unsplash

WHAT IF...?

What if... you didn’t get that job.
What if... you didn’t get that endorsement.
What if... someone important to you says “NO!”
What if... you didn’t get that house you really want.
What if... the dream career falls through.
What if... you think you’re a contender, but they think in reality you’re a dreamer.
What if... you don’t get the break you’re depending on.
What if... what you’re counting on doesn’t come through this year... or next year... or ever.

WHAT if?  How important is it?

You would still be okay.  Life would go on.  God would reveal ‘another’ plan – just as good, and MAYBE infinitely better!  Sometimes out of disaster even, a better way emerges.

You accepting the status quo that you can’t change is a gift.

BUT....

What if... you got (or have) cancer.
What if... you died (or are dying – our bodies are dying).
What if... you must live without someone you love.
What if... there are regrets you can do nothing about.
What if... there are eternal things that you cannot change.

Sometimes we get the luxuries of pettiness, of entitlement, of boredom, of short-sighted frustration, of entertainment, and of self-absorption, when we get to complain about things that really don’t matter (as compared with things that really do).  And sometimes, it’s a more serious sin of moral bankruptcy, of deceiving or of being deceived.

The thinking we engage in that misses the mark — which is probably much of it — fails for either a lack of awareness or a lack of will.  This is something to think on:

“A carefully cultivated heart will, assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situations before which others stand like helpless children saying, “Why?” 
― Dallas Willard

The heart is either our must faithful ally or it is a thing to be feared.  It will serve us toward wisdom or it can send us forlornly to folly; it all depends how we cultivate it.

There is something remarkably empowering in keeping ‘what if’ on the tips of our tongues, on the gait of the conscious mind, adroitly before the conscience.  ‘What if’ may more often foresee what is being missed, it can forestall (or anticipate) many an error, and it might transform the given moment to reveal to our heart the thoughts that reflect the heart.  Out of our hearts the courses of life come to be.

~

Let’s not get stuck on the issues of life that bear little consequence, because there are plenty of possible consequences in life that really do matter.

The bigger changes and indeed the losses that occur in our lives have the ‘blessed’ effect of waking us up to differentiations of what is important from what isn’t.

Photo by Christian Lambert on Unsplash

Journeying Patiently Through Inescapable Grief

Inescapable grief is the state we’re in when no matter what we do we cannot escape feelings of loss, anguish, hopelessness and despair.  It characterises the grief process and gives meaning to what grief actually is — when we’re in it, for whatever timeframe, we cannot escape the kind of existential crisis that really does threaten our lives.

This article is about the kind of response we can all make even as we grow and blossom through a time that feels hellish.  Growing and blossoming might be the last thing in our view when we think of grief, but if we traverse this space with faith, we can actually emerge afterwards, and even within it, with tools, strategies and an approach that serves us well in the new normal we find ourselves in.

Levels, degrees and manifestation within Inescapable Grief

It is advised at this point to spend some time in the various levels and degrees of the human response to loss.  Many of us will recover from the most brutal aspects of loss from anywhere between a few months to a couple of years.

Typically between 2-6 months is the feature of the rawness of grief, where we experience panic attacks, the prevalence of anxiety, clinical depression in some cases, and certainly many depressed days, bouts of anger, constant bargaining for life to return to normal, and even strong moments of accepting the status quo.

Like the seasons, all these seasons can come in one day or even one period of time, and it can be exhausting.  Added to this is the feature of change; so much is to be adapted to, which only serves to intensify the grief.  The loss of friendships, or the change in their dynamic, and even the loss of whole friendship groups, including vital supports, sends us reeling in response, and this is only one example of many that occurs within the change paradigm we undergo in loss.

If only it were loss that created the grief; the fact is, loss brings change and that aggravates our situation and doubles our pain.

Journeying Patiently?

The first response we have when we come to read the title of this article from the perspective of loss is, how?

How on earth am I meant to journey patiently through something that feels like torture, when every fibre of my being is screaming for relief.  It’s always the one-trillion-dollar question.

One of the redeeming features of grief (if you can stay with me here) is that we’re kept in it, firstly by the fact of what/who we have lost, and secondly by the fact our situation isn’t changing (back).  On the one hand, being kept in it by our circumstances can leave us thinking God doesn’t care.  Truly it’s not God’s prerogative to rescue us from our circumstances.  God’s prerogative is, was, and always will be to rescue us from the cost of our rebellion against God through Jesus’ salvific act on the cross and through the hope of new life via the resurrection.  This is enough.  God’s grace is eternally enough.  When we accept this is enough, and it isn’t an easy process, though it is usually given to us as a miraculous grace, we can begin to imagine life beyond the present situation we cannot change.

This is the opportunity of our lifetime; that is to come to a supernatural acceptance of that which cannot be changed.  Because it cannot be changed, the only option we have is to accept it; and that, there, is the opportunity of journeying patiently.  The fullness of this journey is maturity.  If we can realise this more and more in our spiritual gait, we will become more and more spiritually invincible, broken by suffering, but redeeming it in a hope that can never be destroyed.

Journeying patiently through inescapable grief — however long it lasts for — is the purpose of the loss we experience.  God has something huge for us to embrace when we’re transported out of a banal life into a life that nobody would choose, but that which acutely exemplifies the life of our Lord — and that’s where the deeper, more abundant life is!

I would argue that the ONLY true freedom in this life is on the OTHER side of grief; when finally, we resolve each day to journey patiently — with ourselves, others, God.

One of the biggest misnomers about recovering from grief is that it takes time to heal the wounds.  It’s not so much that; it takes us time to grow in patience — with ourselves, with others, with life, and with God.  It can take years.  But thankfully it’s not something we’re under pressure to master.  Life has a way of giving us time to adapt, and it’s usually more time than we think we’ll need.

Journey patiently.

Photo by Fabien BELLANGER on Unsplash

When all you can do is pray

There are times, my God, when all I can do is pray.  In the numbness or exhaustion, in speechlessness or nothingness, in conflict that rises to You as a plea, I wonder what else I can do.

Nothing.  When nothing else works I can pray.  I can.  When I can do nothing else I can pray.  And these prayers, You know full well, Lord, are not prayers of words; they’re groans of my spirit reaching up to You from the barren silence within me.  A vacuum, which is utterly foreign to me, but is a void that is intelligible to You.  You know the heart when I have lost touch with it.  You know the mind when the mind is gone.  You know the soul when it is desolate.

When all I can do is pray, I cannot pray as the Pharisees do.  I do not have words — fancy big ones, religious ones, big-brained ones — not even bare syllables at times.

My blank stare is a prayer.

The lack of my call to You for Your care is a prayer.

My soul that is cavernously open and vulnerable; that — as it is — is my prayer.

When there is nothing in my mouth but air, stale and deathly, that there is my prayer.  And it is just as acceptable to You as the dearest words of Spurgeon or anyone else.

I can even say the silliest or darndest things, and You understand, and whether I mean them or not, You know it’s the heart that strives for meaning it cannot have. 

You don’t need words, when after all these years perhaps I’ve felt guilty at times when I’ve not had them.  But You, my God and Saviour, need no such thing as thought or words or other instruments of ‘me’ for You to intercede from the heavens for me.

Words do not impress You, God, nor high thoughts or proud utterances.  You say that Your thoughts are higher than mine, and I take You at Your word.  So if words do not impress You, God, when I don’t have them, I offer You the poverty of my spirit, the song of my silence, the longing I have for you, Jesus, when there is nothing left.

This prayer is sufficient.

AMEN.

~

I’ve had people say to me, “I’m sorry, but all I can do for you is pray,” when realistically it’s the only action we can ever do that has divine power in it.

20 things depression has taught me

There are countless things we can learn from challenging times in our lives to support others who are going through similar present crises.  Indeed, part of the purpose of facing hardships and trials is what we’ll learn, the resources we gather, the equipping that takes place:

Here are just some of the things depression has taught me:

1.             Be gentle and go gently, with yourself and others as best you can.  Apologise to yourself or others when you’re harsh.  There is such a thing as trying too hard.

2.             As a proactive step, pray relentlessly, keeping constant contact the best you can with God.

3.             Stay connected to, and be honest with, people you trust.  Though it takes all your energy, trust those you can trust and support is right there.

4.             Develop and maintain real relationships.

5.             Another proactive strategy, throw yourself into the acquisition of virtue.  Do the right thing by faith as much as you can.

6.             Tomorrow will be different.  No matter how bad today was.  This, too, shall pass.

7.             Ask often, “How important is [this issue], really?”  Truly, how important is anything?  Just about everything is recoverable.

8.             Be at peace with people and with life, as far as it depends on you.

9.             Enjoy moments of lightness and hilarity.  This is an anxiety-reduction measure.

10.          Be whoever you can be for others.  Our purposes in life are versatile.  But don’t attract unnecessary pressure.

11.          Don’t worry about what others think of you regarding mental illness, but also seek to understand them and accept their views — they’re their own and we cannot change how someone views the world and life.

12.          Hope will return, as will energy, spark and enthusiasm.  Trust this to be a fact by faith, and it will certainly take place at the proper time.

13.          Try not to compare yourself with others who seem to ‘have it all together’.  Nobody has it all together.  Anyone who thinks they do still have this to learn.

14.          There are depressed days; it doesn’t automatically mean it’s depression.

15.          Everyone experiences grief; grief is not a mental illness.  But we often experience depression with grief.  Allow it to come and leave.  Most bouts of severe grief lasts months, not years.

16.          Expect the best and plan for the worst.  Be prepared to accept what cannot be changed.  Again, go gently.

17.          Show grace for those who appear insensitive.  They probably aren’t aware or don’t understand.  They can be forgiven.  They can only see what they can see.  Acceptance reduces the pain we experience.

18.          Try to learn to say goodbye to things that are no longer helpful.  It seems we are missing out even more, but better things are coming.  This includes letting go of problematic relationships.

19.          Accept the best that you are on any given day.  On your worst day, you are still incredible!

20.          Smile at yourself in the mirror.  Be honest with yourself in the mirror.  See yourself.  You are seen and loved.  Psalm 139 attests to this truth.

Photo by Jude Beck on Unsplash

Only via adversity is there victory through lament

I can tell you it’s very often I get to sit down after a long day or evening and seriously contemplate how hard life is.  The Christian life is not the victory that a lot of Christians would have it be.  No, it is hard and yet in the facing of our truth, in the hardness of it all, somehow in not reaching out for an anesthetising drink or drug or food or flutter, we’re somehow met by God, even as continue to face our pain.

This is lament... and it is biblical.  Somehow as we strive not to strive, as we sit in the realities we cannot change, God meets us there, amid the centrality of a lament that will neither deny nor disparage, and in THAT God starts to heal us.

Yes, I know, it is probably a very unimpressive theology.  It doesn’t hold out to you some unreachable theology that is unattainable for the many.  It doesn’t privilege the experience of miracles to the few.  It doesn’t herald special ones for having ‘special’ gifts.

But lament in and of itself, even the willingness to go there, is a rare gift, for who will willingly suffer as the Christ suffered?  “God has a university,” Gene Edwards says in The Tale of Three Kings, “... it’s a small school.  Few enroll; even fewer graduate.  Very, very few indeed.”  Our living God offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in brokenness.  His lecturers are Joseph and David and Job and Jeremiah and Jesus and Paul.  A whole litany of biblical exemplars.  We don’t graduate in these degrees like we typically graduate — God’s degrees are eternal (ref. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18).  The truth is, we’re not meant to master life.

Even more than ever there is less willingness to enter the sacred faculty of lament, however.  This world for too long has promised too much, and we have bargained our way on a false hope, completely missing God into the bargain.  We barely see that it is in our lack that we are to see that there is nothing lacking in God.  The life of lament that any of us can live, an invitation never starker than in this COVID-19 season, beckons upon the altar call of Psalm 23.

It is only when we have nothing that we truly realise we have everything in God.  It is a blessing, therefore, to you have everything ripped out from under us, if only we will try God out to this degree; to trust the Lord to the extension of entering our brokenness, as if we have nothing to lose, because what is hidden in the heart of God is we have everything to gain via entering it.  We fear losing that which holds us away from gaining everything.

Psalm 23 never ascends to the heights of our imagination until we read it within the chasm of spiritual poverty; the truth of this Psalm is forever withheld from us until we read it through the eyes of the broken.

God wants to know if any of us would have the compunction to truly live as Jesus lived; a life of going without; a life of lament for the unseen spiritual treasures in the heavenly realms; that’s right, we sow these blessings up by going without.  Not very popular or ‘practical’ these days — in a day where we judge everything by whether it works or not!

The true hope of the gospel is not in denying our pain, nor fighting it, running from it, nor pretending that life’s sweet.  The true hope of the gospel is found in the very place we hate to imagine exists; by facing it, by looking at it, by peering into it, by embracing it, by loving it.

Try this.  Achieve victory without adversity.  Experience life without lament.  There is no such thing in this life.

It is only through resisting anger, through embracing patience, that we learn patience, by saying ‘no’ to anger.  It is only through resisting greed, through embracing generosity, that we learn generosity, by saying ‘no’ to greed.  It is only through resisting pride, through embracing humility, that we learn humility, by saying ‘no’ to pride.  It is like this through the corpus of all the challenges of this life.  It is a most inconvenient truth; yet it’s a truth all the same, unabashed in its wisdom.

It’s a truth that never goes away, and it remains there ever to be faced for what it is.  To enter pain where it is, to enter reality however hard it is, is to enter the mature life, and nothing of that can harm us.  Indeed, it can only set us on the road to freedom.

It is wisdom to go its way.  It is God’s university.  It’s a curriculum of brokenness.  Come.

Photo by Matt Cannon on Unsplash

How complementarianism can enable narcissistic husbands

No bipartisan relationship can be had with a person who is always superior.  This is the chief claim against complementarianism and patriarchal society — that one gender is leader over the other, for the simple reason that it’s believed that that gender has biblical ascent as ‘head’.  Whether it’s what God meant or not, that construct for church and marriage enables narcissistic abuse, for only the narcissist puts themselves above those they love, especially when the only reason is gender.

God created all humankind in the image of God,
so all humanity is equal in the sight of God.

I don’t decry complementarianism’s theology, for it is potentially a very noble one — that the husband would serve the wife and children by being kind of a godly (or godlier) figure in the home.  It just about never fits the reality, though!  As a person who’s counselled about 50 couples over nearly ten years, who has also observed many marriages, I don’t know a single one that fits the complementarian sculpt, though I would say there are many very capable husbands — as there are very capable wives, also.

To put the complementarian theology pressure on a husband — any husband — is too heavy a burden to bear.  It is enough for him to endeavour to love his wife as Christ loved the church!

What complementarian theology does, however, is it enables narcissistic husbands to lord it over their wives.  They get to spout Bible verses doing it.  I know there will be many complementarian husbands and wives who are happy, but that doesn’t account for a power differential that is designed into the complementarian marriage, that is wide open for abuse — and is abused.

Marriage is hard enough without giving one partner more power, 
let alone more (so-called, in many cases) responsibility.

The reality is there are far too many Christian wives out there married to husbands who go to church and seem diligent disciples but who also are closet narcissists — who are impossible to live with and who are in many cases dangerous.  They calmly go about creating rules within their marriages that ‘are for the family’s best’, all the while these rules work in his favour, not hers and the kids’.  The fact of the matter is, whether you’re complementarian or egalitarian, we’re all sinners, and the sin problem shows up most — and most secretly most often — in our most intimate relationships, i.e. marriage.

Simply put, complementarianism, whilst it’s wonderful and noble in theory, doesn’t account for the sinful nature in human beings who are not designed to be given power just because they’re a particular gender.  In practice, complementarianism excuses too many cases of abuse because it enables narcissistic husbands.

 

Making sense of the mystery of suffering

Diane Langberg, PhD, has said, “As hard as we try to make sense out of suffering, it rarely makes sense.  Suffering is.  In my experience, the ability to easily explain suffering is the clearest indicator of never having suffered.  Suffering is often a mystery and it requires humility and respect for that fact.”

Suffering rarely makes sense.  Rarely if ever in the place of suffering can we make sense of it, and only afterward may we make sense of it, IF our purpose has been trained through it, particularly in the tradition of 2 Corinthians 1:3-7, in that we learn the comfort of God from others who have been comforted by God such that we can be the comfort of God when we’ve moved through our suffering, which can take years and longer.

As others who have been comforted by God give us their comfort, we experience a comfort that can only come from God, and that equips us to give the comfort of God to others.  This is the essence of compassion: to suffer with someone.  Suffering teaches us compassion.

Because from within the core of suffering itself there can be no answer or escape given, and only a comfort that accepts that comfort is all that can be given, suffering does its work to somehow refine us and make us more dependent on and closer to God.  Suffering is meant to undo every cliché.  It is meant to reduce our words to folly.  It is meant to confine us to silence.  It is meant to make fools out of those who insist upon answers.  Suffering is meant to herald the mysteries of life and of God.

The more we accept that we cannot make sense of the mystery of suffering, the more we will make sense of it.  That is to say that making sense of it isn’t the point.  And we accept it.  To accept that which we cannot change is a most obvious wisdom, but the rubber hits the road when we’d do anythingto change a thing that we absolutely cannot change.

Imagine that.  The first time you come to a circumstance that leaves you absolutely bereft for response, that takes you deeper into depression, dread and panic than you’ve ever been before — and it’s usually our first time — is the first time we realise we cannot do anything to change it, to alleviate it, to affect it.  We’re deep in the mystery of mysteries, an enigma, a conundrum.  We can only ride it out, one white-knuckled terror day at a time.  Until we’ve been in this place, we have no comprehension really what suffering is.

So let’s not make sense of suffering.  Let us instead recognise that not only must suffering be respected, but that it requires our respect, and indeed that it will teach us respect.  Whatever comfort we receive also demands our respect.

Photo by Lily Banse on Unsplash

A 12-step prayer for the authentic follower of Jesus

God of my redemption,

There was a time in my life when I believed I could live without You, that I didn’t need You; now, I’m so glad to recognise my life was unmanageable without You.  This was my first step to life in You.

It was at that time that I came to more fully recognise that You really did exist, that You are the essence of power for life, and that Yours was the power that I truly needed.  This was my second step back to You.

Finally, having come to the precipice, having become sick and tired of being sick and tired, I gave my will and my life into Your care, to follow You, Jesus, every day and every moment of the remaining days of my life.  This was my third step as I accepted Your offer of redemption.

But as soon as I took that third step, I knew there were more.  I came immediately upon a crisis.  Having lived so far apart from You for so long, I sensed I was so far from Your will.  Convicted by Your Spirit, I was compelled to undertake a fearless moral inventory — a full search history of the sins I’d committed.  This was not easy, but it was my fourth step, foundational in following You.

Having taken that fourth step, having invited Your Holy Spirit to illuminate my greed, pride, anger, sloth, envy, lust and gluttony, I did sense an enormous struggle, but also an incredible amount of relief, as I genuinely faced the truth in my life.  In following You through this step, my fifth step to life, I showed You that I was indeed following You, Jesus.  It was in doing this step that You showed me what You’re most interested in for me, personally.  But I was not complete in doing this step until I was able to admit the exact nature of my wrongs to You and to another human being — a wise mentor — that I trusted.

It was in doing this fifth step, Lord, that You endeared to me Your presence and Your pleasure.  I was on the journey of letting go of that past, to embrace a future that I hoped for.  It was my sixth step on the journey of following You.

I hammered a stake into the ground, my Lord.  I had come too far to go back now.  I genuinely prayed at that moment for You to relieve me of these sins.  And by the mystery of Your spirit, You washed me clean of these marks.  It was my seventh step, and in many ways, it was a step of completion of the inner work You were doing in reforming my heart.

Then You compelled me, once again, and forged within me the desire to get practical.  Again, I got out writing materials and began a list of all the people I had wronged.  Something deep inside me seriously wanted to make amends to all I’d harmed.  This eighth step was enormously empowering.

In making amends to all those I could still reach, without hurting a single one or anyone else, You gave me new life, Glorious God, as one conversation after another I was able clear the debt, freeing them and I of the shards of bitterness that had previously constrained us.  This ninth step was the gospel of love and peace in action.

Suddenly I found myself in a place in life where recovery met maintenance.  Being well fearful of backsliding, I decided to continue following Jesus, and continued to take inventory.  The key to this tenth step was to remain humble enough to admit when I was wrong.  Every.  Single.  Time.  Insight and Awareness were to become Your Guides.  Although this wasn’t easy, God, You showed me I could do it, one courageous moment at a time, even as I poured contempt on my pride each time.

It was when I arrived at this eleventh step that You showed me how I was to pray from now on.  You showed me, my Eternal Guide, that I was to seek to improve my conscious contact with You, to learn how to be led by Your Spirit, and how I was to know Your will.  You convinced me that my prayer from now on was to simply attain the knowledge of Your will, and to beseech You for the power to carry it out, knowing that You would give it as I asked.

The twelfth step became obvious at this point; You wanted me to keep abiding in these steps and to carry the message of this program of spiritual renaissance to all who are in need.

I thank You for these steps, Lord.  Without them, I could not have experienced Your life.

In thankfulness to Jesus for his love, power and presence in my life, through the Holy Spirit, I pray,

AMEN.

Photo by Rosie Fraser on Unsplash