Such is the Grace of God... for Recovery

“Whoever covers over his sins does not prosper.

Whoever confesses and abandons them receives compassion.”

— Proverbs 28:13 (GW)

Such is the grace of God that we are, when we give up our life of sin, granted a second chance – even if that second chance is a 1002nd chance. That is the nature of God. Whilst we cannot allow ourselves to hope that we can escape the consequences of the former lifestyle, we can truly know the surreal power of God, which, in this case, is compassion – the sort of empathy and consideration unusual to anything we could typically experience.

God will not despise a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:16-17). As soon as we turn back from those bondages of the past that held us back, we, in essence, turn back to God. And in the process of turning back to God, God will not turn away from us, and we will have sufficient power to affect our recovery.

Our recovery is God’s business. Such is the grace of God that there is a miraculous power at work in recovery when we are brutally honest with ourselves. As soon as God sees that we are serious – that we will no longer compromise our integrity on certain matters – this one and only Lord of Glory gives us both attitudes and circumstances that play into the hands of our recovery.

Suddenly we see how grace is working for us, where life would typically have worked against us. All we need then is the faith to continue one day at a time. Not that faith one day at a time is a walk in the park at all. There is essentially no hard work required of us except the faith to keep to our commitment, and to keep growing and learning in humility in our recovery. Faith implicates the role of sacrifice.

Such is the grace of God we are on the road to recovery the moment we honestly face our issues and own up to our need to change.

Immediate is the effect of God’s grace, as soon as we know we have turned from the dark thing toward the light. God’s grace begins to go before us and we now imagine some inexplicable power working for us. And God’s grace is felt as a true experience because of one thing: our belief in God to be able do such a thing.

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Such is the grace of God it works for us in our recovery, and against the forces of darkness that have kept us in bondage. By his grace, through faith, we have accepted an anointing for a new future – a brand-new life.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.