Integration of the 12 Steps into one’s life is the spiritual task and opportunity of this moment, of any moment.
Ordinarily, in church and in AA tradition, the 12 Steps have been taken as a process, as a linear set of stages along a continuum of growth towards God and the purposes of God — which is always the purpose of our lives.
But I submit to you, that these stages, these steps, are the will of God concurrently that it is possible to bear these steps, all 12 of them, simultaneously, to reflect on them, and to do an audit of oneself against these steps of wisdom — to bear them in mind and in our hearts each and every day.
Imagine oneself going back to Step 1 (we admitted we were powerless over our deepest problems — that our lives had become unmanageable) even if one has been in the faith 50 years. This demands humility, to engage in honest self-reflection, as we admit our common human weakness that, no matter how long we’ve loved God, our lives without Him and His help are fruitless — and more pertinently out of step with His will for us.
To imagine ourselves leading a life that is unmanageable, a life that runs awry without God, a life that MUST recommit one’s will and life to this Lord who leads us to fresh experiences of our salvation.
We who are saved for all eternity
still need to be saved from ourselves.
Taking Step 1 in our stride on a daily basis, we acknowledge in Step 2 a Power greater than ourselves (Jesus) can restore us to sanity — the basis of our hope.
With hope in regaling our desire to go where only God can take us, we decide to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. This is a commitment that can only be made when we’ve properly laid the foundation of Steps 1 and 2 — to recognise just how much we NEED God.
The problem with most Christians is too often we don’t recognise how much we NEED God — how poor in spirit we are without Him.
The very next decision to be made in turning our will and our life over to the care of God is to get to work on identifying WHERE we’re out of step with His will.
PSALM 139
Doing this on a daily basis is such a healthy task. I often evoke God’s voice through reflection over Psalm 139:23-24 — “Search me, God, and know my heart… test me and know my anxious thoughts… See if there is any offensive way in me… and lead me in the way everlasting.”
The psalmist has already said right at the top that, “You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.” When I ask God to show me, knowing that He knows me, God never fails in showing me something for which I can repent.
Let’s get this straight:
repentance, daily and momentarily,
is the will of God for your life and mine.
There are many ways to conduct Step 4 — we made a searching and fearless moral inventory. This involves daily analysing our resentments, the root causes of our bitterness, or to thoroughly identify our fears, or to acknowledge the role of the Seven Deadly Sins (pride, lust, gluttony, anger, envy, sloth, greed).
JEREMIAH 17:9 — AN ESSENTIAL, HEALTHY TRUTH
To imagine the opportunity for us to take inventory, each day, being honest about the previous day or the past morning, to go deep into the fissures of our hearts where the sin lies deeply, as Jeremiah 17:9 mentions “the heart is deceitful above all things… and beyond cure.”
What Jeremiah acknowledged is healthy to acknowledge for each of us: only when we give over our will and life to the care of God are we fitted with His Spirit in being honest about our biases, prejudices, and self-centredness.
In taking inventory we take our time allowing God access to those deepest fissures of our hearts, we note them down, receiving from Him a portion of his pleasure for the fact we are undertaking an honest audit of our soul, through the simple prayer, “God, search me and show me where I’m not honouring and pleasing You.” I think you’d agree, we need to be praying this constantly if we’re putting His Kingdom and His Righteousness first in our lives (Matthew 6:33).
Then there is the Step 5 of trust to commit these deep truths to God and to another human being, to simply confess them in all honesty, and find ourselves liberated once again by the fact the enemy has nothing on us, no guilt, no shame, no fear when we are honest before Him, before our Lord.
Having taken inventory, and having shared this inventory with another person before God, we are being equipped to ask ourselves a question, Will I undertake the opportunity to reconcile these matters? Will I be prepared to right these wrongs, to make amends?
I therefore make a list of all persons I have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all — this Step 8 is such a powerful commitment to arrive at. Such a resolve is inherently healing for us to engage in — we have taken the step of entering godly sorrow of 2 Corinthians 7:10 — “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”
Worldly sorrow leads to resentment, fear, bitterness,
and everything that led us to sin comes from sin.
Being now prepared, and even undertaking these matters of reconciliation, we make amends the same day that we took the first step, unless it would be that we would endanger the other person, or another person through indirect means of making these amends.
We can do no harm in making amends —
to do so would betray our benevolent action.
If we are called to holding our peace because our confession might harm another person, in restraining our will to make amends, we otherwise hold it within us in trust, reflecting deeply, asking God to come into us and school us in a fresh portion of humility.
We ask Him to make us ready
to make amends at the right time.
Having made amends, we continue with the resolve to make amends any time the Spirit leads us, committing to this way ever more. This is the will of God for a Christian — to live within the tension of continually making amends in the power of God.
It is therefore encumbered on us as true believers to live these steps during each of our days, ensuring that whatever the moment calls for, that the right step would move forward out of line, the Spirit would grab our attention making us aware, and convict our commitment.
Living the steps in our day-to-day is the ultimate commitment to God to the Lord Jesus wherever he would lead us.
If only we can have the humble insight to focus on those places of dishonesty, namely deception, accommodating, compromising, minimising, turning away.
The task is simple. I must take on this opportunity for God to show me all the little crevices of dishonesty in my otherwise honest life and I must be prepared for Him to show me little glimpses that might shock me in a moment, but will otherwise free me to live the life I ought to live bearing with others, as others bear with me.
What does God require of me and you, other than to do justice to love mercy and to walk humbly with my Lord? This is a daily charge. To maintain our conscious contact with God through prayer and meditation (Step 11) and take these steps to others as opportunities avail themselves to us (Step 12).
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