I realize that I don’t have what it takes.
The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up.
Living Life Recovery » Living Life in Recovery
Recovery is about learning to Live Life
Living Life Recovery is a safe place where people can come and investigate the reality of God’s promises for their life, at there own pace.
Category: Step 1
Thought For Today
Someone said to me in recovery “You can’t rely on your story to get you through for the rest of your life.” I disagree. The reason I disagree is because our stories are always changing unless we are dead.
Recovery to me is about ‘SPIRITUAL GROWTH’ If I am still in the same place spiritually today as I was yesterday, last week, last month, ten years ago I haven’t grown spiritually and I have no one to blame but myself.
When it comes to admitting our lives are a mess it is easy for us to convince ourselves they are not.
In the Bible is say’s “The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in his rightness.” Romans 3:22-26
1 Timothy 1:19 says “Keep a firm grip on your faith and on yourself. After all, this is a fight we’re in. There are some, you know, who by relaxing their grip and thinking anything goes have made a thorough mess of their faith.”
I want to talk today about “MY MESS’ how I made it and how God helped me to not only overcome it but to change it.
Faith is the ‘Truth’ and what we believe about the truth. For me I realised long before I came into recovery “I was a liar.” And, I knew that most of the lies I believed weren’t the truth no matter how much I believed them. So when I first came to recovery in 1987 I began a journey of ‘Discovering the truth’ about myself, my life, and about God. All of my life I have been a believer that God is real and if He chose to He could do miracles in and through my life.
My knowledge of God till I arrived in recovery was this “If you live right you go to heaven. If you don’t you go to hell.” What did I know about living right? You went to school to learn. You learned to get a job. Once you got a job you got married, had kid’s and lived happily ever after. So, I tried to live right.
The problem was:
- I hated school.
- Success at work was about how much money you made.
- Getting married and having kid’s involved caring about someone else and I was not capable at caring about myself let alone someone else.
Because I hated school, I made a mess of it and at the age of 14 left school for good. Because I left school at 14, the only jobs I could ever secure were manual handling jobs which I made a mess of. When it came to getting married and having kid’s because I was incapable of caring about anyone else made a mess of every relationship I ever had.
At the age of 15 I started drinking and taking drugs which only added to my mess. From the age of 15 till I was 25 my life was a mess of my own creation because it became more about alcohol and drugs than it did about going to heaven when you die. As I said in 1987 when I first came to recovery, I began a journey of discovery. When I took time to examine these three areas of my life and looked at the demolition, I realised I had to change and was incapable of change by myself. So I started my search of discovering who God was and how He could help me fix the mess I had created.
A Perfect Environment for Recovery
God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the Man he had just made in it. GOD made all kinds of trees grow from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good to eat. The Tree-of-Life was in the middle of the garden, also the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Genesis 2:8-9
God provided a perfect environment for us to grow and develop in.
Sometimes we blame our environment our life circumstances for us becoming the way we became. What we need to do in the process of #LivingLifeRecovery is acknowledge that in spite of who we are, how we were raised, our environment, or our circumstances we are now on a journey of Spiritual Growth. We now need to take personal responsibility for the mistakes and failures of our lives. Trust with God’s help He has provided a perfect environment for us to overcome our personal defects and move forward in our lives from today.
I admit that my life is a mess and I am out of control.
–Step One
Step One Week 2
Step One: I admit my life is a mess and I am out of control
None of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you’d have a perfect person, in perfect control of life. James 3:2 #Control #Admit #Mess
Step One ~ Week One
Step One ~ Week One
God holds the high center, He sees and sets the world’s mess right. He decides what is right for us earthlings, gives people their just deserts. God’s a safe-house for the battered, a sanctuary during bad times. The moment you arrive, you relax; you’re never sorry you knocked.
Step One
We justify our actions by appearances; God examines our motives.
Everyone Needs Recovery
In John 16:33 Jesus said “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in Me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
In recovery, we should expect continuing tension with an unbelieving world that is “out of sync” with Christ and His Good News. At the same time, we can expect our relationship with Jesus Christ as our One True Higher Power to produce peace and comfort because we are “in sync” with Him.
I love the wording of the first step in the Life Recovery 12 Steps. It makes it clear. None of us are perfect. None of us are without problems that we cannot solve in our own strength. We are all sinners (Romans 3:23) We all need help to become the people God wants us to be and the only way to do that is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
EVERYONE NEEDS RECOVERY!
Something Good is Happening
I ADMIT MY LIFE IS A MESS AND I AM OUT OF CONTROL
We refuse to wear masks and play games. We don’t maneuver and manipulate behind the scenes. And we don’t twist God’s Word to suit ourselves. Rather, we keep everything we do and say out in the open, the whole truth on display so that those who want to can see and judge for themselves in the presence of God. 2 Corinthians 4:2
Restoring our personal integrity is something we are all striving for. Admitting our lives are a mess is a priority. Honesty with ourselves and with others essential. Rather than wearing masks and playing games we now need to face up to the reality of our lives. Taking a good honest look at ourselves has proved to shatter in the past. Excuses have been our norm. We are now at a crucial stage in the recovery process.
The only direction we have to turn now is to God. As we do we feel different from we have ever before. Confident that with His help we can and will overcome our problems. Relationship with Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is an exciting entry onto what we hope will be better relationships with others.
The refining process of spiritual growth through a relationship with God will continue to work in our lives as long as we remain willing to allow Him to work in and through our lives.