I have a confession to make. I have to come clean. They say the first step is admitting you have a problem. I am an addict. I am addicted to the presence of God. I can't get enough. I will do anything to get it. I will lose all my pride and become undignified. I have to have it. And do you know what? I don't know how I lived all these years on religion and duty. How I lived with such a sparse touch from Jesus. I just know that there is no going back for me. I have to have Him. So if you have lived a life addicted to religion, here are 12 steps for to be free.
1) We admitted we were powerless with religion—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2) Came to believe that God, who is bigger than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3) Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, in entirety.
4) Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5) Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6) Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7) Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8) Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9) Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10) Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11) Sought through prayer and meditation and acts of radical obedience contact with God, reserving nothing, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.
12) Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to people full of duty and religion, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
You know #8 caused me to pause and think. How many people have I wounded with a life of religion. Because I felt that heaviness of law, I put it on others. Lord forgive me. You can be free of religion too. I pray you have a new addiction that no amount of steps can break.
(These really are the 12 steps for an alcoholic, edited by me.)
Thursday, May 24, 2007
12 steps...
Posted by Francesca at 8:12 AM
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7 comments:
Fran- those are awesome- they should be on a poster at Hobby Lobby or needlepoint-ed somewhere. That's funny but I'm serious- really hard-core stuff!
Fran, oh how i do love the 12 steps. there is so much hidden truth in them, they are based on kingdom prinicples and that's why they work, i love so much your "truth" you added to the steps. Fran as i read though the steps something in my spirit began to stir, i want this addiction!!
I want to be a hard core junkie.
Fran,
I love the 12 steps - #4 being my hardest - but with each passing day I find myself growing more addicted to God and His presence and I don't care who knows it. Actually I want everyone to know that I am a hard core, mainlining God junkie.
Fran...I love the 12 steps.
I totally confess that I'm addicted to the presence of God! As a matter of fact I just left his presence before I got on here to check on all my junkie friends.
I have to have more of him. I can't get enough. All eternity will not be long enough to be wholly in his presence.
I'm subjecting my children and husband to this addiction. I refuse to quit. I will not give up this addiction. I would rather die then live without the fullness of life that I can only get from being with Christ!
You really should copyright and publish a book with these steps- imagine the revolution, the lives changed. Listen to the Holy Spirit, but I believe you are on to something big. I have found myself confessing the renewed creation I am to others so that I am not allowing myself to slip into old patterns. I am expanding by kingdom territory. Not just in church with church friends. At lunch, at the hospital I could share of the overwhelming life changing God experience at BFW. I know I am different. I am more in love everyday. I got some miracle grow in my heart and I am not afraid to use it!
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