Be Willing, my sponsor kept saying
Willingness is the key; but, I balked at the twelfth step for many years:
STEP TWELVE: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. ( Chapter 12, 12 &12 )
I harrumphed: I didn’t have a spiritual awakening because of [working] the 12 Steps; God wakened me up. (Titus 3:4-5)
But you know what?
Even a spiritually dead person can hit enough brick walls to wake them up!
Trying to control what I could not— first, the drinking in my family, and then in myself — was the wake-up call!
Of course, I hit the SNOOZE button a bunch.
Eventually God woke me up and helped me see He put people, places and things in my life so I might have peace and a purpose, one day at a time.
For too long, though, I didn’t see that working the Steps could get me through all kinds of messes; not just drinking.
What Kind of Recovery Advice Was That?
When I actually looked the word principles up, I found this —the Twelve Spiritual Principles — I realized I have no message, no recovery advice without God.
So, the biggest of all my spiritual principles remains GRATITUDE.
Have I mentioned this before? Oh yeah — I’m a broken record on this one!
Since Ours is an age of Spirituality
Recovery can come in all kinds of experiences, and strategies. Jeremiah had a good suggestion, which so many of us reject, especially today:
This is what the LORD says:
“Stop at the crossroads and look around.
Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it.
Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls.
But you reply, ‘No, that’s not the road we want!’ Jeremiah 6:16
So, to introduce, or refresh a spiritual awakening, I am passing along a short, 10-minute Podcast that discusses our longing for God: Secular Longing.
Jeremy Treat, pastor at Reality LA in Los Angeles, observes how our longing for God does not disappear in a secular society. It just reappears in different forms: sports, politics, sexuality, and more. Treat describes how secular people today seek power, purity, and peace—traditionally sought in religion—in things like witchcraft, wellness, and mindfulness apps. Yet our deepest longings, Treat says, will not be found in any spiritual system or clean diet, but in a person: Jesus Christ.
What do you think?
Love in Christ,
Sober and Grateful
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