Progress Not Perfection

Matthew 5:48 “…you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

When I first began thinking about recovery I tried to picture my life without enhancement of drugs and alcohol and with renewed relationship with God. But I couldn't. I imagined my life spent trying to live up to some standard of being good enough, which I had never been able to do no matter how hard I tried. I also saw myself trying to live through the misery of the failure that would inevitably follow without being able to escape via chemical nirvana. The very idea caused me near panic. But I was wrong, wrong in my preconceptions that I not only could but needed to earn the right to have and to keep a relationship with God.

I knew better. Mentally I knew all about how trying to earn relationship with God was impossible and actually a rejection of the very manner God put in place to bring us to Him. I knew it was about how He wanted to show His love for us by providing a way to have relationship with our Creator through no effort on our own other than surrender. I saw evidence of the damage trying to earn our relationship with God did to my life and the lives of others. I heard my father talk about grace and God's love for us from the pulpit and at home, and I believed it. I believed it for everyone but myself. Despite the truth I heard my entire life I still felt that grace was something for people who weren't as internally messed up as I was, and if anyone needed to prove their worth to God, and everyone else, it was me. How crazy.

So when I set standards for myself such as "Do the next right thing" and "rigorous honesty" and then read statements from Christ saying "...be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect," I would go crazy and definitely fail at recovery if I fell for the idea that I had to do those things. I can't, and that's the whole point. If I could even come close to that standard then I would not be powerless over anything necessary to escape my life and that life would not be wildly unmanageable. I can not truly and completely admit the truth of Step One and hold onto the idea that I need to be or can be good enough to stay sober, much less have relationship with God. If I tried, the contradiction between those two ideas would drive me to drink.

Just as you don't clean up to take a bath but take a bath to get clean, I can't do the next right thing or be rigorously honest and practice patience, love and tolerance, much less be as perfect as God is, to find relationship with Him and stay clean and sober. I need instead to find relationship with God and get clean and sober in order to have the effects of that change bring about an increase in the evidence of righteousness, honesty, patience, love, tolerance, and the perfection of God showing in my life through my actions and my words. The perfectness of God in us can only be a result of God in us and in control of us. I can't be perfect. I can't be honest or patient or tolerant or motivated by the desire to do the right thing, and I can't love anyone but myself. That last one really hurts because while there is much evidence of selfishness in my past, I can not find any evidence of loving myself. I can't even stay stopped drinking and using. I simply can not stay sober.

But when I honestly admit that I can't and stop trying to, then I acknowledge that existence of and the proper place of God in life, and then I turn my will and my life completely over to the care of that God, thereby giving Him that proper place in my life, when I do those things then God enters into relationship with me and allows me to have relationship with Him. The presence of God in my life can't possibly do anything other than bring about positive change within me. Let's face it, we all find ourselves either acting more like the person wants us to act to make them happy or acting like the person acts himself or herself whenever we spend a large amount of time with anyone we like or respect. It's not in my nature to make up a bed that I am just going to mess back up, but it makes my wife happy to have the bed made. I love making her happy, and it now makes me happy to make the bed. Now I am not perfect at doing the things that make my wife happy or thinking of her happiness before my own all the time, and my wife is not God. Relationship with her can not bring about enough positive change or lasting change to give me a totally new direction in life. But God can change me in ways that do just that. He has created a new person from the old foundation of who I am. I am not perfect, but His transformation of me is a work in progress.

It truly is progress rather than perfection, or as others might put it, glory to glory He's changing me. As long as I maintain my surrender and daily turn my will and life over to His care I stay in conscious contact with the One who has the power to change me, keep me clean and sober, and express His perfect love through my life. When I start putting the effects before the cause I lose that conscious contact and I begin to try to live the effects on my own strength, through my own power. Since I in and of myself am powerless, this attempt is doomed from the beginning. My only hope of coming anywhere close to perfection in any given moment is in direct proportion to the level of which I quit trying to be perfect and just give God control. Every moment that God is in total control of my life is a moment where my thoughts and actions are perfect, even as God is perfect. If He's driving the car how can the car go anywhere or do anything He doesn't desire? Perfection is the result of relationship, not the cause of it or the positive results that naturally occur when in relationship with God.

Praying For Those Who Persecute

You have heard it that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He makes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sneds rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the publicans do the same? And if you salute your brothers only what do you more than others> Do not even the publicans do so?

Matthew 5:43-47

This is so contrary to my way of thinking. I just don't naturally think, feel or act like these verses tell me to. Yesterday I got a call from adopted brother's wife telling me that my brother had been arrested and was in jail. Someone angry and bitter and hateful pushed a years old issue that is no longer even relevant and that my brother has tried to correct and the result is charges and some county time while waiting for court. The thing that makes this even more upsetting is that the person has already been informed that by signing some papers of forgiveness it would free my brother from what he is now facing but resentment blocks that path. Now everyone is getting hurt. My brother is in jail after being arrested in front of his three youngest children. His wife is hurt, angry and afraid. His children are afraid, confused and without their father. His two older children are upset and angry and being torn between their parents, and his ex (the older two children's mother) has damaged her relationship with her children while gaining nothing in an attempt to get even for things that happened in the last century. How very very sad. Everyone loses. No one wins. This is a good example of how resentment fuels nothing good and how hate can never bring peace.

But even knowing this is not enough, not for me anyway. I know that freedom from resentment on both sides and forgiveness on both sides would have prevented this pain and damage to so many lives. I've read these verses before, and I know that they are true. I have learned the value of refusing to react in kind and of being patient, loving and tolerant of those who don't deserve it. When I am able to do that, my recovery is stronger and I actually feel better. I say that I try to practice this in everything, and I have been traveling the road of recovery for long enough that much of it has become second nature at this point. But not this.

If I am ho0nest with myself and with my writing I must admit that loving my brother's ex was not high on my priority list yesterday evening as my wife and I visited with my sister-in-law and found out what was going on. As she cried on my shoulder I prayed for her, her children and my brother, but it did not once occur to me to pray for the woman who I saw as the cause for all of this misery. I did not want to bless her, and I didn't want her blessed. I wanted to force her to forgive and to impose my will on hers so that we could make this better for everyone. How silly of me. I know better. Imposing my will on another is never going to help them recover from hurt and resentment, which is justified, and what I really wanted to do was control the situation and the people involved. And that is not my place. Nor is it possible. And the frustration of trying to control people and places that I can not control will destroy my recovery.

The truth is that you can't fight hate with hate. You can't breed love and tolerance by being unloving and intolerant. You can't give a situation or relationship to God and allow His will to be done in it while trying to control it or impose your own will on it at the same time. It simply won't work. There is absolutely no good that can come from me growing angry and allowing my anger to fuel my sister-in-law's anger. It doesn't help me or my recovery. It doesn't keep my mind open to possible solutions or an intuitive thought from God because I can't hear God speak to me when my mind is clouded by a fog of anger and the desire to control, fix or avenge. It doesn't help my sister-in-law for her anger and agitation to be blown into a frenzy until the wildfire in her heart and mind is burning out of control. It doesn't add to peace or help bring calm into her life. It doesn't help her children who just saw Daddy to see me upset and angry as well. It doesn't help my brother find freedom any faster or peace in the midst of this storm. And it doesn't even do anything that will help or lead to change in the heart and mind of the other party. And if avenging and controlling becomes more important than helping her (a dangerous place for me to be) then it still fails, because my hurt and anger doesn't even register on her radar, or if it does only brings her satisfaction, while I have turned my will and emotions over to the care of someone who does not care about me by allowing what she did to control how I feel and react. How foolish. And I know better. But still my first impulse, my reaction, was anger and unforgiveness.

I wish I could say that I am more Christ-like than that. That in a few short minutes I had realized the foolishness of my behavior and released that anger and prayed for my brother's ex. But that would not be true. I was blind to the failure on my part to practice the spiritual principles of recovery in this area of my life until I read these verses this morning. It felt like I had spiritually splashed my face with freezing cold water and brought clarity and awareness to my mind. Oh wow did I fall short here. But I'm not beating myself up. Progress was shown. I did not call my brother's ex up or go physically confront her, screaming, yelling and cussing to show her my rage. I did not encourage my sister-in-law to do this or worse. I did not close my eyes and refuse to see when my morning reading showed me to be off course, but instead adjusted my spiritual rudder and sough God. This is progress, and I am grateful for the changes in me that God has made that brought about this progress.

But I want to do it better. Not because I want people to see look how well he handles things, but because when people see me in such a situation I don't want them to see me and how much better I act than I used to. No, I want them to see my Father instead of me. By acting and reacting and God would have me act and react, I mirror His image in a way that others can see Him in me. This gives them opportunity to see and find God when they need Him most. I can't fix these problems or heal the hurts in any of the people's lives involved in this situation, but God can. If what I do, how I react, and what I say show God then it opens the door for God to heal. When other's are exposed to the peace of God it can quench the fires of anger and confusion and lesson the destruction rather than keep the misery going.

Love can kill hate and stop the damage it can cause. But hating back can never help anyone involved. And praying for those who are in attack mode can do more good than anything I can do to defend myself and those I love or anything I can do by attacking back or encouraging others to attack back. I can't solve the problem nor make this better. But God can. When I am willing to forgive, love and pray for those who don't deserve it, it reminds me to be grateful that God loved, forgave and sought relationship with me when I didn't deserve it and it opens the door to allow God into the situation, if only a little. In every part that God can be allowed in and given control there can be freedom, peace and solution. But in every area where my reaction is my own I block God out and His miraculous power is hindered by my will. I don't want that to happen. Today I want to give God free reign to make things better for everyone involved, me, family, friends, enemies and strangers, in every situation and encounter by not reacting out of my own will or instinct but to only react as my Father would, with calm, without fear, with mercy rather than judgement, with forgiveness rather than vengeance and with love rather than hate. I have seen that this truly is the easier and softer way, although unnatural.

Turning The Other Cheek

You have heard that it has been said, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:" but I say unto you, "That you resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue you at the law, and take away your coat, let him have your cloak also. And whosoever shall compel you to go a mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him that would borrow of you turn you not away.

Matthew 5:38-42

As I get close to the end of my exploration of the Sermon on the Mount, I find more and more that I know to be truth and the better way, and yet more and more that I find difficult in myself to practice. These verses run completely opposite of my natural and learned instincts and reactive impulses. I have had difficulty with not reacting to those who I felt were wronging me, or even might wrong me, all of my life. I might be willing to forgive, but only after I fought back or got even. After I got sent to prison, this natural instinct to fight those who would bully or impose their will on mine became even stronger and more ingrained.

But this quick defense of my rights was unhealthy. It led to dangerous resentments and allowed fear to rule my life. In prison I often fought out of fear. Many times it was not a fear of the person I was fighting as much as it was a fear of how many others even worse I would have to face later if I appeared to be weak or a victim at that moment. The fear that if I ever once allowed myself to appear weak or easy to take advantage of in any small way I would face exploitation and brutality on a grander scale until my very life might be at stake ruled every reaction and choice I made about when to respond to a perceived threat with violence and when to walk away.

The Big Book assures us that resentment is the number one offender that will lead to a relapse. Resentment is birthed from fear and anger running free and out of control in my life. I have realized that it is not so much about whether or not to let people take advantage but more about the question of do I or don't I trust God?

If I truly trust God to protect me from evil in the future do I really need to nuke every man who points a sling-shot my direction? If I have completely surrendered to God, aren't I his now? If I am his, than what were once my rights to defend are now His rights of property. If God cares for and protects what belongs to Him, and I belong to Him, then I am no longer responsible to defend myself. I don't have to be afraid of appearing weak. I don't have to retaliate in kind when someone hurts my feelings or frightens me.

Now I am not saying to become a doormat who simply falls into submission at every threat and concedes to every person who would take advantage. Jesus laid down His life for me, but not once was He weak in doing so. He stood and faced His accusers with truth and dignity. He walked away from mobs who would have stoned Him before it was time for Him to give Himself up. He didn't simply say, "These people want to kill me. I'll let them."

Rather than fueling the vicious cycle, Christ responded to hate with love, to anger with mercy, to intolerance with mercy and forgiveness. By doing this, He never gave power to those who would destroy Him. When someone's actions dictate my response to them, then I have surrendered my will and life over to my enemy who cares not one bit for my well being. You hit me, so I must hit you back. Who is in control? You are. But if the law of love dictates my response, then I have not given anyone power or control over me. I do not sit stewing in the poison of my own anger for hours or days over some slight having how I feel controlled by someone who probably isn't thinking about me at all. Instead the one in control of my feelings and reactions is the one who loves me and set me free.

I do not have to protect what is mine because all that I have is His. I can be free from resentments and the emotional reaction dictated by others when I am willing to let mercy and forgiveness and love rule in my life. No, I am not perfect at this by a long shot, but I am better than I used to be. Hopefully tomorrow I will be better at it than I am today. I have at least seen the fruits of this truth in my life, which encourages me to continue to work towards the goal of perfect adherence to these principles. Not long after I entered into relationship with the woman who is now my wife, two of her relatives attempted to force me away from her. They threatened me by trashing my vehicle and destroying some property I had inside it. Several thousand dollars worth of damage were done. I could have demanded retribution. The old me would have destroyed much more of their property than they did of mine and probably did some physical damage as well. How dare anyone destroy something of mine? How dare anyone try to threaten or intimidate me? I'd show them. Or I could have taken them to court and entered into a family feud that would have torn us all apart and caused further separation between my wife and I and her family, regardless of who won or lost in the material sense. Instead I left the situation up to God. If retribution was to be made, then He would have to place it in their hearts to do so. I wasn't reimbursed or even apologized to. But miraculously I was able to repair almost everything that was damaged to the point where it could at least be used, even if it wasn't in as good of condition as it once was. In essence, I discovered that I lost almost nothing.

A year later I have a much better relationship with both men than I ever dreamed possible. It is definitely better than had I gone to war with them. We have had several friendly visits and holidays together in peace and harmony. I consider them family, and the feeling seems to be mutual. At the very least, neither is in any way trying to damage my relationship with Leah or break us up. Without my ever bringing the incident up or acting in any way negative, I forgave and let it go. Not quickly by any means, and not easily, but I refused to allow the situation to dictate how I treated either man. Today they are family and one recently surprised me with some money to help cover what had been damaged. God has brought restoration to my relationship and my wife's relationship with these men and to my property in a way that could never have been accomplished if I had retaliated.

I have learned that when I am willing to forgive and let God defend me, then I allow room for His miraculous healing power to work in my life and the lives of those who I would have retaliated against. This always leads to a better outcome than would happen from any of my natural reactions. I pray today that I am quick to show mercy and slow to react to those who would impose their will on mine, remembering always that it is not my will that is important anyway, but that of my Creator, and He is able to protect and defend His will and His people (including me) far better than I.

I Won't Swear Not To Drink Or Drug Again

"Again you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all;* not by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Do not swear by your head, for you cannot make a single hair white or black. Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one."
Matthew 5:34-37

Today I continue delving through the Sermon On The Mount with four verses that in many ways I feel the meaning and application of them is better left to more learned men than me. There are as many different interpretations and applications of these verses as there are denominations it would seem. They run the range from those who will not swear to tell the truth in court or sign a contract to buy a house or car to those who believe they have nothing to do with such things in the material realm but are a spiritual guideline to keep one from being locked into a belief tomorrow based on today's understanding. I am not going to try to settle the issue or debate one interpretation over another. I am not qualified. All I can do, and all I am going to attempt to do, is offer my experience, strength, hope and understanding that I feel when it comes to these verses and especially how they relate to my past, my present and my recovery.

I can say that I am obviously not in the extreme camp on one side, because I have taken vows. Vows such as those to love my wife to the best of my ability as Christ loved the church and gave His life for her. There are other vows or promises that I have made that I take very seriously. One such is that I promised my wife that if I began struggling with the obsession to drink and drug I would tell her rather than fight in solitude and silence until perhaps I am overwhelmed. This is an attempt to prevent the mistake I made in the weeks before my last relapse where I would not speak to anyone about what was going on inside my heart and mind until finally I broke. But I have not promised my wife or anyone else that I will never drink or drug again. I would not make that vow, and the reason why has to do with how I apply the verses at the beginning of this writing to my life and recovery.

Thanks to the work of God in my life and the program of recovery that I choose to work, today I try to live by a code of rigorous honesty in all things and at all times. This was not always the case. There was a time, I am ashamed to say, that little that came from my mouth could be trusted or believed. The result of such dishonesty was that my oath had to mean something. It was well known by those close to me that I could lie at any time about anything, but that a promise meant something. Still, I used the promise or oath as a manipulation tool, because the way I would carefully word my promise almost always left me an out, a loop hole of some kind. And yet I would have the trust of the person I swore too, because they knew that I did my best to keep my promises even though I was a liar. The other negative result of this approach came from guilt and condemnation when in an honest desire to change my life and do the right thing I would swear that from this point on....... When I would fail at whatever promise I had made to try to set boundaries and regulations on my behavior I would fall into self loathing and berate myself over promises not kept. This became especially dangerous to me because most of these broken promises were to God, and it was hard to believe that God cold still love me after I had failed to honor my oath to the Lord so many times.

Today I live differently, and many of those who have the most reasons from the past to doubt anything I say know that my word means something. I do not defend myself against doubt or disbelief in something I say by swearing that it is true and by promising to see it through. I simply let my yes be yes and my no be no. To the best of my ability I make sure that if I say that I will do something, I follow through on that and do it. On the opposite side of that, if I say that I will not do something, I will work hard to make sure that circumstances do not arise that would cause me to go against that. I am not perfect at this, but I am getting better. The people in my life today can trust me in a way that I have never experienced before, and I do not want to lose that. I do not back up my commitments with oaths or vows for the most part though, especially not an oath to God. This keeps me from being able to hold that oath against myself in a way that would cause me to flee from the presence of God rather than run to the Helper that I so desperately need in a time of failure and crisis.

For me, the biggest danger in oaths or vows came from their origins within me. Seeing the pain and confussion and misery that my life had become I would try desperately to fix my life and stop hurting those I cared about. Knowing the answer was a spiritual one but totally misunderstanding the nature of grace I would determine to better. I would clean up my act, start doing the things that I felt would mean that I was a good Christian and had a good relationship with God and stop doing the things that meant I wasn't and didn't. The problem was that I couldn't fix or control myself for long in any way. I tried to earn my way into relationship with God through good and seemingly spiritual behavior. To try to force my will to conform to what I sincerely believed I needed to do, I would swear to God that this time I would......and the list of what I would start and stop doing to make myself better would follow.

I can not impose God's will on my own. I can not bridle and control myself. The past has proven this repeatedly. Nor does promising or swearing to do the right thing add any power on my part to do it. It does however add strength to the condemnation that follows failure. What I can do is surrender. I can let God work His will in my life. It is His power working in my life that brings about change, not any power or strength of my own. I can simply say yes to what He would have me do today, I don't need to promise to obey completely for the rest of my days. God would much rather I simply say yes and obey one thing at a time until there is no time. I can not swear to never drink or drug again, because that gives me the illusion that I am in control of my addiction. It sets me up for pride and then falling into the bottom of a bottle. What I can do is say yes to relationship with God today and what He wants from me at this moment and in this present and, one present at a time, the present times to follow, say no to self. I don't have the power and control over myself to swear to do what's right for the rest of my life. If I did, I wouldn't need God. But I do have the ability to do what is right once, especially when I am in active surrender to God and sacrifice self on the altar of relationship with my Creator.

My heart never beats more than one beat at a time. I can not take but one breath at a time. I can choose to obey and surrender to God one instant at a time. One instant after another, faithfully turned over to Him, results in a lifetime of spiritual success. Whereas one vow to impose upon myself to from this day forward somehow, someway, start loving and behaving as a man of God should puts the weight of bringing that to past squarely on my own shoulders and inevitably leads to failure and condemnation. Which, when the feelings not measuring up and falling short once again make me hide in the garden rather than run to my Father, I eventually end up using something else to attempt to fill the hole in my life that is formed from the absence of God.

No, I no longer make vows to God about how I will live my life. Today I simply say yes to Him and no to the things that would create distance from Him. One thing, one instance at a time, sometimes failing but remembering that in my weakness He is shown strong, I allow Him to have the control and do the changing within me. I can not fail this way, because it is not me keeping me sober and clean and practicing patience, tolerance and love, but God in me. And when I fall short of perfection, I have not failed. I do not need to do anything better. I simply need to surrender more.

We Have To Stop Running

It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: but I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saying for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

Matthew 5:31-32

I am no expert of marriage. My first wife divorced me long after she every moral, legal, Biblical, you name it kind of right to. I gave her every reason, most of them repeatedly. I am now married to my second wife, and the marriage is amazing and wonderful. But that is not because I am some kind of expert on marriage. It is a blessing that I don't deserve and am very grateful for. I do see how if both people love each other the way God intends couples to love each other and both have turned their will and lives over to the care of God that divorce rates would plummet.

Still, I will repeat that I am no expert on marriage. But while I do believe that Christ was speaking about marriage and divorce here, I don't believe that I am out of line saying that I see it as more than that. Some may say that it is an alcoholic or addict trait, some might say that it is the result of an instant gratification society, but we run to quickly. Obviously if it came up in Christ's sermon on the mount, it's a human thing and has been around for a while. I believe it's about selfishness, and the big book tells me that selfishness and self centeredness is the root of all my troubles.

I am forty years old, a month away from forty-one, and with the exception of photography jobs that I love, I have only once held steady employment for more than a year in one place. Now that I am a felon, I seriously regret my past selfishness in the job field. It might be easier for me to find a good job despite my record and seven and a half years of incarceration if I could show good and steady work history prior to prison. But I can't, and I can't fix that. I won't lie about it. I use to say to myself that I wasn't an alcoholic or an addict because I had never been fired from a job because of alcohol or drugs. But how many jobs did I quit without notice because I was bored or didn't get what I wanted or wanted to go get wasted instead of trudge through the day of work? Too many. How many jobs did I quit because I knew the ax was about to fall, usually because I had taken to many sick days, either to recover from living the life I led or playing hooky so the party could continue through the day? Too many.

My last job lasted much longer than any of it's type had previously. I tried to break the pattern. I stayed long past the point of quitting for selfish reasons or on impulse. I discussed the situation with my employer and told her that I could not allow the situation to happen again and stay. When it did, I had to leave. I was growing resentful and feeling like a doormat. But the truth is that while she was wrong, and there is something good about setting boundaries in recovery and sticking to them, had I been more spiritually fit, I might have been able to stay in the job I had until I found something else. It's much easier to find a job when you have one than it is to find a job while unemployed. The pay is better too.

My point is that years ago I began a pattern of short time employment, leaving with little or no notice to avoid confrontation, because the job wasn't fun, or because I didn't like how I was treated, or for other selfish, addict related reasons. I no longer brag about never being fired, because today I accept the truth that I never stayed anywhere long enough to get to that point. Had I done the job I was hired to do "as unto the Lord," had I stayed and put aside self for what was right and responsible, I wouldn't have ever had most of the worst of my past jobs, because I would have stayed employed at other jobs much longer. I ran. I quit at the first sign of dissatisfaction, discomfort or disharmony. This formed a pattern of behavior, a habit, that I brought into each new job, making it all too easy to do the same thing over again.

I did the same thing in relationships. Jumping quickly from one person to the next in hopes that quantity would make me happy, because I could not stop being selfish enough to have quality in love. You can't really love someone well if you live as a slave to self. I have tried it. It doesn't work.

In relationships, jobs, and more I wanted the fruit without the labor. I wanted to live like nothing mattered but my own instant pleasure but have people accept me and be patient with me as though I deserved more chances than I would ever dream of giving someone else. I wanted escape and pleasure constantly and anything else was unacceptable. When I failed to kill that selfishness and made those feelings and resultant behaviors habits in any situation, whether job, romance, friendship, education, whatever, I doomed it before it began.

I believe this was the principle behind these scriptures in Christ's message. Stop running so fast. Don't bolt from commitment in any area, but especially in relationships, because once you start running it's difficult to stop. I can never be satisfied and content in any area if I am looking for an excuse to try something different, if I believe that I am to have constant gratification without effort, if I am chasing the rush of the new over the fulfillment of faithfulness. What's worse is that when I treat people this way, it bleeds over to my relationship with God.

When I get in the habit of living so quick to bail when the slightest bit is disappointment or dissatisfaction occurs, I destroy my relationship with God. Not happy? Then obviously God is doing what He's supposed to in making my life wonderful. I need to look elsewhere. How about a drink? Feeling sad or depressed or anything negative and didn't feel better five minutes after praying? I guess God doesn't care. I better get high. Didn't get what I asked for? I better make it happen myself, even if it means manipulating, lying, stealing or somehow infringing on someone else. Dissatisfaction couldn't mean I need to sacrifice self. It couldn't mean I need to hit my knees and seek deeper relationship with God until the dry season is over and the rain of His Spirit once again waters my soul. That would mean work. That would take patience and a time of not having exactly what I want when I want.

But relationship is what makes life worth living. First relationship with God. That sets the foundation for everything else. And I can't be jumping from one god to the next searching for instant pleasure and spiritual highs. Then comes relationship with a partner. One man other than Christ had a perfect unhindered relationship with God, and even he needed another person in his life. God said it is not good for man to be alone, and any recovered alcoholic or addict can tell you that isolation is one of the first signs of danger and relapse. We are made to connect and commune with God and others. But relationship with God won't work and neither will relationship with one special someone or any of the other important lesser relationships (relations with children, or parents, or employers, employees, co-workers, teachers, etc.) as long as self says I deserve to have what I want the instant I want it without any form or degree of sacrifice of self or I have the right to discard what I no longer find satisfying and look elsewhere. Living like this kept my a slave for far too long. And after nearly two years of a better way of life, I can honestly say staying is much more satisfying than running in every area.

Willing To Go To Any Lengths?

If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into hell.

Wow that's pretty extreme, and I don't believe that too many people take this literally. After all, I have never walked into a church full of one-eyed, one-armed men. I believe that Jesus was overstating a point to stress just how important the point is. Another such saying is something I hear in the rooms of recovery at almost every meeting I attend. "If you want what we have and are ready to go to any lengths, then you are ready to take certain steps."

We have to be ready and willing. Jesus makes it very clear in the previous verses that the point is not the outer man but our inner minds and hearts. The fact is that my right eye can not make me sin, nor my left eye for that matter. Neither can my hand. Neither of these body parts have a mind of their own. It is my mind and the desires of my heart that manifest through actions I take with my eyes and hands and, more often, my mouth that cause me to act outside of the will of God.

I've heard someone say that they were ready to go to any length to get sober. They would stand on their head in a corner and eat peanut butter if someone told them that's what it would take. That's willingness, but it wouldn't work. Because the only thing that will get and keep a real alcoholic sober is a spiritual awakening and relationship with God. Nothing can be more important than that. Nothing can be allowed to stand in the way. No part of self is too important to sacrifice, because any part of me that I refuse to turn over to the care of God is what will lead to all of me being separated from Him.

My eyes and hands can not cause me to sin, so it would do me no more good to cut them out or off to change my behavior than standing on my head in a corner would change me. But the point remains. If I am going to find a life worth living and a relationship with God worth having, there can be nothing that stands in the way of that. If I can not walk into a convenience store without seeing and wanting to buy alcohol, then I need to stay out of convenience stores, no matter how inconvenient that is to my life. But the truth is that staying out of convenience stores will not keep me sober long. I have to fix the inner spiritual problem. Once I do, the beer aisle in a convenience store will no longer be a problem.

If I can not quit looking at others lustfully and therefore damaging my relationship with God and my relationship with my wife (I find it very interesting that these two verses are grouped with the previous verses on lusting in the heart being the same as adultery) then it would be better for my relationships and spiritual condition if I simply could not see. But that wouldn't last long. The problem is not a physical issue but a spiritual one. Sometimes my imagination works better with my eyes closed, and I don't imagine being blind would keep my mind from imaginations and lust. But if I allow God to make the necessary changes in my heart, I can keep my eyes and not fall into the trap of lust. I can walk with my wife through a liquor store and not find any desire to consume, I can drive down Martin Luther King Blvd. because it is the best route to some destination without being tempted to stop and purchase drugs, etc.

In the short term, when I am simply trying to stop the behavior long enough to fix the problem, i.e. put a cork in the jug and just don't drink or use no matter what, then certain outward changes and sacrifices must be options. I have to be willing to change playground and playmates, I have to be willing to make the physical outward sacrifices that will keep me from access to the outward manifestation of the problem. But if I want true freedom and a life worth living, then those outward sacrifices will never be enough. I have to solve the spiritual problem through conscious contact with God. The good news is that once that is done, as long as I maintain and improve upon that contact, those sacrifices are no longer necessary. There are no friends I can't see today. No store that I can't go into. No wedding reception with an open bar that I have to avoid. I do not have to keep my eyes shut or go blind to solve the problems of lust. I do not have to cut my hand off to keep from picking up a drink or a drug. I just have to give God total access to do what He wants to with and within my heart.

It Matters What You Think

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

Matthew 5:27-28

I continue my exploration on the Sermon On The Mount with two very important verses. They are about much more than adultery. Here once again Jesus is stressing the truth that what I think and dwell on in my mind and heart is more important in the long wrong than how I act outwardly.

I've heard it said in the rooms of recovery "Don't romance the drink." I've fallen into relapse before after a period of this fantasy and imagination. I remembered the past times I perceived as good and selectively forgot the many more bad times that I had due to alcohol and drugs. "Man, it would be so nice if I could just have one drink," I'd say to myself. I thought about the pleasure and enjoyment. I imagined being able to control things this time. Eventually my imagination overrode my knowledge of the truth, insanity returned, and I believed that I could finally drink safely and without losing control. It nearly killed me.

Lust and fantasy of a sexual nature in the past filled many hours of my time. When I lived that way and opportunity presented itself it seemed more like a dream come true and a chance to have some fun than it felt wrong. I cheated.

There are many examples I could use of how planning things in my mind, imagining them, role playing scenarios and fantasy eventually manifested itself in reality. But it really doesn't matter if my will remains strong enough to refuse that.

If my mind is imagining all sorts of sexual things that would not be right or loving and would hurt my wife and others if they were reality, then for the moments that I am engaging in that fantasy I am not loving my wife. How can I radiate love in all that I do and say if I am ignoring and wronging her in my mind? Even if I never allowed the thoughts to manifest in reality I would have done our relationship harm and cost us precious time.

The same with romanticizing the drink and drugs. Even if I never relapse physically and never used again, if my mind was filled with daydreaming of doing just that, I would eventually become consumed with the obsession and desire to use. Regardless of if I did or not, I would not have good sobriety. I would not be happy and joyous and free. I would not have gratitude for my new life. I would be miserable and bitter for not being able to have what I want. I don't know how anyone could feel this way long without drinking or drugging, but even if someone could it's a miserable existence. No thank you.

I could imagine beating up an enemy and fantasize about him being hurt or humiliated without ever stepping up to do anything in reality. But how can I imagine and desire harm for someone in my mind and practice love and forgiveness towards that person at the same time? I can't. And if I harbor those ill feelings about and for someone in my mind and heart I feed the resentment that will eventually poison me, not them. Also when I stay geared up for a fight in my mind, then even in real situations I am on edge, less tolerant, more critical etc. I can not simply live and let live, I can not love as Christ loves, I can not let the little things slide by without reacting. My fear and anger and resentment has control of my thoughts and a piece of my heart. That is a place where God is not on the throne and I have fallen short of the ideal of Step Three, to turn my will and my life over to the care of God. Once that happens, if I don't correct it, my relationship with God will suffer and grow cold and sooner or later I will be looking for something to fill that hole in my life.

One scripture that my pastor father planted often in my mind and heart throughout my youth is Philipians 4:8, which reads, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." I see the importance of this today, even if I did not see it as well at the time. This is why you can't be grateful and hateful at the same time. This is why I can't submerse myself in how grateful I am for my wife and how much I love her and think of someone else. This is why I can't enjoy, be grateful for and praise God for a life worth living and want to return to the life I had before at the same time. It's not possible.

I want to state for the record that I do not believe in the power of positive thinking. I can exhort myself and try to control my thoughts all I want and fail miserably. I have proven this to myself over and over as I returned to the things that I hated myself for doing and yet could not seem to not want to do. But I do believe in the power of God and that there is peace and power with aligning my thoughts and will with His. God says think on things that are true and lovely and have value. When I obey this I don't waste time and energy thinking on the things that take me outside His will, I do not give them a place in my mind in which to dig in set up a fortress of self to fight against the surrender I made to survive. What we think and dwell on does indeed effect us emotionally, mentally and spiritually, as well as eventually manifesting in some form or fashion physically.

Today I see imagining any kind of life where my self is allowed free reign to be dangerous. It means there is a part of me that is fighting God's will and control of my life. If I entertain those thoughts and feed them rather than using them as indication that I need to get rid of self again, I start down the slippery slope of separation from God. If that slide is not stopped, it is only a matter of time before insanity returns and I do something to damage my relationship with God, damage my wife and our relationship. damage my family and friends, damage myself, kill my sobriety and destroy my life. If I wait until the thoughts demand action, I have waited too long and they will have too much momentum and power. I have to control things at the root, in my heart and mind, so that when there is the offer of a drink or drug or a body or whatever it is that is outside of God's will for my life it is something laughable because I have not even flirted with the idea of desiring it. Freedom from obsession only lasts as long as I do not invite it to stay with me in my mind and imagination and as long as my thoughts are directed towards love and service, relationship with God, and the true and the lovely. But if I allow those obsessions safety in my mind then when the opportunity to bring even a piece of them to reality presents itself, it becomes a struggle not to give in.

I am grateful that there is no struggle to stay sober today. I am grateful that there is no struggle to love and remain faithful to my wife. I am grateful that there is no struggle against the idea of quick and easy money through theft or dealing today. I am grateful that I have no desire to fight anyone or anything. The truth in these two verses can give God the power to keep it that way. Because this is the best I have ever had life. I am more content and satisfied than I ever believed possible. I do not want to ever lose that. So today I will guard my heart and my thoughts from vain and foolish imaginations.

Timely Amends Bring Freedom

Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be cast into prison. Verily I say unto you, you shall by no means come out of there, until you have paid the uttermost farthing.
Matthew 5:25 -26


I'm sure that it has to do with my time working the program of recovery, but when I read these two verses, I immediately think of the importance of Step 9, making amends. I want to come to the place in my spiritual journey where my every motivation is love and not fear, but I must admit that fear and love for my self (self preservation) still come into play as of now. When I worked the steps I had a spiritual awakening, and with that awakening came an understanding of things that had kept me locked in a prison of the mind and soul for years before I ever experienced physical prison.

I first had to understand that there was a problem within me that I could not ever fix. I was broken spiritually, which became physically, emotionally and mentally as well. Jesus said that He had come to heal the brokenhearted. I had heard that my whole life, but I never understood how that applied to the brokenness within me. When I realized and came to believe that God did want to restore me because He loves me, it made it possible for me to surrender my life and will to His care. I could never truly submit my will to God's as long as I could not believe in His love for me because I was always afraid that be and do something that I would not enjoy. Seems silly now, but to make sure that I had a way out of demands that I felt would not make my life pleasurable I always kept a bit of myself under my own control when I "surrendered." I came to learn that conditional surrenders don't work for me spiritually.

Turning my life and will over led to an inventory of my life where I could see the patterns and results of self will run riot in myself. I began to really understand that damage I had done to myself, others and the plan God had for my life. I had held onto my own will and control so that I could enjoy life and had spent most of it miserable wishing to die. What insane behavior. I shared this inventory and received an objective look at my life. I saw the area in my life where selfishness and fear kept me out of the will of God and kept me from being of service to God and others. I gave God permission to remove those things that separated me from Him, asked Him to change me.

This process brought me to step eight where I made a list of the people I had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Now making an amends does not mean saying, "I'm sorry." People in the lives of alcoholics and addicts have heard those words enough for them not to mean anything. It means to settle the debt that is owed. An amends makes right my part of what was wrong, to the best of my ability. It involves a true change in my attitudes and behaviors and gives those I have wronged an opportunity for justice. As we hear so often in the rooms of recovery, it means to clean up my side of the street.

Before recovery I seemed to face the things I had done wrong in one of three ways. I blamed others whenever and wherever possible. It was his fault or her fault or if only this or that hadn't happened I never would have.... If I could shift the blame off of myself I didn't have to face my own selfishness. If I couldn't blame others I worked at manipulating emotions and making excuses. If I could get the person I had wronged or the authority in my life that I faced punishment from to forgive me or show mercy then my consequences didn't hurt as much and I didn't really have to change anything. It cost me nothing. This approach is why the words I'm sorry come to mean nothing from the lips of an addict and alcoholic.

Finally, when all else failed, and the guilt of my shame ate at me to the point where I could not bury it, ignore it or numb it any longer, I would face my fault and punishment. But at this point I seemed to actually want to be punished. Punishment eased my feelings of guilt because I could feel that I had paid the price for what I had done. And that meant I didn't really have to change or do anything else to make things right.

That teacher I cussed out didn't really know or care if my parents punished me for what I did to her. The pain and fear I subjected her to by letting my anger, hurt and fear explode onto her life was not lessened or changed in any way by my being grounded or spanked by my father. Yet because I had been punished, I could live as though I owed her no debt and without any attempt at humbly making things right. So never truly acknowledging my part and settling my debt, I could stay angry and resentful about her part in things. And through that unforgiveness I stayed in prison for years. A prison of self, separated from God, and bound by the chains of addiction.

But when I called later and said I know that the way I handled my life and reacted to things was wrong. I know that hurt and scared [you]. I am doing something to change that, and I want to make things right. I accept responsibility for my part and won't even bring up, much less demand satisfaction or restitution for yours, what restitution can I give you? Something amazing happened, I was set free.

Making that list of the people I had harmed and making my side of things right wherever and whenever possible (except when to do so would injure them or others even more) was the point where my words became actions that brought about a lasting change and freedom in my life. I have since tried to save myself from a return to the prison of guilt and shame and fear that I lived in for so long. Today, when I see that I have wronged another, I try to settle things quickly. I admit my part and pay my debt.

Of course, I am not perfect. There are still amends I have not made. There may be even more where God has not yet brought the memory of my wrong to mind so that I know that I need to make an amends. There may be times when selfishness leads to callousness and I don't realize at first that I have damaged someone. But when I do, I try to settle it before it gets too deeply wrapped in the pain and judgement of the person that I wronged and so that I do not sentence myself to the guilt and shame that avoiding looking at myself has caused in my past.

Anger...More From The Sermon On The Mount

You have heard that it was said to your ancestors, you shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment. But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Raqa,’ will be answerable to the Sanhedrin, and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ will be liable to fiery Gehenna. Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Matthew 5:21-24

This is really a continuation of my last entry "The Next Right Thing For The Right Reason." But that could also be said of the rest of the Sermon On The Mount. Jesus made it clear in the verses that were the focus of the last blog that following the rules without love was empty religion and we can't do it well enough to please God, but to love and accept love through relationship brings about an inner change in us that also brings about the fulfillment of the law, which we could never do on our own. He then provides six examples that illustrate the point and show the difference between outward and inner approaches to what is right. Today's verses cover the first of the six examples.

Books and commentaries, even some Bibles, break up each of the six examples as though they were separate topics. I shall do the same, much as I have broken the previous verses in the series starting with the Beatitudes. This does not mean that each of these blocks of scripture are unrelated. It is simply a way of taking a passage of scripture that is a huge a juicy steak and cutting it up into bite size pieces.

I often attend recovery program book studies. There may be six paragraphs in a book used to explain a principle of recovery, but that is usually way to much reading to use as a topic. There is just so much there that it would be difficult to cover it all in a single meeting. So if we take it one paragraph at a time, we can delve into the meaning and individual experience, strength and hope of each part more fully. I write all of this to explain that this is why the verses we assigned to passages of scripture in the first place and why something that is really all one subject is broken down the way it is, but I would encourage the reader and anyone who studies the Sermon On The Mount to not approach these as separate issues. They all go together.

But I am finished explaining today's menu. Let's delve into the bites for today. When it comes to my relationship with God and a spiritual way of life, including and especially dealing with recovery, the verses for today really hold a twofold meaning. Or another way of putting that is that there are two ways I approach understanding these verses and applying them to my life and recovery, and both are important and true.

I will start with the interpretation that is on the surface of my recovery and to ignore it is to quickly risk the return of insanity that tells me to drink and or drug is a good idea. These four verses are sometimes labeled "Teachings On Anger." This is one of the most important issues I had to face in the beginning of my recovery. I was consumed by anger, and I could not stop drinking as long as that was the case.

The Big Book puts it like this on page 66, "If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison."

Anger and resentment will get me killed. I can not go about my days in a fowl mood, irritable and snapping at everything like a dog with rabies for long and maintain my spiritual connection with my Creator. I can not let anger grow into resentment and bear the fruit of hatred and access the power that comes from the love of God working in me and through me. If I find these symptoms appearing in my life I need to address them quickly, pull these weeds from my spiritual garden before they choke out the good seed that has been planted. If I do not, then I will lose my hold on the the truth that I have learned and the power that comes from relationship with God and fall into the abyss of my addictions once again.

Jesus is saying it doesn't matter if you break the law by killing someone physically, if you feed anger against someone in your heart your in just as much danger than if you had drawn a weapon and used it on him. This is definitely my experience. There may be times when my anger towards another did not effect them, since it never manifested in an outward attack. But the damage it did to me spiritually and mentally kept me in bondage for years. Instead of hurting or killing someone who hurt me one time and moving on, mentally I fantasized and imagined and played out hurting or killing that person over and over, whenever something brought the person or incident to the forefront of my memory, sometimes for years. I stayed sick as long as I fed of the poison of this resentment rather than forgiving.

These verses directly address the Fourth and Tenth steps. With the Fourth Step I learn what the anger and resentment in my life has done in the way of damage to myself and others. I see exactly how my chains of addiction were made up of anger and fear. If I was a slave to alcohol and drugs, then Anger was the field boss that whipped me into submission. It doesn't matter if I acted out against the person I was angry at or not, when I harbored resentment, I acted out in many damages ways in almost every relationship and area of my life. I couldn't help it. The poison of hate and anger infused every thought and action I had. I could not live in relationship with God while suffering from the delusion that I had a right to be mad.

Then in the Tenth Step I learned the importance of starting, going through and ending my day pursuing connection with God and examining my spiritual condition. I "continue to take personal inventory, and when [I] am wrong, promptly admit it." Jesus says here that if I am going to spend time with God and enter His presence, then I need to first look at me, and if I have done something to give someone cause to be hurt or angry I need to take care of that, clean up my part in the situation, before I make my offering. I offer myself to God, but if my relationship with others is full of trash I refused to clean up, then my offering is diminished. If I make my amends quickly and forgive, then I can offer myself to my Creator in a state which is much more pleasing for both of us and therefore enhances rather than hinders my relationship.

Throughout His teachings, Jesus made it clear that man deals with and approaches life looking at the surface and outer appearances, but that God cares about and looks at the heart, our motivation. These four verses deal with that as well. I can outwardly obey the letter of the law that says I can't kill someone and yet hate them. I can kill them over and over in my mind. I can even say I hope they die a horrible and painful death, and legally I have done nothing wrong. Following the law can not save me. To live like that, even though I don't break the law, leaves me sick and cut of from God. But when I practice patience, love and tolerance, when I am quick to forgive and refuse to be angry, then resentment has no hold on me. I am free to love even my enemies and those who despitefully use me. Just as God loved me when I gave Him every reason not to, I can love others who don't appear to deserve it. God in me can love in a way that I on my own can not, and that is what leads to life.

The Big Book, also on page 66, puts it this way, "It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feeling we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us to drink is to die."

Very simply, when I hang onto resentment, when I fan the fires of anger in my heart against another, when I cut someone down and allow contempt rather than love to flourish in my heart towards or about that person (calling someone "Raqa" for example, which was an expression of contempt meaning empty headed or vain), when I treat them as though they are of no value to God or man, I cut myself of from the sunlight of the Spirit. I separate myself from God, who says He values us and loves us and that each person on this floating rock in space was fearfully and wonderfully made. To be separated from God is the very definition of hell, and I don't want that in my life. The alcohol and drugs do not work long against the pain of hell. Never mind the afterlife, I want to be free of hell now. Today is the day of salvation, because today I can enter into relationship with God and find there happiness, joy, serenity and freedom.

It's awesome how God shows Himself to me when I seek, how He comes to me right where I am. I have been writing on the Sermon On The Mount every third day since I began with the Beatitudes. This is exactly where the schedule put me this morning. Yet yesterday, I was irritable to the extent that it worried and scared my wife. My anger was boiling just beneath the surface, flaring out at the least little excuse. I am not sure why. But I am sure that during that time, I was not in fellowship with God. I needed to delve into this topic, to be reminded of how dangerous anger is, and to be encouraged to surrender to my Creator in a way that suffocates the flames of anger and resentment and causes love. I started something last month that led me to be writing on the topic I most desperately needed to look at today. God knew where I was and where I would be and guided me to the safety of the truth and principles I needed to see where I was off course and how to get back on. I am so grateful for His guidance and wisdom.

The Next Right Thing For The Right Reason

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven. I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:17-20

When I reached these verses from the Sermon On The Mount, I thought for a short moment that perhaps I should skip this or even go ahead and add the next set of verses and not really address this. After all, there doesn't appear to be a lot on the topic of recovery here. I am a Christian, but the purpose of this blog is recovery. While I find this verse so very important when it comes to my faith, if it is not also important to the topic of recovery, it does not belong here.

But these thoughts quickly passed when I realized just how very true and important to my recovery this is. More than anything else I believe these verses to be about an important distinction in motivation and perception than result. For example, a man is walking down the road and sees another man accidentally drop some money out of his pocket while pulling his cell phone out. Busy with the incoming call, the poor fellow doesn't realize he's dropped the cash and continues to walk down the road. The first man, in a quick act of love, not wanting the second man to feel the hurt of loss and need calls out to him and points out the fallen money. Or another option, the first man, afraid that someone might see him take the money if he keeps it or hoping for recognition of his "righteousness" by the man he helped (and or so he can convince himself of his goodness) calls out to the man and points out the fallen money. The result for the second man is the same, and I doubt he cares much about why he was helped.

The difference for the first man is huge. With the first option the man goes on about his day and either doesn't really think about what happened at all, just feeling good without contemplating why, or he goes through his day feeling grateful to God for the ability to help someone else. If the man is acting from the second option however, he will either go through his day wishing that he had come by just late enough to see the money but not who dropped it so that he could have kept it, and therefore experiences regret and is miserable from doing good, or he will go through his day high on pride from doing right. But if the latter, he will need to tell others about what he did so that they too can see and acknowledge his goodness or he will be miserable. There is a difference, and the program of recovery taught me that. It's not only important to do the next right thing, but I need to do the next right thing for the right reason.

Still, I feel I need to do a better job than that of showing how this applies to recovery. When I first walked into the rooms of recovery, I didn't want to be there. It was a condition of my parole. As I heard my story in the stories of others and came face to face with the truth that even the fear of going back to prison was not enough to keep me from drinking I realized that I was of myself powerless over alcohol and drugs and that I could not control for long how much I used if I used and also could not for long control whether or not I would use. I knew I had to quit, but I couldn't. I couldn't even completely to the core of me want to quit. Seeing what had worked in the lives of others, I surrendered to the idea of working a program of recovery and launched myself into the 12 steps.

But even as I began working the steps, I felt afraid. How was I supposed to go through the rest of my life without a drink? How could I enjoy life if I never again could enhance things from time to time. Sure, watching the Superbowl is fun I thought, but isn't it always more fun with a few beers? And And what of friends? How could I have fun and hang out with my friends if alcohol or drugs never came into the picture? Some of my favorite memories of times with friends was simply sitting around a fire listening to music and drinking and drugging and laughing and joking with buddies. The list of my whining about all that I would lose from life continued, but I will not. I see today how ridiculous the thought process was, and the truth is that I haven't "lost" anything in recovery that I miss. I have gained so much more.

But my motivation at that time was fear. I have to quit or I will end up dead or back in prison. If I want to avoid those two options I must do this, I can not do that, and I have to give up the other. And while I felt that way, I did not have much success traveling the road of recovery. The longest stretch of sobriety I managed was just barely over 30 days. And I was miserable the majority of the time. Then something happened differently. I finally correctly worked my third step and truly, to the best of my ability at the time, completely turned my life and will over to the care of God. That word care is important. Because I did not turn my life and will over to the belief in God, or to the rules of God, or to the religion of God, but to His care. By understanding that simple truth that God cares for me, my spiritual life became about relationship with someone who cares for me rather than that of subject serving a powerful and angry king.

In many places in the scriptures the relationship of marriage is often used as an example of what our relationship with God is to be like. This is hard for some because marriage can suck. I don't know how many times I have seen in movies or tv, read in books or heard in real life someone turn down an invitation to spend some time with their friends and say something like, "I better not today, the wife/husband has been in some bad mood and will kill me if I don't go straight home." The result of that is the person goes home and spends time with the spouse, miserable and resentful that they did not do what they wanted to do in order to keep the peace or because they were afraid. But I have also seen people so in love that their friends couldn't hold them back from spending time with their special person for anything in the world. The surface result is the same. But the difference is amazing. That person has a wonderful evening being exactly where they want to be with exactly who they want to be with. And as someone who regularly feels that desire to be back with my wife whenever we are separated for more than a few minutes for any reason, I can testify that wanting to be with her and being motivated to spend time together out of love is a wonderful feeling. I do not feel like I have given up or lost anything by devoting my life to loving and spending time with my wife. I have gained more than I can express.

Spirituality and recovery are the same. In order to work the steps and recover from a hopeless state of mind and body and to be free from the obsession to drink and drug, I must find and maintain a spiritual connection with the Power of the Universe, the Great Designer, God. I do not have the power to fill the needs in my life without assistance. I am either going to find that assistance in God or in drink and drug. My past experience has proved this time and time again. But if I sigh and say ok I guess I need to get right with God so I can have this connection and find stability and power, so that means I need to believe this, and I need to do that, and I can't do this, and blah blah. I find myself trying to do what is right not to please God but rather just not to make Him mad or run Him off. I begin trying to have relationship with my Creator based on what I am able to do that He demands, and I fail repeatedly. Sooner or later, I realize I can't please Him, and I'm not happy trying. So rather than fail at everything, I might as well do what I want and maybe then I can be happy. It's not like I can please God anyway.

But when I realize God cares for me and respond to that care out of love, everything changes. Well, not everything. I still can not please God. I can not do anything perfectly enough to deserve to hang out with someone who is perfect. But because He cares for me, I don't have to be perfect. I can have relationship rather than perfection. It's much better and much easier. Instead of going through my day restrained by what I can and can't do, I can forget those things and go about my day spending time with my Spiritual Lover. I can just hang out and walk with the lover of my soul and love in return. Then something amazing happens.

I am blessed to be married to someone who shares my soul. We share so much, and often can speak aloud what the other is thinking before they can. This happens with God too. As I spend time with Him out of love, I find myself more often thinking like Him, responding to others out of love as He would, and so on. As I strengthen my connection to my Creator through love and relationship I am not bound by what I have to do and can't do, instead I am infused with His very essence and am free to do what I want to do. It's just that my want to do becomes what He wants to do. And that desire to do what God would do out of love opens me up to receive His power to do what I am not capable of doing, mainly not being a selfish twit.

My faith does not free me from the rights and wrongs of religion. I still have to do the next right thing. It doesn't do away with doing what's right but instead gives me joy in doing what's right and gives me the power to do it. Today, I do not have to face a life where I can never have a drink again. Today I get to live a life where I don't have to drink or drug again, a life I can love to be alive in without wanting to drink or drug. That freedom gives me joy in not using. The law is still there. The law of my past proves that I can not drink or drug with impunity. I can't drink or drug without destruction. Spirituality did not free me from that law, it fulfilled it in me.

When I tried to stop using by following rules and being disciplined and through will power I failed. I tried to keep the law on my own power, and since I was powerless there was only one result that was possible. I drank and drugged and beat myself up and felt sorry for myself for failing which gave me reason to drink and drug some more. I changed my people, places and things. I avoided triggers from my past. I stayed away from drugs and alcohol, and places and people that sold them. I read what I was supposed to read. I went to meetings. I talked to advisers, and tried to help others. And I drank and drugged.

Then I forgot about religion and the rules and sought relationship with God by working the steps. I found myself changing my people, places and things because I lost my desire to do what I used to do and with whom rather than because anyone told me I had to. I no longer wanted to drink or drug, so I found myself free to go wherever I needed or wanted to go, regardless of whether or not people would be drinking. I read what I had been reading but because I wanted to understand not because someone told me I had to. I went to meetings and helped others because I wanted to show my gratitude to God for what He had done for me by giving it away. My motivation changed and what I repeatedly failed at through my will became fulfilled by surrendering to His. I have recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body and am free of the obsession to drink and drug.

Jesus was saying this in the verses at the beginning. He said I didn't come so that people wouldn't do what is right anymore. What's right is still mandatory. But unlike the religious and the self-righteous, you don't have to be bound by what's right and motivated by fear of negative consequences in the event of failure. Instead relationship with Me can fill you with such love for what is right that you'll be able to do the next right thing, you'll be able to walk in love to God and others, and you'll enjoy it. It won't feel like rules and regulations and deprivation, but instead will feel like freedom, joy and serenity.