I have a problem. But I don’t think it’s a problem. Or if I have any sort of gut feeling it’s a situation in my life that is not right, I tend to gloss over it. I find a new veneer to cover it. I rationalize it. BAM! Now it’s not a problem anymore. It was so easy to “get rid” of it, that it doesn’t even register as ever being a problem. If it was that easy to deal with, maybe God made me that way and I should even embrace it as part of His grand plan for my life.

They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.
Jeremiah 6:14

I have placed a band-aid over an amputation.

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“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
Isaiah 54:10

No matter how well we stand, no matter how clumsily we stumble, no matter how disgracefully we fall, His unfailing love for us will not be shaken. His promise of peace is ours, never to be removed.

Wow. Just WOW.

Yet…

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One of the hallmarks of my addictive personality is the myth that “if a little is good, a lot is better.” How have I, in my past, shown that to be a foundational belief system? Let me count the ways: Read the rest of this entry »

Before beginning watch this video. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Isn’t it a perfect illustration of this verse?

Hebrews 12:1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

This is not just a recovery principle. This is a step to spiritual maturity. We all have been entangled in something. Most of us “PC’s” (Perfect Christians) are hindered in some way. But we are drawn to this place because we know that it’s time to throw off these things. Maybe you are at a crisis point in your life like the girl in the video. Maybe it’s time to throw down and run toward Him who has called you.

Maybe, like me, you think that you are beyond hope. Maybe you think that nothing or no one can “fix” you. Maybe you think that the things you’ve done in your life or the circumstances that you have faced are insurmountable…

Well, in a way, you are right. Bear with me here though. OK?

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When I first heard that my church had a Celebrate Recovery ministry, I immediately came to two conclusions:

• It was a program for “Those People.”
• Even if I did need the help, nothing/no one could fix me. I was beyond all hope.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. Tomorrow I’ll write about the second point, but today let’s look at the first.

Why is there such a stigma attached to the word “recovery?” I used to think that was a shameful thing, to be in recovery. That only a certain type would find themselves there. Those People, who couldn’t find a way to live without the very things that were destroying them. Read the rest of this entry »