Today:

I am a recovering compulsive overeater, abstinent by the grace of God one more day at a time.  For details, check out my food journal.

 

 

 

From today’s entry in Voices of Recovery:

“It is weakness, not strength, that binds us to each other and to a Higher Power, and somehow gives us an ability to do what we cannot do alone.” — Overeaters Anonymous, Second Edition, p. 5

 

A nice big, sturdy lifeboat might just as well be welded to the deck of its host ship if just one of us were trying to move it on a calm, serene day.  That same imposing vessel would lift like a leaf on a breeze if there was a breech in the ship’s hull and a hundred more passengers, fueled by desperation, joined in the pushing.  In weakness, a group is strong because the need for the strength of the group is made known and the group finds a way to connect together in a unity of purpose.  When an individual is strong, the group is divided by that strength and the sense of competition that accompanies it.  The Creator has made the multitude of us with varying needs and a colorful palette of skills to meet them so that we can learn together to share one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2).  “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people.” (Galatians 6:10)

 

 

From Proverbs 29:

“20 Do you see a man who speaks in haste?
There is more hope for a fool than for him.”

 

I’m getting common themes in my studies lately.  Most have to do with regeneration or transformation of body, mind and spirit, the whole unity of my being, by connection with the Spirit of God.  One thing that keeps popping up is this business about controlling the tongue.  Hasty speech is one of my character defects, and I am entirely willing to let God remove it.   I know that sarcasm is a ruthless expression of anger flowing out of fear of inadequacy or competition for attention, and that it has outlived its usefulness, as I have dropped out of that kind of competition and no longer have that fear.  It’s time to clean up the language.

 

Today’s sermon contained a tidbit I did not know: the word “religion” in its original Latin means to bind or connect.  It is the same word from which we get the word “ligament,” the descriptor of the connective tissue between bones.  As such, it doesn’t really have the negative inference implied by modern society which seems to view “organized religion” as an evil.  Any connectedness without organization or plan would be about as beneficial as a mound of tangled ropes.  I had a thought about the popular phrase “spiritual, not religious” and considered that this statement, which I myself have even employed, bore the same perverted sentiment as the abhorrent concept of “friends with benefits,” suggesting a version of intimacy without relationship or commitment.  Unacceptable!  I want to be connected to my Higher Power, Jesus Christ, more committed to Him than to my own self.

 

The reason I bring this up now is because I read a statement in James that relates these two concepts.  James said, “If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.”  (James 1:26)  The kind of connection I want is worth reining in my tongue!

 

Dear Father, today, may the words of my tongue be sweet and not bitter, ever reflecting the heart within, which I offer now to You, to transform by Your power and grace.

 

 

 

From my reading through the Bible, currently in Psalm 53:

 

Psalm 53:3 has the same tone of Isaiah 53 when David’s song says, “3 Everyone has turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”  One can feel a sense of the remorse the Creator might experience to recognize that what He made “very good” according to Genesis 1:31, had gone very wrong.  Something mysterious is contained in verse 5.  It feels like the connection I learned about this morning has relevance to the scattered bones of the enemies described in the text.  Also, there is a strange change of address, like David is speaking to God, to Israel or the audience in general, and to someone else who connects them.

 

“5 There they were, overwhelmed with dread,
where there was nothing to dread.
God scattered the bones of those who attacked you;
you put them to shame, for God despised them.”

 

The “you” was attacked, and the same “you” put the attackers to shame on God’s account.  The “they” is clear: it is the rebellious evildoer, according to the previous verses.   Scattered bones lack the thing that holds them together: ligaments – that is Latin re-ligio, or in English, “religion,” a spiritual connection.  Ezekiel prophesied about dry, dead bones being reassembled and revived in Ezekiel 37, and I cannot help but feel as though that story revealed something about the spirit-soul-body regeneration I am experiencing related to my recovery.  God is the Re-connector, Re-framer, Re-builder, Re-coverer, and Re-kindler of my whole being.  He brings my dry and dusty bones out of the valley of dread and breathes into me new spirit-life, and I am glad to be in connection with Him!

 

Ironically, I began to realize I was powerless over food and that my life had become unmanageable (Step One) when one of my knee ligaments tore under my body weight.  That event dropped the green flag on the recovery I enjoy today.  Since then, I have become the beneficiary of a donated ligament, a gift from a person who no longer had need of their mortal body.  That sinew was given new life in my knee, and God has used that dead tissue to give my body new vitality.  Thank You, God, for allowing me to be gently torn so that I could have this renewal experience!

 

God gives life.  Jesus came that we might have life, and have it to the fullest. (John 10:10)  He demonstrated by His death that you and I are worth dying for.  Not just the death of some human or pawn, but of the Master of the Universe!  Who are we to object and act as though we aren’t worth diligently working a recovery program or putting down our addictive substance of choice?

 

 

From The “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous, “There is a Solution” page 28:

“A new life has been given us or, if you prefer, ‘a design for living’ that really works.”

 

 

OD@aT:

“Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.”  3 John 2