Every Choice a Crossroad

The devotion Our Daily Bread focused on this verse this morning:

¹⁹ This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live ²⁰ and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life… (Deuteronomy 30:19-20, NIV)

 

Every choice is a crossroad, an opportunity for compromise that leads to judgment or for integrity that leads to the abundant life God bought for us with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. All spirit and nature testify against us that we have chosen poorly since the seed of our race fell in Eden. There is no room for middle ground. I cannot be partially alive and fully in God’s will. This means that every choice I make comes with its own litmus test: will this bring life, light, and good; or death, darkness, and evil? The lie that everything is acceptable in moderation is one straight from the tombs of darkness. I choose to abstain from the things of death and darkness, and choose life instead!

John 10:10; John 3:16; Genesis 3:6; Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:33; John 14:6; 1 Peter 5:8

 

In my NT in a Year reading, I got this confirmation of my new mission:

² and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. (Luke 9:2, NRSV)

 

Dear Father, today, as I offer my life, my day, my resources, my very being to You, empower me to do Your will, never mine. Forgive me when I snatch back my will and greedily act out of selfishness and vain fear. I lay down my carnal self before You again and ask that You replace it with my daily portion of Your Spirit, that I might not sin against You or Your children. Cause me to be useful in Your hands today, precious Lord. Make me shine with Your love that others may know You.

Body, Soul, and Spirit – I Choose Alignment with God

Dear sponsor,

In preparation for our overseas travel April 15^th I had to change my plan of eating yesterday from four meals to three to accommodate an oral Typhoid fever vaccination which must be taken on an empty stomach. I will have to do this again tomorrow and Tuesday. Yesterday I did this by adding a couple higher-calorie healthy foods to my third meal. I put an ounce of walnuts and a serving of unsweetened Shredded Wheat N’ Bran on my dinner salad. In future occurrences, I plan to spread the calories of the fourth meal into the other three more evenly. This requirement was made of me at the health clinic where we got our vaccinations caught up yesterday. We are very excited about traveling to Africa!

 

 When Jesus heard this, he replied, “Do not fear. Only believe, and she will be saved.” (Luke 8:50, NRSV)

In today’s New Testament in a Year reading, I read the accounts of three miracles which all give some insight into the spiritual reality of man and this dark world. In the account of the demoniac known as Legion, I read of a man who was tormented such that everything in him possessed him to the exclusion of himself, his sanity, his physical well-being and self-care, and even his motor control. The story gives me more questions than answers, as I wonder why the pigs into which the “legion” of demons was cast immediately suicided themselves in the lake and why the demons would prefer that to “the abyss” into which they begged Jesus not to send them. Two things I learn from this: evil spirits are real and they have personalities, struggling to get what they want and to use man as their tool if they are able; and Jesus has authority over all of them, and they submit to Him even when He is casting them to their doom. On a side note, Jesus willingly allowed them to escape this “abyss” for a time, and granted their wish to go instead into the herd of pigs. This holds promise, because they and we know that the eternal condemnation of all evil is yet to come.

 

In the account of the hemophiliac, I read that the faith of the woman in the power of Jesus cured her rather than the will, words, or touch of Jesus Himself. When He asked, “Who touched me?” He announced that He didn’t know, but that He was cognizant of the fact that power had gone out from Him. There is power in those spiritual principles! God’s price for eternal, abundant life has been paid. It is ours to avail ourselves of it if we have the faith to receive it.

⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5, NIV)

 

Jairus’ plea and his daughter’s resurrection gives us a type by which we redeemed are also dead in the flesh and raised to walk in newness of life, but I read of a spiritual principle when I saw the words, “Her spirit returned”. The dead girl was without spirit. She wasn’t carrying a dead spirit, she was altogether without one. It had gone from her and was somewhere else. The Bible shows that, before Jesus conquered death, the spirits of the deceased took rest in a dark place of sleep, referred to as “the pit,” “the grave” or just “death.” This underworld of quiet rest was referred to in the original Hebrew as “Sheol” and in Greek as “Hades” and is not to be confused with Hell, (Greek: Tartarus, Hebrew: Gehenna), the place of eternal torment. The New Testament teachings indicate a different order – of being at home with the Lord when absent from the body (Philippians 1:23-24). There is what seems, on first reading, like a bit of a conflict when one reads of the dead in Christ rising on the last day (1 Thessalonians 4:16). It leads me to believe that the difference is one of soul and spirit (Hebrews 4:12). While one or the other sleeps at rest until the Day of the Lord, the other is with Him in paradise, as the thief on the cross was promised (Luke 23:43).

 

Whether in spirit (life energy, breath of life), soul (mind, will, and emotions) or in body (the tent that will be transformed from flesh into heavenly likeness), we are able to enjoy togetherness with God when we practice it now, aligning all three with Him and His will in ever-increasing measure and be transformed into His spiritual likeness (2 Corinthians 3:18).

 

Dear Father, today, I recognize that I am occupying a dark world that is not my home, but that You are King over all, even that prince of darkness who has limited rein in this age. I submit to You, Lord, and ask that You use me as an agent of Your will here on Earth. Bring about Your will for me, even as I am used to bring about Your will in the lives of those around me. Keep me from harm while I am employed in Your service, that I may be of better use to You and my fellows. Give me this day my daily supply, and protect me from evil, both from the spiritual attacks of the powers of darkness and from the deplorable rule of self in my mind. Help me live in Your liberty, and accept the gift of my voluntary service to You.

Emerging from a Deep Darkness

Saturday I mentioned my lack of self-esteem, but what I didn’t do was describe how miserably low it was in the first place.  My first sponsor rightly concluded that I was “an ego-maniac with an inferiority complex” which was obviously demonstrated by my constant insistence on having my way and my annoying tendency to squash the way and will of anyone else, all the while insisting that I was too inferior ever to actually have my way.  So dim was my view of myself that I despised anybody who loved me, including friends, wife, parents and even God.   I had convicted as guilty each one of them for the ultimate crime of loving the unlovable, for being so dense as to find worthiness where I had proven, I thought, there was no worth.  When folks parroted the popular adage, “God makes no junk,” I silently protested that I was certainly the exception.  As the songs were sung that spoke of loving oneself, I objected, considering that loving oneself must certainly be overrated as an imperative, since I certainly did not and seemed to be getting along so well.  Like Satan is apt to do, he even used a few well twisted Scriptures, memories of sermons, and verses of hymns to convince me I was in the right for despising “such a worm as I.”  My mental tapes certainly played such a hateful song of self-loathing, that any insinuation that a Savior loved me was scorned as trite blabbings of the senseless over-religious, who, you might imagine, I also secretly despised, even while trying to outdo them.

I admit these thoughts and feelings today, not to berate myself again, but to reach the one(s) who may be feeling this way right now.  As I said Saturday, I have learned, and am learning, to apply God’s esteem where my lack of it had been, just as I seek God’s will rather than my own.  You see, I came to acknowledge that, though my view of myself was dimmed by the lie of Satan that I did not matter, I had placed my own opinion over that of my Creator, which is nothing short of idolatry in itself.  It was as though I tried to trump God’s sovereign decree with the counterfeit one the deceiver and I had concocted in my darkened mind.  Clouded with shame, guilt, and despair the Savior had already died to remove, I was blind to the reality that God’s grace had already met me, I had just failed to truly accept it.  I had limited God’s access to me just as I had limited my willingness to let go of food’s dominion over me.

“You have not failed me, my son!”  God said to me through a messenger one day, and confirmed it through the Scriptures repeatedly.  Deception fails to stand up as true.  Substance and misbehavior fails as a higher power.  Addiction fails as a pattern for life.  Food fails as a master, though falling under its lash seems convincing to the enslaved.  The failure was not mine, it was in the things in which I had put my trust.  God did not despise me as I despised myself.  He knew the disease, the sinful nature of the flesh, was inherited from my ancestors, Adam and Eve.  His was but a longing to see the Remedy applied.  He patiently waited for me to recognize I was in need of a Remedy.  He brought me the reality of His Remedy through the Twelve Steps:

1. (I) admitted (I was) powerless over food; that (my life) had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than (myself) could restore (me) to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn (my) will and (my life) over to the power of God as (I) understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of (myself).
5. Admitted to God, to (myself) and to another human being the exact nature of (my) wrongs.
6. Became entirely willing to let God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove my shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons (I) 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 (I was) wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought, through prayer and meditation, to improve (my) conscious contact with God, as I understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for (me) and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, (I) tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters, and to practice these principles in all (my) affairs.  _{(adapted from the Twelve Steps of Overeaters Anonymous)}

 

As the principles embodied in these Twelve Steps brought the faith I already knew alive in the darkness my life had been, a light dawned and the darkness began to vanish.  The people around me were no longer obstacles, but fellow-sufferers, many of whom had been glowing for some time with the same light I now had in me, and who, it appeared, were as happy to see me emerge from my darkness as I was to leave it.  I found a fellowship of light that I could not have detected before, and I became aware that many still walk in darkness even among the light, just as I had done.  I began to ache for the darkened about me and saw the urgency of Step Twelve, not only for compulsive overeaters, but for the spiritually sick, injured, or dead whose symptoms take any form.  So I continue to take personal inventory, always keeping aware of the condition of the light within me, vigilantly tending its wick and fuel, and trusting God for its flame.  I posture myself for relationship, seeking God’s will, and His power to do it.  Very often, it is for me to shine on a soul near me, not to draw attention to this fallible candle, but to the One who is the Light, my Higher Power, Jesus Christ.

Dear Father, today, speak life through these words, and make Your light catch fire in a darkened soul who needs You.  Thank You for finding a way to use me in Your plan for those who might need and read this humble collection of words.  Move mightily and draw Yours to You, in Jesus’ name.  Amen!

From Darkness to Light

Today’s meditation from Our Daily Bread contained a reference to the following, which I found most instructive for one recovering from addiction:

¹¹ And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. ¹² The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. ¹³ Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. ¹⁴ But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.   (Romans 13:11-14, NKJV)

Do we still make provision for the flesh?  Do we plan to cheat or to substitute one indulgence for the one from which we have declared abstinence?  Does an alcoholic who really wishes to recovery hide a brandy in his footlocker?  No!  We make no provision for the flesh, and what’s more we are continually on alert, inventorying self for harms we do and lusts we have not yet acknowledged, promptly admitting those wrongs and addressing them as thoroughly and as urgently as we did our laundry list from Steps Four and Eight.  The time of darkness has ended for those of us who cast it off in preference for the light.  Praise be to the Father of lights, the only One who can dispel the darkness!

 

Dear Father, today, help me live in Your light and to drive out all the darkness the attempts to remain in me.  Show me where it hides and root it out completely, that all of me would give way to the glory of Your righteousness, the only light I know.

Born into Darkness, Changed by Grace, Growing in Light

Abstinent Today:

I am a gratefully recovering compulsive overeater, abstinent by the grace of God one more* day at a time.  †

Today, my youngest child, my son, turns twenty-one.  He is out on his own and seems to be thriving, with a home, a job, a steady girlfriend, and a circle of Christian friends.  He makes some youthful mistakes, but overall, I am proud of him.

 

From today’s entry in Voices of Recovery:

“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.” — Herman Hesse as quoted in For Today, p. 158

If “hate” is too strong a word for you, like I pretended it was for me when I first read this, then try some of these phrases I bet you already use: “rubs me the wrong way,” “don’t like,” “can’t stand,” “irks me,” “makes me sick,” “annoys the stew out of me.”  Now when we apply the principle of the statement we find that there are lots of little mirrors of our character defects we never acknowledged walking around us every day.  Every instance of judgment and ill-will represents some failure in me to be the conduit of grace I am supposed to be.  It’s like trying to be a pitcher while I’m filled with rocks.  Those resentments keep me from accepting as much, so I have less to pour out.  If I constantly ask God to reveal and remove my shortcomings, the annoyances become flares that increase my awareness, and draw my attention to the next item for the character chopping block.

God, clean me out so that I can be as useful a tool as I can be in Your hands.  Keep me alert to defects that I need to surrender to You, and aware of barriers that block relationship between You and me and between me and others.

 

From Proverbs 22, NIV:

⁶ Start children off on the way they should go,
and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

I started to doubt myself last night as my daughter described the set of alcoholic beverages she purchased for her brother’s 21^st birthday and as I mulled over the plans Junior had to go to a cigar bar with his buddies that conflicted with our attempts to get together for a birthday dinner.  These two indulgences, alcohol and nicotine, to which I was bound for much of my life, robbed me of a lot of joy, and it hurts to see my children toy with them in such a nonchalant fashion.  My precious bride reminded me that “when they are old they will not turn from it” but that while they are adolescents they will try their boundaries.  I hope I have impressed upon them the importance of passionately following God’s Spirit, and not just abstaining from self-indulgent desires.  It does not appear that I have done such a good job, but then again, maybe the seeds I have planted just haven’t sprouted to full bloom yet.

God, I thank You for deliverance from nicotine, alcohol, and now sugar and overeating.  Please protect my children from evil, and keep them from being ensnared by self-indulgence.  Break the generational curses that predispose them to addiction, in Jesus’ name, and deliver them to supernatural vitality by Your Spirit.  Amen!

 

From my reading through the Bible, currently in 1 John 1, NIV:

⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all^[Or every] sin.

John is the author who often writes in the poetic terms of light and dark, and with them draws a significant word picture of a very real spiritual truth.  Often, those without the Spirit describe their experiences as “stumbling about” or “aimlessly wandering” with no hope or direction, very much like one would expect in total darkness.  I have lived most of my life as one content to sit in darkness and yet claim knowledge of the light, not realizing that what I was in was darkness.  Verse 6 describes such a life as a lie.  Part of me may have known I was living a lie, but most of me just medicated myself numb to that realization, as I have described before, with any number of substances and maladaptive behaviors, not the least of which was rage.  I should have known that I was outside the light.  There are other passages that clearly define the life I was living as darkness, for instance Galatians 5 lists the acts of the flesh before the list of the fruit of the Spirit.  I was living in many of them all while claiming to be a child of the Spirit.  Embarassing!

Heavenly Father, who is the Good Gardener, weed out all of me that offends You and cultivate a crop of Your Spiritual fruit, so that You are glorified in my living, and so that I may be at home with You even after I pass from this world into Your presence.  May the blood of Your son which has purchased  my forgiveness now cleanse me from all unrighteousness, and grow me up in Your abundant life, a fragrant and attractive crop.

 

From the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous, pages 98 and 99:

_{(Ooops!  Yesterday’s post attributed the BB quote to “On His Way” but was actually from page 84. When I was wrong, I promptly admitted it.)}

Argument and fault-finding are to be avoided like the plague. In many homes this is a difficult thing to do, but it must be done if any results are to be expected. If persisted in for a few months, the effect on a man’s family is sure to be great. The most incompatible people discover they have a basis upon which they can meet. Little by little the family may see their own defects and admit them. These can then be discussed in an atmosphere of helpfulness and friendliness.

_Footnotes:

_{*Abstinence began for me on May 11th, 2010.}

_{† For the sake of accountability, the details of my eating are posted in my online food log.}