Hey Partners & Friends,
Sometimes I’d like to blame the boss, my parents, circumstances, God, the devil, somebody! Who or what do you blame? The truth is “People ruin their lives by their own stupidity!” At least that’s what the Bible says. (PRO 19:3 MSG) Now that’s a revelation! Surely our problems aren’t due to our own stupidity, are they? Yep, as a matter of fact many of them are, not all of course but many.
This is an aspect of recovery that Celebrate Recovery addresses. How many of us have experienced God’s miraculous grace and intervention in our lives only to shoot ourselves in the foot. We have enough to deal with, the devil, people and this fallen world, to continually sabotage ourselves. We have habitual thinking patterns, behaviors and cycles that literally drive us right back into the thing that is eating our lunch. Stupidity!
Celebrate Recovery approaches the above dilemma head on. The bible tells us how to get past our own stupidity. “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.” Lam 3:40 If we really do this the CR way, Step 4. We make a searching and fearless moral or (honest) inventoryof ourselves. We look at ourselves, no one else. We are the ones who are screwing up our lives by doing the same things over and over again! It’s time to stop it! How do we do it? What are we looking for anyway, what are we examining. We literally take an inventory of our lives, the good, the bad, the ugly. Examining our ways, like looking at them under a magnifying glass or a microscope. Digging into our own lives, searching, looking for everythingwe can find, like a treasure hunter. Some of the things we find have significant value, they are treasures, treasures that bring richness into our lives. Freedom from repeating the cycles of the past!
Jesus said “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field,,,” MT 13:44
We must look for it, and the good stuff isn’t just laying on the top of the ground. We desperately need to examine our ways like a person in search of a treasure. This is how the bible puts it,
“Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver,
seek them like hidden treasures.” Pro 2:3-4
seek them like hidden treasures.” Pro 2:3-4
The Message says it like this,
“Tune your ears to the world of Wisdom; set your heart on a life of Understanding.
That’s right—if you make Insight your priority, and won’t take no for an answer,
Searching for it like a prospector panning for gold, like an adventurer on a treasure hunt,
Believe me, before you know it Fear-of-God will be yours; you’ll have come upon the Knowledge of God.”
That’s right—if you make Insight your priority, and won’t take no for an answer,
Searching for it like a prospector panning for gold, like an adventurer on a treasure hunt,
Believe me, before you know it Fear-of-God will be yours; you’ll have come upon the Knowledge of God.”
Sounds like a promise that if we examine and test our ways, search the fields of our lives we are guaranteed to find treasure beyond our dreams.
Wisdom, understanding, insight to you all!
Jim & Pam