Choices

Twelve Steps to a Better Holiday Season

1. We admitted that Thanksgiving and Christmas have a deeper meaning than drinking, drugging and overeating.

2. We came to believe that God, a power greater than ourselves, could help us see and celebrate the true meaning of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

3. We came to believe that God could help us appreciate the joyfulness of the season as intended by Him.

4. We made a searching and thorough examination of our relationship with our addictions, obsessions and overindulgences during the holidays.

5. We admitted to God the exact nature of our addictive habits and overindulgences during holiday seasons past.

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Love the Person You Are and Hate the Person You’ve Been

Did you know that love is a choice? We choose to love or not to love. It’s that simple. But I believe the non-loving choice is not our “true selves.” The non-loving self is absorbed in anger, judgment, resentment, and all kinds of things that we allow to control how we love.

We haven’t let go of past hurts. These hurts control who we are and how we react to people around us. The bottle controls an alcoholic and a hurting person is controlled by resentment.

My husband used to tell me, “I love you, but I don’t love the disease.” What he meant was that he loved me for who I really was, not the alcoholic.

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What Shall I Bring?

Deuteronomy 16:13-17 NIV
Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your Feast–you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites, the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns. For seven days celebrate the Feast to the LORD your God at the place the LORD will choose. For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the LORD empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the LORD your God has blessed you.

Though the above Scripture refers to the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Feast of Weeks, these are not what I was thinking about when I came before my Lord today. In fact, it was not even the Thanksgiving Holiday that so many of my American friends are celebrating today. Truly, it is Christmas ~ the Season that is on so many of our minds despite the fact that we do not celebrate its Eve for another month from today. Why am I thinking about this today? And why did I choose this Scripture on these Feasts to talk about Christmas?

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Obtaining the Warrior Spirit

“…and that’s when I became a warrior!”

I recently caught this statement trending on social media. It’s no surprise why it has caught on. With so much suffering in the world, taking on a fighting perspective can be empowering.

No matter what we’ve experienced in our lives, God has placed within each of us a warrior spirit. He knows full well of our challenges, setbacks, relapses, pain and loss. He also knows of our mighty purpose as well.

And it is precisely that reason why the warrior emerges. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” It’s that kind of thing which attaches itself to our every breath. It’s that thing which does not give up, no matter how many times we feel we cannot go on.

Whatever you have survived in your life – loss, trauma, addiction, abuse, extraordinary pain- God wants you to do something with it, in spite of it.

Open thy mouth for the dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction.
Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31:8-9

He wants to turn those ashes into beauty (Isaiah 61:1-3).

But He doesn’t stop there. He doesn’t just want you to fight for fighting’s sake. He wants to give you the Victory as well!

But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:57

God wants you to experience overcoming that enemy. He didn’t say it would be easy, instant or painless. But He has assured us that Victory is ours.

For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. 1 John 5:4

And that is often what awakens the warrior within us, often, without our own awareness. Some call it “instinct.” But again, it’s “that thing” which keeps going when everything and everyone else tells us to give up. It’s God given.

And because it is God given,

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Peer Pressure & Sin

In Haggai 2:12-19, God drives home a very telling point to the prophet. If we place an unclean thing together with a clean one, the cleanness of the latter will not rub off onto the former. If I rub my dirty and ink-stained hands on a clean towel, the cleanness of the towel will not rub off onto my hands: rather it is dirt that is transferred, and the towel becomes dirty.

By this means the Lord made clear to Haggai and Judah that sin is contagious, but righteousness is not. We are not Christians simply because we belong to a good church, a good family, or a fine community. Moreover, a good profession of faith does not make us holy or godly.

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What Measures You?

I once came across an image of two little girls looking down at a bathroom scale. This was the caption:
“Don’t step on it. It makes you cry.”

Troubling.

Indeed, as a child, I had my own painful association it. There was once a time when I only saw a weird square in our bathroom. I didn’t give it much attention; I was more interested in the blue windmill stencil designs lining the tub and my rubber ducky. It was just a square, taking up space.

However, suddenly, Mom placed me on this square – and I became conscious of what I weighed. Apparently, it wasn’t a good digit as, with more frequency, I needed to get on this square. Now, suddenly, I had a “weight problem.”

And ever since, I no longer see just a square.

Throughout my childhood and adolescence, it dictated my worth, which was never good enough, always too big and always too heavy.

That drove me to eating disorders, with the hope as I became more punishing of myself, more “dedicated,” well, then my two-digit weight as a young adult would mean triumph. It, however, never really did become that reality, of course. Because, I could always lose more weight and somehow, magically, “be better.”

On and on and on I went, into my own hell…

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Seizing the Gospel of Grace for Yourself

This maybe one of our most daunting challenges; to daily apprehend through faith, the gospel of grace for yourself and others aggressively.

“Aggressively” literally means it will be marked by obtrusive energy and will be strong in effect and intention. Wow! Too daily apprehend through faith, grace strongly and intentionally toward ourselves and others.

Instead, most are passive about their daily faith in the gospel of grace. Whatever will be will be? No! May it never be!

Your salvation is not a reward for good behavior! It was a grace thing from start to finish; you had no hand in it. Even the gift to believe simply reflects His faith! Ephesians 2:8 (Mirror)

You did not invent faith; it was God’s faith to begin with!

It is from faith to faith. Romans 1:17 (Mirror)

He is both the source and conclusion of faith. Hebrews 12:2 (Mirror)

This aggressive grace journey progresses in/by a “mind shift” away from re-penance (faith in the law) to (faith in grace).

“The word ‘repentance’ is a fabricated word from the Latin, penance, and to even give it more ‘religious’ mileage, the English rendering became re-penance!” ~Francois du Toit

That is not what the Greek word means at all! The true word that sets the journey of grace, by faith in motion is “Metanoia.” This comes from (meta) – meaning together with, and (nous) – meaning to mind together with God’s mind; continuously perpetuated by a “radical mind-shift.”

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Anger: Keeping Things in Perspective

Those with good sense are slow to anger,
and it is their glory to overlook an offense. Proverbs 19:11


We get angry over a lot of things. To be honest, Americans as a society are pretty angry. Perhaps it stems from our idea of “rights.” We believe (and expect) that certain things are due us, that our lives should include the ability to choose and have and do (sometimes even without consequence). When those expectations are denied, we get angry.

It’s also a form of control. Here in America (and in other countries), we have come to believe that we control our own destiny. We choose the vocation or profession or job we will have. We choose where to live, who to marry, how many children we will have (aborting the rest). We choose when we will work and when we will play (and we play a lot!). So when we are denied these things, we get angry.

We often couch our anger in morality, claiming that this or that is unfair or wrong. But if we are honest, many times our protests cover our fear. We cannot control the situation so anger is better than . . . trust. You see, God is in control. All the time, in all things, through all people. And while we all have free will, ultimately His plans will come to effect.

We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 NRSV

This verse doesn’t say that God will only work out the good things or the things we control or when we are obedient (as opposed to sinning). It says that He will work out all things. And often, He works them out with Heaven in mind. That means the story doesn’t end here, on earth, but rather ends There, with Him. Hebrews 11:39-40a tell us that

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Beyond the 12 Steps

note: there is a worksheet at the bottom of this article

I have spent a lot of years struggling with drug addiction and alcohol abuse. At one point the drug addiction had completely taken me over. I began trying desperately to stay clean but every time I got a little taste of sanity the world would come crashing in and I would crumble under the weight of it all. Before I knew it I was escaping the pain or responsibility of life by using drugs. I had been through the court system, rehabs, 12 step programs, counseling (behavioral and substance abuse), and many psychiatric visits for medications. Nothing seemed to stick very long. Most of the people trying to help me eventually threw their hands up in defeat and passed me off as a hopeless case. I got to a point I started to agree with them. Nothing seemed to work for me. I was living in constant commendation from the world and in my own mind. Every mistake seemed magnified. I would beat myself up in my head over and over until my only relief was escape.

Through divine intervention I was given a book named “Freedom From Addiction.” It captivated my attention because it was such an honest account of the thoughts bombarding an alcoholics mind. Not only an alcoholic but a Christian. Now I have to say that believing Jesus Christ died for my sins did not automatically make me Christ like. I was continually going against God. The shame I felt about knowing what was right but not being able to live it was more shame than I could bear. But then this book was placed in my path. As I read it something started to stir deep within me. There was a message of hope written on those pages that spoke to my innermost heart. The message was not about what I have done as a sinner (that already plagued my mind enough) but a message of who God says I am as his child. I started hearing a message telling me he doesn’t see what the world sees when he looks at me.

When I looked at myself and compared myself to the world’s expectations of me I saw all of the bad things I’ve done and how I just didn’t measure up. I owned my bad behavior as my identity but that’s not the truth. God says I am precious,

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Vices and Virtues in Marriage: Jealousy vs. Trust

Have you ever had to deal with a jealous husband or wife? Most marriages at some time or another go through a period of mistrust and jealousy when their spouse does something to merit mistrust. Maybe they flirted or maybe they had an affair or it could be that they didn’t do anything at all to warrant distrust.

More often than not when a spouse is jealous of the other without merit it means they do not trust themselves. If they don’t trust themselves they usually are jealous, suspicious, controlling, and insecure. This can be a living nightmare for the spouse who has to take this sort of abuse. But it doesn’t have to be like this.

Ask yourself. Why am I jealous? Why do I not trust my spouse? What have they done to merit my suspicions of them? Maybe you have good reason to feel the way you do. But more than likely your misgivings about your spouse have gotten out of hand. We need to be honest with our self about the actions we take in life. The heart of the matter is, we either trust our spouse or we don’t, there is no in between here.

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