CIR KBs

Christians in Recovery Knowledge Base article

Do You Feel God is Failing You?

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9

Some years ago I served on a pastoral care team at a large Southern California church, where one of my primary responsibilities was biblical counseling. I never ceased to be amazed at the number of Christians who came into my office to complain of God’s unfaithfulness and unfair treatment in their lives. Financial problems? God’s provision wasn’t sufficient. Wayward children? God hadn’t led them properly. Broken marriage? God had failed to intervene.

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Our Lives Should be More Like Jazz

I don’t know much about jazz except that I usually like it, especially live. I’m thinking that our lives might be a little richer if they were a little more like jazz.

Jazz music is sort of unscripted. Each song has a basic melody and sometimes words, but the performance is spontaneous. Real jazz isn’t rehearsed like a lot of other music—it’s more of a live interaction between the musicians. They practice and develop their individual skills, but the music happens when they play off one another.

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Sickness is Discouraging But…..

A poor shoemaker in his dreary little shop in a great city, one day noticed that there was one little place in his dark room, from which he could get a view of green fields, blue skies and faraway hills. He wisely set up his bench at that point, so that at any moment he could lift his eyes from his dull work–and have a glimpse of the great, beautiful world outside.

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Renew

Have you ever just needed a fresh start, a clean slate? Ever wanted to start over?

One of the many amazing aspects of following Jesus is the reality of new beginnings. No matter where we’ve been, what mistakes we’ve made, God offers each moment as an opportunity to choose a different path.

Renew doesn’t have to mean a complete overhaul. Sometimes it’s just an update, taking stock of where you’ve been and making necessary course corrections. Six months is a good time to assess, evaluate, and renew. I want to use this week to look at my goals for the year and see where I might need to change some tactics, and I want to use it as a time to renew my commitments to those goals.

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Moving from Passive Victim to Active Seeker

Curiosity has its own reason for existing. Albert Einstein.

I’ve been thinking a bit (an unusual and dangerous development) about the notion of overcoming adversity. As a paraplegic, I’m often asked questions like: How did you deal with it? How did you get past it? What helped you move forward?

When I recall twenty-one years of adjusting to life in a wheelchair, first impressions include frustration, anger, and isolation. Each challenge seems to elicit a sense of impossibility and hopelessness, and my initial reaction is capitulation. It’s as though I’m programmed to greet difficult circumstances with: I’ll never be able to …

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Save Your Marriage By Starting With a Clean Slate

If you really want to save your marriage, you must start with a clean slate. That means to get rid of the worldly attitudes and practices that have polluted your marriage and follow God’s plan for your marriage instead. We’re so used to treating our marriage like everyone else does, or the way we were taught, or from what we think is the right way to handle it, but look where all that has gotten many of our marriages of today.

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Heal Marriage After Adultery

Do you want your marriage nursed back to health? If you want your marriage restored it will take some effort on your part. Stop peering over the fence at your neighbor, and put your eyes back in your own yard where they belong.

First, the offended spouse needs to forgive completely (see my article, forgive a cheating spouse), and secondly the offender has to understand why he strayed from the marriage bed in the first place. Infidelity is only a symptom of a greater problem within the framework of the marriage.

If you have been unfaithful or have anything else pulling you away from your spouse, ask yourself why? What am I doing that would cause me to be disloyal? Don’t blame your spouse for your weakness. Grow up and take responsibility.

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Soft Addiction and Accountability

SELF-ACCOUNTABILITY
The key to overcoming bad habits or a Soft Addiction is to take the time to learn how to become self-accountable. If a person is not held accountable for something, there is little motivation to change. We, who struggle with behavior addictions can relate to this problem. It is a main element of denial. It is getting into the habit of saying, Who, Me!

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