I’m a stubborn, do-it-myself guy. I’ve always been reluctant to admit I need help - mostly because of pride which I masked as being “independent” or “resourceful”. Many of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ go at the problems of life the same way.

We establish these elaborate systems of how to manage “X” issue in our lives that we know is hurting us and distancing us from God. We may even hit the Christian books on a topic - how many guys come into a 12 step group with sexual addictions and they tell me that I need to read “Every Man’s Battle”. Dude, if it’s such a great book, then why are you here

Just kidding, it’s a great book but you get my point. A 12-step group is for losers in many people’s eyes even if as good Christians we wouldn’t use the actual word “loser” in public conversation. I’ve heard the nice version of that assessment from people who I otherwise respect and while it’s a shame, you know what? It’s true.

Celebrate Recovery IS full of losers. We all hit the end of our journey of trying to do it ourselves and God pushed us into a 12-step group. But in our weakness God’s strength is shown and we realize it isn’t about struggling through life until it’s over. We were never meant to do it on our own in the first place. We were meant to walk closely with the Lord and with other brothers and sisters in Christ.

There isn’t anything in the 12 steps that physically couldn’t be done on one’s own and answering all the questions in the workbooks is done on our own, but there is a tremendous amount of humility required to go into a building where those meetings are taking place and admit to a small group of guys - perfect strangers - that I have a problem with “X” and need help.

God honors that humility, because it gives him room to work in our lives. Just humbling ourselves before the Lord doesn’t seem to cut it. Crazy, but it’s true. How many foxhole prayers have I made (”God if you get me out of this I’ll do…”) and then reneged on. When I started admitting my sins to people I trusted and we prayed to the Lord together about it, I was finally starting to be honest and the healing began to come (crazy how those Bible verses are actually so true).

if any of us have been trying to do it on your own and failing miserably, get out there to a 12-step group like Celebrate Recovery… Now - before we think of an excuse to put it off another week. God will honor that humility and we can shortcut years of pain and baby steps when we could be letting God take us on giant leaps toward our role in his plan for the world.

Categories: Addiction and Recovery
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