step 11
"We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out."
That is step 11 in the 12 Steps to recovery, a program that i co-coordinate at the JAIRUS Agency. I'm a born doer, however, not an instructor - so instead of just teaching the teens these 12 steps, i work through the steps with them. If they have to take a moral inventory, i have to take a moral inventory. If they have to make amends, i have to make amends. And if they have to meditate, then i have to meditate as well.
Self-reflection is hard. It's easy to procrastinate taking time out of my day to think about who i am and the choices i've made, where i've come from and where i'm going. Quite often this means facing certain truths and admitting to myself that i've made mistakes and that there are parts of me that need some serious change. I need tuning, cleansing, wielding and refining. Some days i feel like i need an entire demolition crew. On these days, i struggle to find the good within myself.
During this period of meditation, i've also realized that i am extremely self-critical. It goes beyond pinpointing my faults to a place where i'm so down on myself about certain irrelevant things that i feel like the world's biggest loser. For example, i've made a habit of reminding myself over and over again that i never went to college. In that moment, it doesn't seem to matter that i applied to my dream college and got accepted; I'm so consumed by the fact that i never actually went that i can't simply focus on what a great accomplishment it was for me, and how elated i was when i received that acceptance letter. Another thing that tends to bug me is that i've never really had what most people would consider a "real" full-time job. I have no career going. At this point in time, i'm not even headed towards a particular one. Along with that, i'm married and while we did move out for 5 months and that time was amazing, we still live with my parents, and while it's looking like things will soon be changing for the better, we're still struggling financially.
All of these things put together make for a very heavy burden, and today, while cruising down the highway boldly reflecting on life in general once more, i had a personal revelation of sorts. It hit me that this burden i've been carrying is completely unnecessary. It is stupid, and i hate it, and i believe God does, too. I've gotten so tired of carrying it around that i think this morning God was smiling and saying to me, "Finally, you're getting it! This burden is nothing but dead weight. Toss it out the window and just trust me."
And suddenly i knew what the will of God was for my life (this is what we call an epiphany). I had been praying for the knowledge of God's will for my life for years, just as the second half of Step 11 urges us to do. It's a question that every believer will ask and pray about and sometimes even obsess over: What is the will of God? Am i supposed to go to this college or that one? What should i study? Which job should i take? Who should i marry? - and the list goes on and on.
The Bible is very clear about what God's will is for his people. Here are a few verses to sum it up:
"...And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." - Micah 6:8
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." - James 1:27
"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
There are many more, of course, but the point is that (as you can see) God isn't really big on pointing out specifics regarding such matters as education, occupation, choosing one's spouse, etc. Instead, he gave us the ten commandments and lots of direction as to what we should generally be doing with our lives, all of which falls under those ten laws. Don't get me wrong; i believe that God is omniscient, or all-knowing, and that he even knows every decision that we will make long before we make it...but i don't necessarily believe that these decisions were pre-destined in the way that we have come to understand pre-destiny. God knows the end result before it comes. You can change your mind about something a million times and decide not to do something that you were previously planning on doing, but whatever you actually do in the end, God knew that would happen. But he didn't choose it; you did.
So here's the epiphany i had today: that God's will for my life is not about specifics at all. I can do whatever i want, as long as it falls under his umbrella, so to speak. In other words, as long as i'm not out of God's will, i'm in it. We all know what God doesn't want from us - so if we're not doing those things, then we're all set...make sense? For example, he advises believers not to marry unbelievers, but that's about as clear as he gets as far as marriage goes. I don't necessarily believe that there's only one person out there for everyone. There are many fish in the sea, my friends, and believe it or not, we do have options. We can get along just fine with a number of different people - choose one (with the intent to stay with that one, of course) and God will bless your marriage. In the same way, i don't believe God has necessarily given us one college to attend or one occupation to choose from. I believe he gives us many options and as long as our decision is made with wisdom and for the right reasons, we will be blessed in these areas as well.
But i still had to ask, as this epiphany was getting clearer, "God, what am i supposed to DO?" And his simple response was, "Experience." And suddenly that, too, made sense. My life has been about experience - just in a different way than most. I may not have gone to college or received a degree (yet); I may still be living at home and struggling financially. But i've had jobs in 10 different fields and traveled to nine different countries; i speak three different languages and have friends in so many places around the world i've lost count. I know Jehovah's witnesses, athiests, wiccans, mysticists, buddhists, catholics, and 7th day adventists; i've read hundreds of books in every genre, flown to Europe by myself, and just recently i ate cow tongue. And that's all just what's off the top of my head.
I want to serve God, and i want to experience life as i do it. I believe this is God's will for me, not specifics, but movement in a general direction: traveling to as many places as possible, experiencing other cultures, living among different groups of people, sharing what i have to offer and taking what is offered to me. God's greatest command is to love, and when i die i want to leave that legacy behind. I hope that people won't say, "She never went to college or settled on a steady career path," but instead i hope they say, "She loved. She went out into the world and loved people. She learned something new every day, and in her death she is teaching us that this is what life is all about. This is the way things should be."
That is step 11 in the 12 Steps to recovery, a program that i co-coordinate at the JAIRUS Agency. I'm a born doer, however, not an instructor - so instead of just teaching the teens these 12 steps, i work through the steps with them. If they have to take a moral inventory, i have to take a moral inventory. If they have to make amends, i have to make amends. And if they have to meditate, then i have to meditate as well.
Self-reflection is hard. It's easy to procrastinate taking time out of my day to think about who i am and the choices i've made, where i've come from and where i'm going. Quite often this means facing certain truths and admitting to myself that i've made mistakes and that there are parts of me that need some serious change. I need tuning, cleansing, wielding and refining. Some days i feel like i need an entire demolition crew. On these days, i struggle to find the good within myself.
During this period of meditation, i've also realized that i am extremely self-critical. It goes beyond pinpointing my faults to a place where i'm so down on myself about certain irrelevant things that i feel like the world's biggest loser. For example, i've made a habit of reminding myself over and over again that i never went to college. In that moment, it doesn't seem to matter that i applied to my dream college and got accepted; I'm so consumed by the fact that i never actually went that i can't simply focus on what a great accomplishment it was for me, and how elated i was when i received that acceptance letter. Another thing that tends to bug me is that i've never really had what most people would consider a "real" full-time job. I have no career going. At this point in time, i'm not even headed towards a particular one. Along with that, i'm married and while we did move out for 5 months and that time was amazing, we still live with my parents, and while it's looking like things will soon be changing for the better, we're still struggling financially.
All of these things put together make for a very heavy burden, and today, while cruising down the highway boldly reflecting on life in general once more, i had a personal revelation of sorts. It hit me that this burden i've been carrying is completely unnecessary. It is stupid, and i hate it, and i believe God does, too. I've gotten so tired of carrying it around that i think this morning God was smiling and saying to me, "Finally, you're getting it! This burden is nothing but dead weight. Toss it out the window and just trust me."
And suddenly i knew what the will of God was for my life (this is what we call an epiphany). I had been praying for the knowledge of God's will for my life for years, just as the second half of Step 11 urges us to do. It's a question that every believer will ask and pray about and sometimes even obsess over: What is the will of God? Am i supposed to go to this college or that one? What should i study? Which job should i take? Who should i marry? - and the list goes on and on.
The Bible is very clear about what God's will is for his people. Here are a few verses to sum it up:
"...And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." - Micah 6:8
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." - James 1:27
"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
There are many more, of course, but the point is that (as you can see) God isn't really big on pointing out specifics regarding such matters as education, occupation, choosing one's spouse, etc. Instead, he gave us the ten commandments and lots of direction as to what we should generally be doing with our lives, all of which falls under those ten laws. Don't get me wrong; i believe that God is omniscient, or all-knowing, and that he even knows every decision that we will make long before we make it...but i don't necessarily believe that these decisions were pre-destined in the way that we have come to understand pre-destiny. God knows the end result before it comes. You can change your mind about something a million times and decide not to do something that you were previously planning on doing, but whatever you actually do in the end, God knew that would happen. But he didn't choose it; you did.
So here's the epiphany i had today: that God's will for my life is not about specifics at all. I can do whatever i want, as long as it falls under his umbrella, so to speak. In other words, as long as i'm not out of God's will, i'm in it. We all know what God doesn't want from us - so if we're not doing those things, then we're all set...make sense? For example, he advises believers not to marry unbelievers, but that's about as clear as he gets as far as marriage goes. I don't necessarily believe that there's only one person out there for everyone. There are many fish in the sea, my friends, and believe it or not, we do have options. We can get along just fine with a number of different people - choose one (with the intent to stay with that one, of course) and God will bless your marriage. In the same way, i don't believe God has necessarily given us one college to attend or one occupation to choose from. I believe he gives us many options and as long as our decision is made with wisdom and for the right reasons, we will be blessed in these areas as well.
But i still had to ask, as this epiphany was getting clearer, "God, what am i supposed to DO?" And his simple response was, "Experience." And suddenly that, too, made sense. My life has been about experience - just in a different way than most. I may not have gone to college or received a degree (yet); I may still be living at home and struggling financially. But i've had jobs in 10 different fields and traveled to nine different countries; i speak three different languages and have friends in so many places around the world i've lost count. I know Jehovah's witnesses, athiests, wiccans, mysticists, buddhists, catholics, and 7th day adventists; i've read hundreds of books in every genre, flown to Europe by myself, and just recently i ate cow tongue. And that's all just what's off the top of my head.
I want to serve God, and i want to experience life as i do it. I believe this is God's will for me, not specifics, but movement in a general direction: traveling to as many places as possible, experiencing other cultures, living among different groups of people, sharing what i have to offer and taking what is offered to me. God's greatest command is to love, and when i die i want to leave that legacy behind. I hope that people won't say, "She never went to college or settled on a steady career path," but instead i hope they say, "She loved. She went out into the world and loved people. She learned something new every day, and in her death she is teaching us that this is what life is all about. This is the way things should be."
posted by audrey at
10:42 PM
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