Crossroad

Principle 7: Reserve a daily time with God for self-examination, Bible reading, and prayer in order to know God and His will for my life and to gain the power to follow His will.

Step 10: We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.  “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:12)

The Crossroad

If you’ve been following the steps to this point, you have arrived at a very important junction.  Here’s what you’ve done so far, you have: worked hard for a long time, faced your denial, surrendering your life to Jesus Christ, taken an honest look at your life by listing, confessing, and sharing all your wrongdoings, you’ve submitted to the changes that God wanted to make in you, offered your forgiveness to those that have hurt you, and made amends for all the harm that you have caused to others.  WOW! That’s quite a journey!  At the start most of us would have said that it was an impossible journey to make on our own; we could never have done the work that the first 9 steps ask of us…and we would be right. 

Perhaps some of us have not made that entire journey…maybe it loomed so large at the start, you never really started.  Maybe you did start, but we really only wanted one thing fixed and everything else was “off limits.”  Maybe you started and relapsed, and you’ve been in “the cycle.”  Maybe you feel as defeated as ever…this was just something else that didn’t work.  I know’ I’ve been there!  I don’t know about you, but for me I ended up there because I didn’t really follow the steps…I didn’t turn ALL of my life and will over to Christ, didn’t start or didn’t finish the spiritual inventory, didn’t admit my wrongs to God, myself, AND someone I trusted.  I didn’t submit to ALL the changes God wanted to make in me, and I didn’t forgive or make amends to everyone I should have.  So, I remained in “the cycle.”

My wife and I both work outside the home so I often do the laundry; I kinda like it actually.  I reuse the rinse water for the next load of wash and inevitably once per wash day the dryer stops and I find the washer full of water and dirty clothes.  Why: because it is stuck in the cycle…  After sucking the old rinse water back in, I neglected to advance the dial to the wash setting so my dirty laundry just sits there, all wet, still dirty, stuck in the cycle.  This happens not because the washing machine is defective; it happens because I fail to take the necessary steps to get it done.  It is the same with the 12 Steps.  If you’re still stuck in the cycle of addiction, recovery, and relapse, it’s not because the steps don’t work; it’s because you didn’t work the steps.

None of us can recover by ourselves, non our own power.  Our only hope is Jesus Christ.  We’ve got to stick to that decision we made in Step 3 to turn our lives and wills over to the care of Christ.  Jesus explains it this way in John 8:32 and 14:6, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.  I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  We can only be set free from our addictions and our obsessive / compulsive behaviors when we embrace the “Truth” of Jesus Christ.  If you’ve truly followed the steps you know that is true.  This is why Principle 7 and Step 10 are called crossroads in your recovery.

Step 10 is not a place to stop and rest on past accomplishments.  We need to thank God for leading us this far on our road to recovery, to praise Him for the many victories over our hurts and habits so far. We may also need to ask forgiveness for not submitting to His leading, and start following the steps. Once we are at step 10, we need to continue working the last three steps with the same devotion and enthusiasm that got us to this point in our recoveries.  This is where we can easily relapse and get back into the cycle.  Much recovery material refers to Steps 10 through 12 (Principles 7 and 8) as the “maintenance steps.”  I understand why but there is a problem with our understanding of the word “maintenance.”  We tend to see “maintaining” as “coasting”  We are never coasting with God – we are either moving toward Him or away from Him.  It is in steps 10-12 and principles 7-9, that your recovery, your new way of living, really takes hold.  This is where you start to bear the fruit of all the changes that God and you have been working on together.  These are the steps that we ALL have to follow the rest of our lives.

Let’s preview Step 10 for next week.  There are three key parts of step 10 and we’ll use the acronym for TEN.  The first is Take time to do a daily inventory.  The second is to Evaluate the good and the bad.  The third is the Need to admit our wrongs promptly.  That’s where we’ll pick it up next week.