On Saturday, the American colonies declared themselves free and independent states, but were they free and independent? No. Not until five years later at the last battle of the revolution in Yorktown, Pennsylvania, did they achieve that independence, which was made official two years later in the Treaty of Paris.
But the fruit of the Spirit is …
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
goodness,
faithfulness,
gentleness and
self-control.
Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23)
It was the beginning of the end for Jesus. He was at the peak of His popularity. Crowds were building wherever He went. Many had been touched and healed by Jesus. The crippled were walking, the blind could see, the deaf could hear, and lepers had been pronounced clean by temple priests. You couldn’t beat that kind of publicity. Everything was building toward the Passover celebration.
When you follow the desires if your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results … [and among a grocery list of evil things is this:] the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group. (Galatians 5:19-20)
This one jumped out at me. I could not avoid it or get it out of my mind. “The feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group.” This is obviously not a direct translation, but it is found in two popular paraphrases of the New Testament that gives it credibility as to the meaning of the original. Other translations use words like “factions” and “party-spirit.” Either way, it is an evil that is rampant today where the power of party lines is so great. The tendency to demonize all who disagree with you and your camp is a powerful rendering of self-righteousness, although we would not call it that. We would quite simply be right and everyone else, wrong. It’s an easy way to manage a chaotic world, except it is not true. Not one of us is free of sin.
These are trying times. They are stressful times. They are times of uncertainty. There is nothing new about that. We’ve all been through times like this, but there is something different this time — something sinister.
So we’ve been through all twelve steps; what do we do now? Go through them again.
Did you ever wonder why the steps are all in the past tense? (We admitted … Came to believe … Made a decision … Were entirely ready … etc.) I did. I wondered about it a lot until just now, because just now I finally got it. The steps are in the past tense because that’s the way most everyone will experience them most of the time. You’ll be doing them again much more than you will be doing them. Doing them is one thing. But doing them again, and again, and again, is what it’s all about. So we remind ourselves of what we did, and in reminding ourselves, we do them again. It makes perfect sense.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
The world is populated with friends. This is because we are all sinners, and most people, deep down in their spiritual sensibilities, know this. So if we think of the Twelve Steps as applying to sinners instead of just alcoholics, then the whole world is a potential AA meeting, or in this case, it would be an SA meeting: Sinners Anonymous.
Step 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the only reason there can be steps that lead us anywhere. Without Christ going through the cross there can be no forgiveness of sins. Without Christ going through the cross there can be no resurrection from the dead. Without Christ going through the cross there can be no hope for a future. Without Christ going through the cross there can be no power to carry out God’s will for our lives.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Today we’re going to take the right/wrong discussion to a whole new level. We’re going to give up the whole need to be right and conclude that the only “right” version of what we’re looking at together is what the other person actually sees. In other words, I’m going to give up my need to be right for the more noble cause of taking up the other person’s perspective.
Prophets and priests alike,
all practice deceit.
They dress the deep wounds of my people
as though they were not serious.
– Jeremiah 6:13-14
Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Remember the movie, “What About Bob?” where Richard Dreyfuss plays the psychiatrist whose private life is hounded by the neurosis of one of his patients (Bill Murray)? In his attempts to bring Bob out of his multiple personality disorders, he gives him a copy of his newly released book, Baby Steps, which he promises will help Bob make his way towards normalcy.
Handwritten word Hope in shape heart on misted glass on window flooded with raindrops on blue cloudy background
As we take a break between Step 8 and 9 (a common thing to do, by the way), let me introduce you to our good friend, Robbie Goldman, founder and director of Dry Bones, Denver. Robbie works with unhoused kids in downtown Denver and we talked with him about how when he first started thinking about going through the Twelve Steps he was thinking how good this would be for the kids they work with, many of whom are addicted to drugs and alcohol. But one of the first things he and his staff had to shed was that very kind of thinking that says the steps are for someone else.
