A good mentor introduces you to the journey! -Bsp Jakes
A good father walks with you on the journey. -Fr Michael

Recovery

Addiction is anything that I am using in a sense to try to cope in a way that ends up defacing or disfiguring the image of God inside of me.

What do we need to recover from? Not necessarily the things that we are addicted to. We need to recover the image of God that has been cracked and broken.

Trying to outlast or overcome the addiction gives all the higher ground to the addiction. But to set my sights on recovering the image of God in me through Jesus gives me the grace to be MORE than a conqueror. We discover the grace to not only be “free from”, but to be “free to.”

We say, Jesus died for our sins. It’s true, but sounds so sterile. It might be better understood through the language of died for our addictions.

Not in the idea of dying for the things we know we shouldn’t love (the inhibitions of being intoxicated, the euphoric ecstasy of sex, the other worldly buzz off a high) but…in the things we hate after we’ve loved our hates.

Sin is not the deed we’ve done, but what’s been done by the deed.

The gangrene that attaches to my soul from gambling away my paycheck. The cancer that ravages my relationship with my wife because I’m bitter and demanding. The alienation that barks at me from my children cause I was a workaholic. The sting of acid in my open wounds because I cheated on myself by treating myself to another man. The Grand Canyon that I can’t cross because I’m trapped in choices that suffocate me because I’m too proud. The disorders of detachments that I use to make excuses for my selfishness. The bombastic noises that sit in my soul like dead silence because I exchanged the truth for my lifestyle preferences.

That an a million other untold carnages from our soiled souls is what we mean when we say, sin.

God proved his love for us because he died for what was and is killing us. Jesus saves us from our worst version of ourselves.

People in addiction are overly fixated on overcoming past patterns and behaviors rather than becoming their future selves. One pins you to your past and the other launches you into the present.

Don’t be addicted to recovery become obsessed with discovery.

Recovery leads to a previous state of being, but discovery leads to a new state of being…based on being created in the image of God and recreated in the image of the new humanity uncovered in Jesus, the perfect human one

Most people only encounter getting past their past, which is the beginning of Hope. But It also requires the practice of Faith to apprehend a different and desired reality. Together, hope and faith create a synoptic lens of an alternative and preferred life as revealed by and in and from the Love of God in Jesus.

We find our future self not by primarily focusing on our broken self (an ongoing inventory), but by seeing who we were meant to be in the life and teachings of Jesus in the gospels and in the church through the New Testament letters.

Christians are highly addicted people when they are trying to please (live for) God.

Grace isn’t given so you can strive and struggle to live a perfect life, but so you can begin to enjoy living your imperfect life.

Let God begin to rewrite your story. Invite him to show you your past through his eyes. Ask him to surface good memories you have forgotten. He would love to do it. There is healing to be had there. There is a replacing of regret with mercy.” -JE

God’s mercies are new every morning — not as an obligation to you, but as an affirmation of you.

Mental & Emotional Anguish

The elasticity of the mind is stretched out of shape, the cavity of the soul echoes a hollow reply, the emotional receptors of the control panel of the will are fried, the body exercises getting through a day by going through the motions of a thin membrane of muscle memory, the net worth of life is what you are not, the once deep, dense material of the mind is fragmented, they have moved the desert you wandered in to an underground cavern where your movements are restricted to a lonesome isolated shuffle, the years of being invisible and mute have suffocated your spirit, you clean broken glass but the window has become a wall, nothing works like it used to, the opportunities that have never been given outnumber my days, sleep comes easier now that it’s day.

You can’t rise until you’re dead. May the twitch be extracted like a thorn or sliver. No sense in pretending to die alive when you can seize a chance to rise again, as the living dead.

So that is why you dare not avoid the deep self. The wild beasts and the angels reside in the same wilderness, and it takes the Spirit to “drive” you there (Mark 1:13). You see why the mystics so emphasize going into the “darkness,” which can only be done by faith and immense courage. “It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield,” says William Butler Yeats.

The mental malaise of meager means mesmerizes and marginalizes your motivation. It’s a maze of madness that seeks to measure the mark you can make. It’s a megaphone to manipulate you into wanting more. It’s a mirage misleading you to middle of the night manic attacks. It’s a monopoly of making you think even for a moment that your Maker is not moved and is not mighty to make a way and manifest a method or miracle to manifest his mercy and your more than enough moment so that you can make it.

Renewing the Church

The entertainment value of a churches worship service is great to draw a crowd on Sunday, but it is not sustainable for your life Monday thru Saturday.

We worship sex because we don’t know how to worship God. But we will. -Eldredge

Evangelism is presumed to be the starting place of our mission, but what if it’s the outcome of making disciples, baptism and teaching?

The original mission may have been better understood as a lifelong conversion out from a covenant. Yet at times may also be experienced as a conversion into the covenant.

The American podium tempts a spiritual audience to reach out for a better life. The pulpit of the Gospel calls a body of imperfect humans to live Christ’s life.

The Church is also an object of faith. In the Apostles’ Creed we confess that “we believe in the holy catholic Church.” Whenever we separate our belief in God from our belief in the Church, we become unbelievers. God has given us the Church as the place where God becomes God-with-us. -Nouwen

To the greatest pastor in my life!

2012

You loved me to health, emotionally and relationally. You gave me a consistent everyday example to gaze upon. You never failed to believe in me regardless of the situation. You were an unshakable foundation of peaceful righteousness and a tower of an unimaginable beauty that chartered our future.

You preached with your life and were the most faithful in the face of fear from my ungodly anger and in the darkest caves of my personal brokenness. I owe the last 30 years of my life to your daily devotion of undying covenant love.

To the pastor of my heart and our home…Diana Welchert