The first step in the 12-step recovery process is when we come to an understanding that our life as it now stands is unmanageable. I say it is an understanding, because, until we reach that point, we continue to meander in our own strength, and it is heartbreaking for others as they watch on.
We can go years upon years in the unmanageable mode. It’s the addict’s life, and I’m not just talking about the more commonly known forms of addiction. Sometimes we can be addicted to a toxic way of life that simply doesn’t work. For instance, a hard-hearted way of life.
Life wears us down, and I was going to say, “if we’re not careful,” but the truth is, life wears us down even when we are careful. It’s the nature of life that we cop a loss here, a trauma there, a betrayal someplace else, along with a bundle of stresses continually. Truth be told, many of our lives are just plain depressing if we spend too long analysing the litany of grief we carry. The only encouragement (and it is a great encouragement) is we’re not alone!
We may have become addicted to complaint, to negative outlook, to a glass half empty.
Before we know it, we’re carrying a gunnysack of hurt and it gets buried so deep inside us that hardness-of-heart is the only sign of it. This is not a hardness of heart because we’re not empathic; it’s actually a hardness of heart BECAUSE we’re empathic. Life has hurt us too much.
Where life becomes unmanageable in this is when we live a life committed to Christian gratitude, but that sense for thankfulness ran aground long ago—when we’re honest.
It is seriously GOOD NEWS when God utters a word of admonishment as we find ourselves spiritually dry and we see ourselves behaving in dispassionate, and even critical ways. When God does this, we come to say of ourselves, “How could it have gotten this bad; my heart is hard!”
The deeper we dig, the more likely we are to find that it is a mountain of buried hurt that sits just below the surface.
I have come to that place where I recognised that the combination of losses, disappointments, betrayals, a pile of stresses, and a good measure of grief—hurts as a sum—have taken their toll. The moment I saw my heart I knew it was a four-year revelation, bang on time. In the one same moment I was both distraught and relieved—I knew what was wrong and I could do something about it, but I have a lot of recovery work (reflection and restitution) to do. Was it my fault that I had developed a shitty heart? It doesn’t matter. It’s my opportunity to resolve it. Repentance is empowerment; I can do something about it to be grateful again.
There is nothing quite like seeing work for yourself to do as a way of not feeling hard done by. Suddenly there is action needed, and that is neither depressing nor is it shaming.
When we finally decide that our lives have become unmanageable it is SUCH good news! We stand in a valley where the fog has been cleared away. It’s a long way to ascend the hill to triumph, but at least we can see the wood for the trees.
The first step we must take in our hardness of heart is to recognise that life is unmanageable if we’re ungrateful all the time. If we’re Christians and, worse, ministers, we make first class hypocrites when gratitude has become a mirage.
For a Christian to lose their grip on gratitude it is a crisis. It leads to a life that’s unmanageable as far as the commitment to follow Christ is concerned. And this is good news, for when God does knock at the hard door of our heart, we hear that knock and we’re shocked as to how bad things have come to be.
But such a knock only comes when life has become unmanageable. God makes us aware of a crisis in order for us to put a desperate plan of restoration together. That’s GOOD news!
Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash
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