Hope For Today "Acceptance"

What is something you procrastinate about doing? Most experts in dealing with procrastination would tell us that by taking things one day at a time, one step at a time, even tasks that seem overwhelming become possible. Character building and developing our relationship with God is something else that we can procrastinate about.  However, if we focus on what is before us and do the next right thing, we can trust God to empower us each step of the journey.

An important character strength to develop is tolerance – being patient, understanding, and accepting of something different.  We live in a world where there is a mixture of many cultures and behaviours, traditions and beliefs.  For many of us, part of the challenge to be tolerant is learning how to be around others who are at a different place in their life journey than we are in ours.

"Nevertheless" - what kind of word is what? We don't hear it so often now but it meant something very significant to folks in our parents and grandparents generation and has something wonderful to remind us about today.

The Bible tells us that love is patient.  How many of us would profess to be patient? Most of us find it easy to be impatient and the only thing that matters in those moments is not how we got there but will we choose to stay that way.

Shame is such a powerful emotion that plagues many human beings.  It can be the shame we feel for the ugly things we said and did or the shame we felt after someone harmed or abused us, God wants us to overcome all of it and live life to the full.

What are you afraid of today?  What kinds of things easily make us fearful?  What can we do so our emotions and behaviour choices are not controlled by our fears?  God keeps it simple for us.

We all experience hard times.  Disappointments come and we are brokenhearted.  Difficulties pile up and seem to crush us.  As followers of Jesus we are not exempt from these kinds of moments. But God - two beautiful words. But God is with us to comfort and support us and to show us a good way through the challenges.

The exact nature of our wrongs is rooted in the lie that our problems are caused by what is around us rather than what is within us.  It’s time that we admitted that to God, to ourselves, and to another human being.

Many of us lost our true identity because we grew up in dysfunctional families and were forced to assume survival roles. God invites us to the truth that we are loved and that living now in the embrace of His love, we can become the complete person He created us to be.  Our life with God in recovery is about finding both character strengths to build on and character defects that hinder us from becoming loving fulfilled individuals. 

We’re looking at Step 3 of the 12 Steps:  We made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understood Him. What does that look like in practical way?

Why do we continue to do things our own way when it obviously isn’t working?  Doing life on our own without God has led us to empty, lonely, and shame-filled places. That’s what Step 1 of the 12 Steps reminds us: Step One – We admitted that we were powerless over our dependencies and that our lives had become unmanageable.

It is a profound moment when we come to our senses and realize we are powerless and that our lives have become unmanageable.  It’s not meant to be one of hopelessness but rather a moment of letting go and turning our focus somewhere new for solutions to our life’s problems.