Thriving Not Just Surviving (3)
Wednesday April 29, 2015
Someone was thinking clearly when they wrote the slogan, “The heart of the matter is the matter of the heart”. We all want to live well. The question of how to live realistically and well is something that’s on our minds often when we come into recovery. Unfortunately it’s often accompanied by a layer of fear and uncertainty. We wonder how we could possibly have a satisfying and meaningful life. We have many emotions from the difficult things that have scarred our soul. We know we’ve done our fair share of burning bridges. After all the wreckage that lives in addiction bring, is there really a life worth living for us now? How do we find it? How do we sustain it? Fortunately, God gives us simple words for a clear path forward and it truly is a “matter of the heart.”
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:7-8, 16, 18 NIV)
God invites us to take the time to know the love He has for us and then begin to rely on it. The significance of this process is so important that the founders of AA put it at the beginning of the steps to recovery they laid out for us. We “come to believe” that a power greater than ourselves can restore us and then “we turn our will and our life over to the care of God”. As so many people inside and outside of AA have found, when we know this God of love and begin to rely on Him, fear will dissipate. We are then strengthened and empowered by His love to live satisfying lives.
When it comes to thriving and not just surviving, loving God and being loved by God is the heart of the matter. A simple prayer: “God, I love being loved by you. I want to love you more. Help me to live with you in love today.”
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