Weeding The Garden

The essence of all growth is a willingness to make a change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility this entails.

By the time I had reached step 3, I had been freed of my dependence on my addiction, but bitter experiences show me that continuous sobriety requires continuous effort.

Every now and then I pause to take a good look at my progress. More and more of my garden is weeded each time I looked, but each time I also find new weeds sprouting where I thought I had made my final pass with the blade. As I head back to get the newly sprouted weeds, (it’s easier when they are young), I take a moment to admire how lush the growing vegetables and flowers are, and my labors are rewarded. My sobriety grows and bears fruit.

https://www.facebook.com/CRPerryton?ref=hl

God's Faithfulness

Bible reading: Lamentations 3:17 – 26

Step 3: We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1)

Principle 3: Consciously choose to commit all of my life and will to Christ care and control.

“Happy are the meek.” (Matthew 5:8)

Perhaps were brokenhearted because of the bitter suffering in our family. Maybe our once good reputations have been ruined and now we’re ashamed. Our lives have been taken captive and destroyed before the watchful eyes of friend and foe alike.

Jeremiah watch this happened to his beloved nation, Israel. It’s no wonder he’s known as the weeping prophet. The people of God refused to listen to Jeremiah’s warnings and were taken captive by a heathen nation as a result. Lamentations is a record of Jeremiah’s lament over the shameful fate of God’s people. He weeps, “O Lord, all peace and all prosperity have long since gone, for you have taken them away. I have forgotten what enjoyment is. All hope is gone; my strength is turned to water, for the Lord has left me. Oh, remember the bitterness and suffering you have dealt to me! For I can never forget these awful years, always my soul will live in utter shame. Yet there is a ray of hope: His compassion never ends. It is only the Lord’s mercies that have kept us from complete destruction. Great is His faithfulness: His loving kindness begins afresh each day. My soul claims the Lord as my inheritance; therefore I will hope in Him. It is good both to hope and to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:17 – 26).

Turning our lives over to God includes giving him our pain and suffering. Got a strong and loving enough to lift our burdens and mend a broken hearts.

When all hope is gone we can entrust ourselves to God, remembering his never ending compassion.

http://crperryton.wix.com/crperryton

Hope In God

Bible reading: Jeremiah 17:5 – 8

Step 3: We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God.

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.” (Romans 12:1)

Principle 3: Consciously choose to commit all of my life and will to Christ care and control.

“Happy are the meek.” (Matthew 5:8)

We may have learned a long time ago that hoping only brings disappointment. Our hopes were dashed. The promises we believed were broken. We were left feeling like fools for ever hoping the 1^st place. But perhaps we were devastated because we put our hope in the wrong place.

“The Lord says: Cursed is a man who puts his trust in mortal man and turns his heart away from God. He is like a stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future; he lives on the self – encrusted plains in the barren wilderness; good times passing by forever. But blessed is the man who trust in the Lord, and has made the Lord his hope and confidence. He is like a tree planted along a river bank, with its roots reaching down into the water – a tree not bothered by the heat nor worried by the long months of drought. Its leaves stay green and it goes right on producing all of its luscious fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:5 – 8)

Turning our lives over to God includes placing our hope in him, even if people have disappointed us. When replace all of our hope in other people, is like expecting a tree to flourish in a barren desert. Our thirst continues, and they are unable to satisfy our deepest needs. Placing our hope in God changes everything. Jesus said “The water I give them… Becomes a perpetual spring within them, watering them forever with eternal life” (John 4:14). When our hope is in God, and our lives in his care, we are sustained when we otherwise would be devastated.

If we put our trust and hope in God, we will never be let down.

http://crperryton.wix.com/crperryton

Overcoming Self Will

So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and our addiction is an extreme example of self will run riot, so we usually don’t think so. Above everything, we addicts must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it will kill us!

For so many years my life revolves solely around myself. I was consumed with self in all forms – self-centeredness, self-pity, self-seeking, all of which stemmed from pride. Today I have been given the gift, through the fellowship of Celebrate Recovery, of preaching the steps in the principles in my daily life, of my group and sponsor, and the capacity – if I so choose – to put my pride aside in all situations which arise in my life.

Until I could honestly look at myself and see that I was the problem in many situations and react appropriately inside and out; until I could discard my expectations and understand that my serenity was directly proportional to them, I could not experience serenity and sound sobriety.

https://www.facebook.com/CRPerryton?ref=hl

A God Of Second Chances

Have you ever been fishing, and when you cast your line, it didn't quite hit that sweet spot where you wanted it to go? So, you reel in really quick, and you cast again, until you hit that perfect spot where you know that big one is hiding. 

Or, when you were a kid, and you played marbles. Maybe your shot didn't go where you wanted it to go...so you pick it up, and call a do over. You make your shot again and again, until you hit the other marble you were aiming at. 

When you grew up, and played golf, when your shot didn't go where you wanted it to go, maybe you hooked it, or sliced it, or overshot the green and into the water...you call a mulligan. 

The point is, we always want a second chance when we do something wrong. With alot of people, we don't get a second chance. But my God is a God of second chances, and third chances...in fact, He is a God of another chance... Matthew 18:21-22 ESV "Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven." 

It isn't a coincidence that it was Peter who asked this, when later, Peter tells jesus that he would never betray Him, he would even die with Jesus, yet not even 24 hours later, Peter denies Christ three times. Yet, for each time Peter denied Jesus, he was already forgiven, before Peter even felt remorse and sorrow for abandoning Jesus in his time of need. 

We, too, can be forgiven if we call out to God and confess our sins to HIm. 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 

That's my God, a God who loves me and forgives me...a God who will always give me another chance.