Admitting Our Powerlessness Over Sin - Deep in Christ, Episode 34

what was the first thing that adam and eve did when after they hid when god showed up they hid and god's like what are you where are you and i think that's the same way when you and i when you and i sin we hide not only from god we hide from other people and there's a power in coming out into the light and saying look this is what i did that's what happens in confession right in sacramental confession but i've watched it happen and i've been privileged to sit in 12-step meetings and say people do these horrendous things and then people just say thank you for sharing water because they don't shame them they just say oh that's before the grace of god go on [Music] [Music] well hello and welcome back to deep in christ i'm your host john mark grodi here at the coming home network international sharing with you another conversation about this our daily task of growing an imitation of and relationship with our lord jesus christ thank you again for being with us today and today i'm joined by a good friend and mentor and colleague a familiar face around here at the coming home network as well as on this show brother rex norris brother good to see you again good to see you john mark thanks for joining me yeah thank you for inviting me yeah it's been a while since we talked on here i thought it was due due time and also i just got to the end of a couple other studies um and i was thinking about earlier this year we were doing some brainstorming on potential topics and directions i mean there's so many aspects of our life in christ we can talk about we talked about prayer i think last time you know some aspects of prayer and lent last time we were discussing but you had mentioned at one point earlier this year an idea of maybe like walking through the 12 steps of like recovery 12 steps like alcoholics anonymous kind of stuff in terms of a um you know a program people are familiar with in pop culture familiar there in the world but the the spiritual applications of those steps to the whole of the christian life there's a lot of wisdom there's a reason why that's that's sort of worked for so many people it's a reason why it's become sort of part of our zeitgeist because it's certainly based a lot in in our christian tradition but but the even the psychology of it the spiritual psychology of it the the virtue aspects of it which we've been talking about here in the show there's just a lot there and would be an interesting study to walk through some of those um maybe fill us a little bit what brought it to your mind when we were brainstorming great so so back in the 80s i think i wasn't even catholic at the time i was working um i was ministering in a homeless shelter and more than one of the the men and women who were in this homeless shelter uh found their way into various 12-step programs not only alcoholics anonymous but narcotics anonymous and so on and so forth and i watched i watched this miraculous and i mean that literally this transformation of these men and women as they followed these 12 steps laid out in the recovery program and their life radically changed and i became fascinated that somehow these 12 steps were were facilitating an encounter with god and a transformation of a life that sometimes seemed to be lacking uh the depth was lacking even in my own life and so i began to study the 12 steps and met went to some meetings that were open to people of whoever wanted to come and uh really began to realize there's something there's something here of course that something was a someone that someone was christ working through these steps i'm like my goodness grace what a what a what a incredible gift god has given the us everybody through these 12 steps so another thing that came to my mind recently too and we're coming back up we've had a number of guests lately a number of stories that involved um addiction recovery and different things and so that was you know one reason why it seemed relevant but i think again more to the point of what we'll be discussing today and in the coming weeks is that as you dig into the steps and we'll run through them real quick before before we dig into the first one today but as you as you look through them you recognize that um that these uh these go along right with the gospel right with what christ calls us to in the gospel right with his his taking seriously of our sin his insisting that we can without him we can do nothing his insistence that sin is a big deal but he wants us to be healed of it and he wants us to go and sin no more um again we've been talking about virtue on the show um and we've been talking all along trying to keep this it's not really a balance but it's a proper priority of of our human uh action and free will um sitting on the firm foundation of god's grace that we have to be rooted in prayer and yes then we proceed out to try to to do good to practice virtue but it has to be rooted in a dependence on god and we can read that on a page but but uh finding that in real life that real connection between our action flowing out of a total dependence on god a total surrender to jesus christ that has to sort of be discovered yes yes in fact that reminds me of a story that i wanted to share early on in my in my work at the homeless shelter um i met a young man who was uh an addict and he he got clean and sober and he invited me to a meeting when they celebrate uh their anniversaries one year two year three year four year whatever um and uh he i remember him when he when he now i'm gonna get all emotional i remember him when he he actually ate out of dumpsters i remember that distinctly and he stood up to uh uh to talk about his recovery and he said there are people in this room who remember me when i ate out of dumpsters and he said i don't eat out of dumpsters anymore and the reason i don't eat out of dumpsters anymore is because of the grace of god in my life and the help of these 12 steps and i thought what a powerful testimony to the power of grace uh and to the real of the humility of of god willing to meet this man where he was on his journey in the midst of it the the gunk and walk him uh to a better relationship with with god with other people and with himself and it was just an incredible story of grace that's an incredible story brother and i want to comment on that but let me just read through these real quick um this is one of the the websites you sent me because i i want to get those out there in case that people don't have these in their mind before i comment any further so number one is admit our powerlessness number two belief in a greater power number three turn our life to god number four take inventory number five admit our wrongs number six be willing to be healed number seven humbly ask god's healing number eight make a list of people we harmed number nine make direct amends number 10 continue our inventory number 11 prayer and meditation and number 12 share the message so obviously if someone hasn't heard these before they're going to hear gospel bits and pieces all throughout there and that is the gospel right i mean if you think about that is the gospel message in in in 12 steps yeah it's like wow what what what a powdered cake right it's like the good it's like a yeah it's like the you know one of those old evangelization tracks you know that yes that some protestants give out you know or the yes you know they have various you know a few steps to salvation you know the gospel in a few lines well this is really a kind of tract so to speak it really is the gospel simplified and again even in the story you told brother we were talking beforehand today in thinking about the study and that what's interesting about like the 12-step program the 12 steps the gospel in these 12 steps so to speak is that in some sense those who are members in aa or in a recovery program who are practicing these 12 steps they've discovered the truth of the gospel and the rest of us who maybe think we don't need that we're sort of missing something that's that's in the gospel that we're we haven't discovered yet you know like we all are people eating out of the dumpster in some sense yes until we again and now we're digging into that first step until we really admit again we affirm what christ himself says with apart from me you can do nothing yes i mean so many so many of us we go through our spiritual life uh belaboring under this under this uh conscious or subconscious belief yes that that's not really true that person christ we can do nothing yes and and we're we're sort of waiting for you know the you know the catastrophe of life to really teach us that lesson but um i mean but the lesson is there in the gospel like we can we can learn it now without hopefully having to wait to the catastrophe to happen sure if we and if we read paul in romans when he says why do i do the things i don't want to do the very thing i do not want to do i do that sounds to me like i'm powerless yeah over whatever it is that i'm it's unpowerless and my life i can't control it it's unmanageable my life is unmanageable right um and i remember once a a a man a long long recovery many years in recovery a very devout uh catholic said to me one day uh i wish i wish we could get a little so so around the world uh uh 12-step groups very often meet in the basement of churches okay so this man said to me i wish we could get a little bit of what we've got in the basement up into the church upstairs and i understood he was just saying in a very very pithy way what you just said about uh recognizing the gospel there and then what christ calls us to that's all right there in those 12 steps that's just it's quite it's quite something yeah let me read the longer form the the list i read earlier was sort of like the abridged version of each but the full the full text of the step one and that's the one we're going to discuss a bit more today we admitted we were powerless over alcohol in this case or sin or whatever you want to replace it i think that's one of the salient points for us as christians is that everyone yes every one of us has something that we can put we should put in that place yes there we admitted we were powerless over this particular sin this particular vice that's ours that our lives had become unmanageable that's that's this one yes i would encourage anyone if they're if they're struggling thinking that well there's nothing that i'm powerless over give a thought to the to the if there's if in your life if there is a sin which you find yourself continually mentioning in confessional if you're catholic there there is an example of something that you clearly are powerless over somewhere along the line you've admitted it you've said i'm not going to do this anymore and yet you do so so a little bit deeper conversion has to happen in in our lives in order to address that issue so i would encourage anybody who says you know who bulks at that powerlessness piece it's it can be simply a matter of saying it could be a venial sin could be a mortal sin it's like wow what the that one thing that one thing that i share in confession and and sometimes you think again you you might look at that and you might think well no i'm a pretty good person i don't really have uh a lot of sins it may just be that at this present part of your life you're living a pretty comfortable life and you need to you need to strap up and you need to be ready you know like i i've you know recalled this anecdote of my own my wife and i have been in many times many different contexts that like we thought we were pretty patient generous peaceful people until we got married and had kids and then we suddenly realized oh no no we'd actually been living pretty independent self-focused you know very easy comfortable lives of our own making yes and once we were actually placed you know we put our shoulder into the the plow you know we put our shoulder against this work that god had given us we realized okay now i see under pressure now that i have i have some deep rude advices that yes every week or every month whatever i go back to confession lord i did it again i can't stop getting angry or i can't stop getting frustrated or i can't stop turning inward away from my relationships and we need help to kind of piece those out get vocabulary for those understand what what's the sin what's the wound beneath this and all that there's some great resources out there for that but the point is is we all have something you know we all have a vice or more than one that could be placed in there that we need help with and it's rather counter-cultural uh in here in in this in this country i suppose every every place uh that we don't like to admit that we really you know it's like pull yourself up by your bootstraps you know and you can you can do it and well you know the reality is i i can't yeah i like to say to people if i've done if i've done a generous act which i do occasionally and they'll say oh brother you're so kind caring and compassionate and i'm i'm i know enough to say you know i am except on those days when i'm not and that's what keeps bringing me back to the first step it keeps bringing me back to uh confession right it's like yeah but right i lose my temper uh i'm impatient so on and so forth so yeah i mean it just takes a little bit of acknowledging uh the reality of the situation and rigorous honestly you know i mean the 12 steps i think it's i think it's alcoholics anonymous says in some of their literature says uh we have to be rigorously honest yeah we we have to be rigorously honest it doesn't mean brutal with people just means rigorously honest with ourselves and with god and uh the rigorously honest can mean yeah i i i'm i can be unkind um yeah that honesty yeah is such an important part we've talked a lot in recent months about the virtues and the virtue of prudence as a sort of preeminent human virtue by which we turn to face reality and it's interesting so you know in in in the study of the virtues that virtue that virtue of turning this conversion to reality to really face things as they are it is the precondition for any moral growth for any any greater growth in virtue because there's no virtue as a virtue unless it's attuned to reality unless you're facing reality if if courage is acting in a way that's disconnected from reality if you're not facing up to the reality of your situation you're just you know exerting bravado you're just jumping into battle well that's not really courage that's just you being reckless it all moral virtue begins first with this turn into reality and of course in reality is the reality of god is god i am not i am weak i need his grace and all that yes but it's interesting too this the starting point here that for for me to make any progress with this sin with this addiction with this this this problem i first need to be radically honest and turning to the honesty what is the reality of the situation is that i am i am weak i am powerless with regards to this deep-rooted sin yes recovery i think they would say in recovery program i've hit my bottom right right i mean i've hit my bottom line this is it this is reality the reality is i can't do a b c uh successfully on my own steam i just can't i can't stop yelling at the kids i can't stop if it's an addiction to some sort of something like you know alcohol or some other drug but it can be as it can be impatience anger lust i can't i can't stop this on my own and the paradox is the paradox is that as soon as i admit that something shifts and because i don't stop at step one i continue so something shifts and i begin i begin to get this grace that will then enable me to cont to to overcome things but it's a process yeah yeah it's a journey it's an advent uh it's a journey uh not an endpoint you know oh right just right well so interesting too even that even the language of rock bottom which again these steps have been popularized and we're aware of them in in you know pop culture because of alcoholics anonymous or recovery programs but it's interesting there's almost a barrier there in the sense of because the language has built up of like the rock bottom and being so connected to alcohol that i think sometimes people again think that that's always somebody else in fact i would i'd venture to guess that even in the realm of people who struggle with alcohol that everybody always thinks well it's the other guy he's the one who got the problem well so too with all the rest of our sin well it's somebody else who's hitting rock bottom they have the issue it's certainly not me but i don't think you really have to hit rock bottom i think when you do that's a mercy you know that god uses to bring you back but the rest of us hopefully can you know try to even in the good time dig down and figure out what's this in i don't want to wait till i hit rock bottom lord i want to recognize the truth that i that would be revealed to me if i ever did if some if something ever really did get out of control with regards to the device that i wrestled with the truth that would be revealed is a truth that i can discover now which is the reality of my my weakness my powerlessness again i referenced it earlier but let me read it in full here this is john 15 5. i am the vine you are the branches he who abides in me and i in him he it is that bears much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing without god's grace like we really can't and so even even in so far as we have held things together you know that we haven't hit rock bottom well that that's it's great it's all a grace yes but in that grace in that place of grace even now we can recognize the truth which is that i i am powerless against this all that i have is a grace and if i can lean more into that now discover that more now i can start building now i don't have to wait to hit rock bottom for that right right i think in the in the recovery programs that deal specifically with uh uh chemicals people say well we're going to have to lift the bottom it's going to be a high i've heard people say that they're a high bottom drunk or a high bottomed opiate addict or whatever which means basically they haven't lost the house they haven't lost the wife or the husband they haven't killed anybody but they recognize by grace this is becoming a problem this is becoming a problem and so whatever our we don't have to hit rock bottom we don't have to be eating out of a dumpster uh literally before we we have the opportunity to um to turn to god right by grace and the quote i want to read here because i was just thinking about again there's this there's this truth that those in recovery these recovery programs recognize because of hitting rock bottom but it's a truth that we all can and should realize in general which is that again this this is this is this original sin this is that we all are under original sin and so we we deal with this concubines this fact that we we are we have a certain level of powerlessness when it comes to sin and it should be obvious to everybody but it's unfortunately not chesterton commented on this he said modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact the ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity they began with the fact of sin a fact as practical as potatoes whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing but certain religious leaders in london not mere materialists have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water but to deny that an indisputable dirt certain new theologians dispute original sin which is the only part of christian theology which can really be proved is empirically it's empirically approvable yes yeah um we do right so so somehow and i don't know how this i don't know how this works except by grace um that when when a group we do this at mass what's the first thing we do at mass we confess our sins we make that first step we admit that we're powerless in a certain sense right um yeah and yet it takes on more power when there's a group together in the basement and they all realize i could be eating out of a dumpster tomorrow if i you know if i continue this um and so the steps uh uh really are again a distillation of the gospel and uh somehow i think we need to be when the church calls us to full active participation in the mass it it it means a lot of different things but it it certainly means pay attention to what you're saying yeah i often thought wouldn't it be cool if we sat around in a circle and i know this would never happen we're at mass and instead of saying the uh uh i confess we go around the room and everybody just kind of stands up and says hi i'm brother rex and i'm a sinner and everybody else says hi brother rex and then john you say hi i'm john mark i'm a sinner everybody says hi john martin right and which is what they do in these 12-step meetings or you know i'm an alcoholic i'm an addict what have you um i it's the same it's the same sort of thing that's what i'm trying to say right yeah well you know that group aspect of it and thinking of this this step is really important this it's not just so admitting to whom that we are powerless with regards to this sin in our lives to become unmanageable admitting to whom because there's a few different people right like part of this movement of prudence this conversion to reality okay i want to be a person of reality i want to face up to reality even if i haven't done it for a long time even if i haven't made a habit out of it now today i want to turn and face up to the truth of my life and that is that yeah i got a i got a sin problem we all have a sin problem so there's an admission to self certainly you know that i'm going to turn it face up to it there's an admission to god you know that maybe up to this point i've been going to prayer and saying a lot of pious nothings oh lord you're so good and i need your mercy and i need your help you know but not ever really being like no lord here is where i'm wounded here's where i'm hurting here in this specific way i do have a problem i do need your help so there's a sort of admission to god there and i think but one of the ways too that we we get honest with ourselves we get honest with god is by bringing that specifically to other people other actions i was going to say in the 12-step process the the notion of of admitting admitting it to god i may not even believe in god at the first step i've simply we admitted we were powerless over blank okay and and that's i don't have to deal with theology at the beginning i don't all i have to do is admit to it to myself and to the people in this room i'm i've got some broken parts he's got some parts to keep me separated right and so it's it's that's the progression right so i've admitted i've admitted to myself i've admitted to these other people right yeah and then and then one moves on to the second step and that's that was kind of the point of chesterton that chesterton quote there that was from the beginning of the book orthodoxy where he's sort of giving us the narrative of his own coming coming to belief but that's his point is his starting point is hey here's something that's irrefutable we are sinners like that should just be the most obvious visible from space in fact someone i was discussing philosophy with somebody lately and they joked you know there's that old saying of from descartes i i think therefore i am and that person was like well i i find it even more evident i sin it's just so evident of a reality an inescapable reality that that well i exist and that i i experience a moral obligation you know to do good and avoid evil this just sort of general moral obligation we all feel and yet i constantly do the thing that i know i ought to do like this is just the basic this is a basic condition of humanity yes you can it's irrefutable if you're the least a little bit honest with yourself and so for a person who's lived dishonestly with themselves their whole life you're right that might be the very first step on their way to god is just being honest with ju the the basic irrefutable undeniable reality that i do do things i know i shouldn't do yeah i can't stop yes yes yeah and i think also i think there's a power in that that word we yeah is that i if if i believe that i'm the only person around who who does x y or z right right uh and then by the grace of god i find myself with a community of people who are willing to admit you know what i do x y and z too there is a power and i don't want to do it anymore and i whoa you do that too and you don't want to do it anymore i'm not alone anymore there is a power in that an incredible power right jesus said where two or more are gathered in my name i will be in the midst of them there is just a power in we right yeah which is why jesus called us together as a church and not as individuals well i think that's even more salient would you say in our in our present day and age where uh for so many more reasons i think than any other time in history we have um we have technology we have money we have you know just the the divisiveness of the times we have so many things separating us from one another i think than any other time in history we have such a even just in our ours the zeitgeist of our culture this sense of uh independence that we need to sort of be you know self-reliant pull yourself up by your bootstraps and so that even this trickles into our our christian consciousness we're like you know i have a men's group here in town we get together but you have this sense that well none of us really share you know the things we're wrestling with unless one of us did hit rock bottom right like that's you know it would be that guy yeah he can speak up if he really has a problem but my my sins aren't that big of a deal and so i just keep them to myself you know yes versus saying no no how about we're all powerless with regards to sin and each of us has a particular battle why don't we bring those out and say no if we're serious about this if we're serious about the gospel that christ wants us to be healed in fact he wants us to be ministers of each other's healing through our prayer and through our encouragement why don't we bring those out and take that seriously and saying yeah i am powerless versus this sin lord i want your mercy buddies i want your guys's help yes let's pray for each other let's work on this yes there's a curative component to community right yeah and uh again i have been privileged to be able to sit in some 12-step meetings and what one of the things that's really funny is you you hear people tell these well do you hear people tell these horrendous things that they did you know uh and people chuckle because and the person may say and this is why this is why i did this i thought a b and c and that led me to do d and you're thinking that's just crazy talk but everybody in the room laughs because they're all like yeah that's the way we've done the week today we've done it we understand that's crazy so i think there's a there's a uh the ability to say this is what i did to throw it out there yeah and then everybody just looks at it and says yeah that's what we do we're just we're sinners that's what we do instead of trying to hide it and i don't want to well i don't i'm not as i'm not as bad as that guy you know i don't i don't you know i don't spend that much time looking at whatever on the internet uh as opposed to saying yeah i've done that too and and there and it kind of when we bring it out into the light of christ yes it begins to be healed and we keep it in the darkness that is of uh the devil right what was the first thing that adam and eve did when after they hid when god showed up they hid and god's like what are you where are you and i think that's the same way when you and i when you and i sin we hide not only from god we hide from other people and there's a power in coming out into the light and saying look this is what i did that's what happens in confession right in sacramental confession but i've watched it happen and i've been privileged to sit in 12-step meetings and say people do these horrendous things and then people just say thank you for sharing order because they don't shame them they just say oh that's before the grace of god go on we again we have to experience this in in our life that if if we reflect if we dig down into you know the particular vices that that we as individuals have that we're wrestling with that we do get to this sort of chicken and the egg kind of a dilemma when we dig down into recognizing well i i know that it's wrong and i there's a part of me that wants to not do it there's another part of me that that want that wants to do the thing and how do i get back behind that how do i get underneath that to affect it like i can't change the divided heart that i have directly like i can decide to pick up this pen off the table you know but i can't i don't have the you know surgical uh acuity to get into my soul and deal with the fact that i have a divided heart yeah there's a part of me that loves truth and good and beauty there's a party that doesn't and again that's just that's just true if we're honest with ourselves that's just a true aspect of our condition and it should again in that first half it should lead us as christians to again right to the heart of the gospel which is that you know with apart from christ we can do nothing and and here comes the importance of prayer and sacraments that how do i deal with that that that need for a heart transplant that i just have a divided impure heart how do i how do i deal with that well it's not primarily my own action even when i recognize i need virtue like i don't i lack this virtue i have this vice it's not primarily my action it's primarily my admission of powerlessness and my presenting myself to the lord going to going to god and actually stopping doing you know ceasing action uh and instead of receiving from god asking for help and receiving from god that's that's that got to be the starting point do you remember the do you remember dallas homes does that name ring a bell for you oh there's a christian rock star out of what you call it yeah rock back in the 80s anyway some of the listeners will know right but he but he he sang this song that said um uh i can win when i lose myself in jesus christ right that's the paradox right that's the paradox of the spiritual life is that the the like the saint francis peace prayer written in the spirit of francis right the paradoxes of the spiritual life i get by giving i live by dying i win by losing right i grain power over my addictions uh or my sins uh by admitting that i'm powerless over there that's just crazy but it works by being vulnerable by being vulnerable yeah yeah it worked by being like a lamb right right allowing the allowing the good shepherd to pick us up and put us on the shoulder when we haven't asked you right now it's a magnificent again it's the 12 steps are just they're so concise you know and they're and they're done in a particular order yeah as if it's as if when paul went to ephesians ephesus and he said i see that you folks are pretty religious around here he didn't just come in and blow him out of the water with him he said let's let's talk about this right right and so it was a process in other words and i think all spiritual growth my experiences all spiritual growth is a process all evangelization is a process and so the 12 steps are a process toward sharing the good news of recovery which comes way down at the 12th step by virtue of the grace that happens that happens as we follow these steps and do the best that we can beyond rigorously honest with ourselves on daily basis yeah it seems like there's a there is a an unconventional and unusual sort of a challenging humility to the specificity of a 12-step program and i think that's part of what maybe causes a lot of people to assume that that's again that's for somebody else that would that would be that maybe for me in really dire circumstances that's for somebody else right now but in in my spiritual life yeah i'm not perfect but the the specificity of you know zeroing in on lord with regards to just this one vice i am powerless that almost i think strikes us as maybe at best it strikes us as a little morbid at worst we just don't have the humility to get that specific and honest about our life yes and i think that even though those i mean there's a ripple effect to my sin right it affects everybody right right in some way so it's just realizing that uh when i sin when i drop that pebble into the water the ripple that's there whether i recognize it or not it's there so the specificity is important because there are real spiritual effects on other people in the world by my sin as miniscule as it might seem and so i think specificity anger lust if it is a chemical addiction of some type i just think it's yeah it has been working for men and women in recovery for the last 60 years and i've seen lives transformed right there and and one of the things that i've noticed and i'll just throw this out there for what it's worth i've known several uh clergy persons persian priests who have been in 12-step recovery uh and they are they are dynamite confessors they're dynamite preachers they're dynamite pastors and i think it's because of that what we talked about earlier that rigorous honesty that they just recognize i'm i'm a sinner just like everybody else it's not it's not simply an intellectual yeah well we're all sinners you know being called me mexico i mean they can actually pinpoint and say this is what i've done right yeah that makes that makes sense that there's again it's part of that paradox you were talking about that um again sin and darkness lose their power when they're brought out into the light i think even a sin that someone continues to struggle with in certain ways it's still it they gain something by being honest with themselves and with the lord and with their fellows about it suddenly perhaps there was if there was a lack of honesty with self before that that may manifest itself in just a lack of power a lack of kind of a fundamental integrity to be able to go out and speak and to act and to kind of build your life up where once that integrity is restored by being honest it's like certainly hopefully that leads to healing in that area but also like again the ripple effect that you know i can like as a person i'm now being honest with myself and with my god so my prayer takes on a different a different quality you know my my self-talk takes on a different quality my ability to to look my brother in the eye and have a conversation about the faith takes on a different quality because perhaps there was some lie i was holding on to and now i've i've surrendered that yes um i remember uh and i think i might have shared this in one of one of our last talks but i don't assume that anybody is going to remember okay maybe i do that's my pride i got to work uh i remember very distinctly the lord saying to me at one point uh rex you're living a lie you're living a lie we cannot build a relationship on a lie we can only build a relationship on truth can only build a relationship on truth and that's going back to what you're talking about step one that rigorous honesty about i do this it estranges me from god from other people and myself i don't want to do this anymore and i'm not i don't seem to have that i seem to be on it seems to be out of my control right and then when i can admit that to somebody else no matter how silly it may seem right just admit it and then if the other person can receive it if they're in a place where they can receive and say oh that must really that's kind of stinks doesn't it you know they don't shame me for it it's not that that's kind of bummer um and then i can move on to recognizing there's a power greater than me who can help me with this you know the heart is like a mansion right it's like a compartment i let the lord into certain rooms and there's certain rooms i have yet to let the lord into and those tend to be the rooms where those dark little gremlins that i keep bringing up at confession uh are living now see when i say that to you i'm like well wow man some are sicker than others i mean how how sick is that like well because it's unmanageable right i'm unmanaging it's like ah i need to open that door do i really believe that the do i really believe that the lord of heaven and earth can deal with my anger can deal with my impatience can deal with my lust can deal with my door i really believe that that room marked uh none shall pass if the lord's gonna be the lord of my life then i've gotta i've gotta uh by grace i admit that there's a room that i've not let him into and open the door and that's what the first step is yeah well as we bring this uh first conversation about uh this this stuff to a close i mean just thinking some practical stuff here for a woman we've it's been throughout the conversation already but you know certainly just recognizing the you know the the the need for radical honesty you know and and how that um we might choose to bring that about in our you know the way that we even in our in our heart of hearts in sort of our our self-talk you know even being honest with ourselves first in prayer again being real with god in prayer it's it's it's amazing i think to me how much we it's easy to slip into nice kind of false anxiety and prayer rather than really bring our hearts to god certainly seeking out community and fraternity and accountability you know with people around us uh i think you know we were talking about specificity that comes up often in the spiritual writers of the church you know making a specific exam and so not just generally saying oh lord i'm such a bad person i need your help but no like being specific lord this vice this is the one man i am is unmanageable i am powerless against it i need your healing i need um i need help with this specific thing even to to monitor that over time you know to pray over that thing to get specific in our spiritual life you know get concrete get practical in that you know we always think it's somebody else but no we each of us have you know a particular wound that we want to invite the lord to heal us from yes the chances are there it is also it is somebody else but it's also us right i've met the enemy and he is me right yeah we have met that what does that say we've met the enemy and he is us right um we're like the again it's the bible the bible stories are come alive right i mean it's like uh the uh demoniac what's that how do you say that word genezeret the you know you know which one the story about jesus shows up and he said what is your name and and he says my name is uh legion for we are many i used that in an email recently talking about some of my own struggles i said and their name is legion because there are many i was talking i was talking about a specific attitude yeah but i said their name is legion because that attitude infiltrates the way that i deal with life on a daily basis so it's about specificity again right right yeah it's this is this attitude and here are the places that it manifests you know and that brings up another thing too is that i think you know specificity in prayer i think so often uh we pray generally and vaguely rather than specifically and the reasons right well and one of the reasons we don't pray specifically is because then we are actually putting our hearts out that's right because because then we actually know whether god shows up and does something if i pray gently lord make things turn out okay no if i pray lord i need healing from this yes you know i have this wound i have this thing and we pray intently and expectedly and trustingly and we persevere in that prayer well i think something will happen but that's part of this this leap of faith right because then we're we're testing do i really do i really pray and expect that god is going to do something yes yeah and if the answer if if if what i pray for doesn't doesn't happen the answer is no but i know the answer is no because i've actually prayed for this right right lord i'd like to see this happen and then this doesn't happen it's like well i guess the lord didn't ignore me the lord just said no now that brings up a whole bunch of other steps like what what do you mean no right right and that's probably part of that honesty in getting back to some of the other parts of the conversation that probably in many cases the honesty part is that oh yeah god wants to heal the me of this but i need to talk to somebody else first i need to i need to maybe talk about with my spouse or with my professor or i need to bring a good a good a friend of mine in and share my heart with them maybe that's that's what the lord is waiting on for us to to let down our guard and to be vulnerable yes yes let us grace him beautiful amen amen well thank you brother thank you for joining this conversation we're going to dig more into next week you know walk through these steps and again there's i think there's so many as you said it's the gospel in 12 steps there's so many insights in here and it'll just be good hey because we're all recovering sinners here together that's it that's it brother thank you for joining us for this episode of deep in christ i hope this conversation has been an encouragement and inspiration to you remember this is a production of the coming home network international we are a network of converts people who have embraced the catholic church as well as others who are thinking about becoming catholic or asking questions who are somewhere along that journey if that is you then this is your network and we welcome you into it visit www.chnetwork.org to get a bunch of great resources articles videos a newsletter but most especially our online community community.chnetwork.org where you can follow this and other shows but also journey along with you know a whole community of recovering sin addicts just like you and and brother and i and so thank you again for joining us for this episode we'll talk to you again next week god bless god bless you [Music] you

Channel: The Coming Home Network International

Views: 436

Rating: 4.875 out of 5

Keywords: 12 steps, addiction, sin, being addicted, catholic addiction, catholic, God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Faith, Religion, Spirituality, Prayer, Bible, Old Testament, New testament, Alcoholism, recovery, Alcoholics Anonymous, sobriety, temptation, overcoming temptation, Holiness, Christian living, spiritual growth, conversion, becoming Catholic, Dr. Bob, Bill W, powerless, admit you have a problem, help with addiction, Humility, Discipleship, Christian addiction resources

Id: E2jVliT_4zQ

Length: 45min 13sec (2713 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021