March 16, 2007

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

Scripture reading for today: Psalm 17, Proverbs 9

This is a great devotional written by Dr. Ryan. Before you proceed, let me point out one itsy bitsy detail. He’s talking about believers – those who have decided. Remember: coming to believe gives us the capacity to find our freedom. The process of developing the skill sets to access all of God’s big promises to us is just that – a process. Before we come to believe in a deciding-kind-of-way, none of us has this capacity. The capacity to: find our freedom, know and do God’s will, have the mind of Christ, etc. – that comes after the decision…
I love Dr. Ryan’s honesty – this is hard stuff, even for those who decide.
Christians do not believe about life that 'what you see is what you get'.

Quite to the contrary, Christians believe that many things we cannot now see are still part of God's plans for us. Some days we cannot see (or maybe even imagine) what it would be like to be completely recovered. But we know that this is God's plan for us. God is committed to our full recovery. As this text puts it, God will not be done with us until we are 'like him'. That is as 'recovered' as you can get. The clarity of God's plan for us can give us hope. It may be a difficult journey, but you can get somewhere from here. We can make it because God is involved in the process of our transformation. This hope can give us a kind of purity of purpose and vision. Because God is committed to our full recovery, we are not alone with our hopes and dreams. Because God is committed to our full recovery, we have a power greater than our own to help with the struggle. Because God is committed to our full recovery, we can find rest and courage in the purity of God's vision for us. Because God is committed to our full recovery, we can let go of our pathetic little idol gods and turn to the true and living God. When we worshipped a god-of-impossible-expectations, we became driven and compulsive. When we worshipped a god-who-abused, we became fearful and frozen. When we worshipped a god-who-keeps-his-distance, we fought despair. As we begin to see God as loving, we come to believe that we are lovable. As we begin to see that God wants us to let go of our self-destructive behaviors in order to live more fully, we come to believe that we are precious and valuable.*

Thought for today: Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure. 1 John 3:2-3

Thought for tomorrow: Take some time today to journal. Put on your thinking cap. Think about all the things we’ve learned at NorthStar, our support groups and our bible studies. Think about the limitations of the human spirit, and write out a list of things that might naturally make it difficult to hope based on unseen things. Tell God this, and thank him for his supernatural provision.

March 16
Teresa McBean
*Dale and Juanita Ryan, on line devotional from Rooted in God’s Love, March 13th