AA -- A Way that Leads to Death

"There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." (Proverbs 14: 12)

and

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14: 6)

I could not believe how entrenched I was in the “AA” Twelve Steps way of life.

I had left the program, but the program had not left me. For a long time, I still had no idea how to "live". If all your life, you have been told that you have to live by a set of rules that no one can ever live by, is it any wonder that people in the Body of Christ crash and burn and fail?

Even when I stopped going to meetings, then sense of “catching myself” so that I did no wrong was still very strong in me.

When my life still fell apart, when I had no knowledge of the life of grace and righteousness that God has imparted to me through His Son, I had no idea what I was supposed to do, how I was supposed to live this life. I was constantly assaulted with doubt –“Am I doing the right thing or the wrong things? The fact that I could not, at the time at least, rest in righteousness, meant that I was always living in bondage to feelings.

When I walked off my job in February 2009, I did not know what to do. I was so frustrated with the way everything had been going, but the only thing I knew what to do at the time was --- go back to the Twelve Steps,.If I had taken my inventory more times, if I had been checking in with someone else more often, then I would not have been having the problems that I was having. . .

So, I checked in to a local “Celebrate Recovery” program, at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Torrance, CA.

I thought that I had found the answer to all my problems --- except that how many times in the past had I gone from meeting to meeting, yet I was still frustrated and angry, still I had no idea of what I was supposed to be doing in my life. How many times had I stormed out of meetings, so upset was I with al the stuff that I had been through, yet the same people I was listening to were just as lost as I was?

That is exactly what I was dealing with when I went to Celebrate Recovery. The vagaries of the world seemed like too much to me. If I just “worked” this program then I could have life and that more abundantly. That was not the case then, and it still was not the case now!

Yet I was surprised by how down and out these people were. There was so much sickness, so much lack. There were men and women who were having so much trouble in their lives. There were men who shared about how they were having trouble with their marriages, how they were struggling with drugs and alcohol abuse. Some of the men struggled with sexual issues. They would talk about being able to avoid the bad behaviors for about three, six, nine months, then they would “Act Out” – they would get involved in bad activities or whatever they were supposed to be recovering from.

I remember listening to the men who were struggling with sexual  addiction, how they would outline all the questions that they would ask themselves at the beginning of the day – have you done anything that you should be ashamed of? Are you thinking about doing anything that you should be ashamed of?

I was very saddened by what I was seeing and hearing. These men were supposed to be helping me to break free of whatever was causing me trouble, yet lo and behold they were just as lost as I was. These men had not even grown up, they were in so much bondage to their past.

I hated going to those meetings, and I could not understand why I felt so good about myself when I chose not to go. I actually liked that I did not go to meetings. This conflict was hard for me to reconcile, for a long time, yet I was so convinced that I needed "guidance" that I had to "keep coming back."

Then I learned more about the Holy Spirit:

"But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." (1 John 2: 20)

and

"But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him." (1 John 2: 27)

This is a radical concept for many people, the idea that I can trust my "intuition" on matters.

The key element here is "abide", for we are called to abide, to rest in Christ Jesus (John 15: 1-5) that through us He may bear much fruit!

When we are established in righteousness (Isaiah 54: 14), that we receive it as a gift rather than achieve it as a work (Romans 5: 17), we find that "right and wrong" or "good and evil" no longer become an issue, for in Christ we partake of the tree of life and live out His life of love:

"Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." (Romans 13: 10)

His righteousness and His grace brings out the Life that He wants to live through us!

But as long as believes insist on bringing the law back into their lives with Twelve Steps that just go nowhere, then believers in the Body of Christ will never enjoy the life more abundant that they have received in Christ Jesus!