Step Ten - Review, Rinse And Repeat Series

STEP 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we wrong promptly admitted it. How?!!!

Read Scripture: John 15:2

"Every Branch in Me that does not bear fruit, he takes away; and every branch that bears fruit he prunes it, that it may bear more fruit"

The biblical equivalent of daily repentance comes in our asking God to remove our impulse to sin, repenting immediately when we fall and finally, continuing to ask for help. Adapted from 12 step Christianity.

Image: Personal example of something you are trying to change, your failure and your repentance.

I have been around recovery for almost 20 years. I have seen miracles in the program happen almost weekly. People coming in and staying sober, clean, not controlling, and amazingly happy over that time. But I have also buried really great people. Friends who didn’t seem to be able to get their recovery or place it first. After a period of time, I used to get really angry that folks did not get it. I would struggle with the slipper and the come and go group. It was extremely difficult. I wanted to shake them and say, “don’t you get it?!”

I then realized I had become the curmudgeon. I was judging them instead of working my own program. I needed to look inside at my own faults and sins and admit I wasn’t all that. I was only one more person trying to recover from a seemingly helpless state of body and mind. I needed to work a tenth step. I needed to look at my life honestly and begin to get honest with the other defects of character. The smaller ones which left unattended will become bigger and threaten my life.

Only His power can save us and prune us. I know this is hard for you, who like me, grew up with the little engine that could add to my DNA. Like NIKE swoosh, I can do it. But that is dangerous for us. It’s what keeps some of us out there. We fail to realize the truth.

In doing so, I am actually submitting to the grace of God. You see, God is the source of change in our lives. He enables us to see these defects of character, sin really, over time. He also helps us detest these sins. He creates a desire to have them removed and finally it is God’s power that helps us to remove them.

You know when you first came into your program, the only thing you could think of was not doing whatever was bring you to your knees and eventually, you turned it over. That is exactly what the scripture is talking about. That’s the branch God first wanted to prune. As we work on that branch and not allowing it to grow back, we begin to see other branches that need pruning. The question is can we prune it or does God have to prune it?

I think God inspires us to do the leg work on most of the defects of character that pop up. However, he wants to be involved in the process and that is why prayer is so powerful here. God desires our prayers and will help us. After all, what loving father would not want to give His child something good for them. However, God will not help you prune or change and attitude or action if it in the end will destroy you. To often our prayers are selfish, prayed with little thought of they fit into God’s purposes. However, prayers which are consistent with His purposes will always be granted.

There is no doubt that God desires to prune sin from our lives. Christ died for our sins. He desires that we imitate his holiness. Surely God will honor our earnest and humble requests to change, to become like him in our thoughts and deeds. Prayers like these are surely heard.

With that being said, I also believe we need to not focus entirely on the negative. That is when we pray for removal of or change of some sin in our life; we need to also pray for the positive replacement as will. We ask God to substitute our impulse to sin with an impulse which would reflect His character. If your struggling with greed, ask God to help you be satisfied with what you have and to be generous with others. If you tend to gossip, ask God to provide you words that strengthen others.

If you would like to know more about the author: https://communitycenter.life/rev-robert-butler-info