First, quick update: I’m not dying any time soon, statistically speaking. My labs weren’t as bad looking as I thought they were, but they do need some work. The doc said that with meds, it’ll take a year or two to get my levels back to normal. What does that mean? Well, like anything else in recovery it means it is not quick and a 1% improvement at a time is what I’m in for.
The doctor wanted to set me up with a dietician which will be a very interesting experiment with my eating disorder. I am going to either frustrate or fascinate the dietician.
It got me thinking about the 8 Choices of Celebrate Recovery, now unfortunately called the 8 Principles. I prefer Choices so I’m sticking with that. I like them for a few different reasons. First, my old man brain likes that there’s eight things to remember instead of twelve. Second, they are based on the Beatitudes of Matthew 5, which I will have to write about later because I love them and are confounded by them. Lastly, the the 8 Choices spell out RECOVERY. Ya’ll know I love a good acronym.
I was thinking about Choice 1: “Realize I’m not God; I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that my life is unmanageable.” This is based on “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit.”
What I want to focus on is realizing that I am not God. I do a lot to try to be God; I try to control what is out of my control, I try to control people and situations, I try to get what I want to happen to happen without consideration of whether it will contribute to the Kingdom of God. The beauty of Choice One is I can stop trying to control and learn to be a child in the Kingdom of my Father.
I will never make a choice to get past this choice. And that’s a good thing! The thing I hear a lot with the 12 Steps is that people “completed step ____” and they think they never have to return to it. That’s like saying you had breakfast this morning so you never have to again.
Reminding ourselves we are not God is a daily practice. It doesn’t have to look like actually saying, “I am not God”, unless you find that helpful. It might look like Dallas Willard’s practice of starting each day quoting Psalm 23 before his feet hit the floor. It might be breath prayers of inhaling, “You are my God” and exhaling, “I am your child.” There are many ways to practice this choice. I’d love to hear your ideas.
As I remind myself that I am not God and therefore I am held by God, my day looks a lot different. You know why? It’s exhausting trying to be God. That scene in Bruce Almighty where Bruce gets annoyed at the prayers and just answers yes to all of them is a silly but profound example of how we are not meant to be God. We are meant to care for people, and sometimes we are answers to their prayers, but we are not the ones who set the path of the prayer being answered. And thank God for that.
Take a slow moment today and think of the ways you are not God and give thanks.
The last thing to consider when we choose to realize we are not God is that we give permission for others to also not be God. They are not meant to satisfy you in the way God does. They are not meant to fulfill desire as God does. They cannot heal you in the way God does. They can uplift you. They can encourage you. They can carry burdens with you. But they are not God, either.
This week, I invite you practice the choice of realizing you are not God. Pay attention to the ways you might be reaching for control of something that you don’t have control over. Pay attention to exhaustion you feel and ask where it’s coming from. Could it be that it’s something that belongs to God? And this may be true of other emotions like anxiety, happiness, depression, or outrage. Are the ways you’re reacting to those emotions practicing being a child of God or of being God?
This is so good Dustin. Thank you for writing!!