The best gift...

My best gift this Christmas?

"The Recovery Bible".

My friend gave it to me. She said she was in her favourite Christian bookstore and this guy came in looking for one. She heard him talking about it and she thought that maybe I would like one too... She asked the store owner about it, who told her it wasn't just for people working through a "12 Step" program, but for anyone who has some kind of hurt in their life... for people (like me) who are still working through God's healing of some of the deep wounds of their past. She bought the very last one in the store -- for me.

It's amazing how God works things out to get the things into our hands that he really wants us to have. I would NEVER have bought that Bible myself. "I don't need a 'Recovery' Bible. I'm not a substance abuser. And I SURE don't need 12 Steps. That's so old and tired. God wouldn't use that to help me. " (Right. Famous last words.) But my friend is the most trusted of friends, and I knew I could rely on her judgment. If she felt that God had led her to this Bible for me, then he did! That's that.

The 12 Steps are listed in the front of my new Bible... Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over our dependencies -- that our life had become unmanageable.

Well, let's see. I've been to two hog-callings and a county fair, and I think I've been around long enough now to realize that yes, I AM powerless, and that my life, lived in my own strength, is just not manageable. I can keep a few balls under the water most of the time, but I just can't keep them all under all of the time. I just can't. I need help. ( There. I said it. I can't believe I said that! Well, truth is, I can believe I SAID it, but I can't believe I MEANT it!! But I did!)

Naaman needed help... (see 2 Kings 5) He went to Elisha because he had leprosy. In that culture, in those days, that would have been completely devastating. He was a very important man, had a high station in life, but had contracted a disease which would result in his walking out the rest of his days as an outcast -- with a stigma the size of Montreal. Naaman heard that Elisha's God could heal him, so he packed up his servants and a bunch of gifts and journeyed afar to ask this guy Elisha, this prophet in Israel, for help. Elisha was encouraging. He told Naaman to go down to the Jordan River and dunk himself seven times and God would surely heal him.

Naaman was totally ticked. He was such an important man in his own country, he couldn't believe that this prophet-dude would ask him to do something so STUPID. He stormed off in an angry huff.

One of Naaman's servants convinced him that he really had nothing to lose by becoming "helpless" and he finally turned back and dipped in the river as Elijah had told him to do. When he came out of the water, he was clean. Did his attitude suddenly change? You bet.

Naaman had to admit that he was helpless in his own strength. He couldn't believe God expected him to submit to a plan that seemed so crazy -- and "beneath" him. I imagine that he headed down the muddy bank of that river fussing and fuming all the way...

Well, I'm just as silly as Naaman. It's taken me a long time to admit way deep down that I can't do this "living of life" thing in any of my own strength. I need to submit to Someone else's much wiser plan -- even though it sounds crazy a lot of the time.

The first part of God's plan for me? (From here on in -- it's all part of a larger life-long continuing saga, but I'm just looking at "today on".) The first part of this plan is to work through that "old, tired" 12 Step Program... One scripture reading, and one related meditation at a time.

I'll let you know how it goes... (So far, so awesome!)

Thanks friend, for the gift...

Well, I'll be heading down to the river now...