Highlights from Sunday’s Sermon on Step 10 of Twelve Step Living for Everyday Christians-- “Everyday problem to God”

Highlights from Sunday’s Sermon on Step 10 of Twelve Step Living for Everyday Christians-- “Everyday problem to God”

The spiritual journey isn’t like pizza--something you get in the mood for once in a while and then you go to your favorite church, uh, I mean, pizza restaurant, and get your itch scratched. And for sure you can’t just dial up the phone and get a spiritual life delivered to your doorstep.

I have been sharing the Twelve Steps with you because I find them to be a spiritual tool that helps us regain balance and order and leads us to improved health and increased happiness through a renewed relationship with God.

So, if the spiritual life isn’t like pizza, what is it like? Maybe a garden?

There’s an advertisement where someone needed her landscaping done right now and the landscapers got the flowers beds planted in time by doing the work all night by the light of their vehicle headlights?

OK. Sometimes you can get a dramatic, conversion experience garden overnight. But, usually, in the ordinary course of things one plans, prepares and plants to get a garden. Then, constant care is required to keep the garden clear of weeds, which could retake the garden if allowed.

Our spiritual journey is similar to a garden. Our lives once belonged to the weeds--our self-defeating behavior--but God has helped us plant a garden in our lives.

We do not learn from experience, we learn when we reflect on our experience. Only when we take the time to reflect on how we are living now will we experience real character change.

Here are a few possibilities for you:

• Spot check. Postcards on the bathroom mirror, prayer magnets on the refrigerator, a bookmark with spiritual thoughts in a novel or spiritual reminder hanging from the rearview mirror. These are ways to check in with ourselves many times a day, briefly.

• Daily inventory. Here’s what I do: When it’s time for bed, I give myself a little time to reflect. Is there something that lingers, that is unsettling? If there’s something, I ask myself if I got tangled up in one of the seven deadly sins. I use the 7 deadlies because they’re pretty comprehensive and I have a good mnemonic for them: PAGGLES; P--Pride; A--Anger and resentment; G--Greed; G--Gluttony ; L--Lust; E--Envy; S--Sloth.

• Periodic long-term inventory. A day or a couple of days in peace and quiet. Reviewing how far we’ve come, how we’re doing. There are good tools in The Twelve Steps for Christians book that many of you bought and is available in our church library.

We must not judge ourselves too harshly. We need to recognize that nurturing ourselves emotionally and spiritually requires daily vigilance, loving understanding and patience.

The Tenth Step makes it clear that reflection by itself is not enough. There’s that second part of this step: “when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.”

If we want to keep making progress personally and spiritually, we need to build something else into our lives. We need to face up promptly to any wrong that we may do.

So, our spiritual life isn’t like pizza, it’s more like a garden, planned, prepared, planted; tended, weeded, watered. I guess that makes us a garden club:)


Brief History of The Twelve Step programs

Alcoholics Anonymous began on June 10, 1935 and was co-founded by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith.
Wilson’s method was heavily influenced by the British Oxford Group movement and its American leader, Episcopal clergyman Samuel Shoemaker.
The framework and inspiration of the 12 Steps are solidly based in Christianity. Part of Bill Wilson’s genius was to break down the Christian experience into 12 Steps that could be understood and worked with diligence without requiring a specifically Christian spiritual experience.