PRAYER FOR THE DAY

I pray that I may live my inner life with God.

I pray that that nothing shall invade or destroy that secret place of peace.

Lord, prevent me from becoming apathetic about my recovery program; give me the power to stick with it.

WORKING THE STEPS

Read Steps 10, 11 and 12

(See Twelve Steps below)

Step 10   Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Step 11   Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Step 12   Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics [and others in need of spiritual healing], and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

DAILY SCRIPTURE READING

Read Deuteronomy 8 : 1 - 14

King James Version

www.biblegateway.com

1 All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.

2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.

3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.

4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.

5 Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.

6 Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.

7 For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;

8 A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;

9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

10 When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.

11 Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:

12 Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein;

13 And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;

14 Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;

DAILY SCRIPTURE LESSON

Staying With The Program

Sober does not only apply to alcoholics and drug addicts.

Every addiction is all consuming. It touches every part of a person – body, mind, and spirit.

It can corrupt the person into a hollow shell of what he or she could have been.

Whether it is chemical addiction or process addiction, its power can never be minimized.

Staying sober is more than abstinence.

The battle to “take the land” of wholeness involves a continual struggle with the graveclothes of addictive behavior.

The argumentativeness, the bitterness, the compulsivity, the self-centeredness, the blindness to its effects,.

And the denial of its presence, and, strongest of all, the apathy.

Becoming apathetic about addiction’s subtle traps holds within its power the ability to return the addict to bondage.

That is why we have the “maintenance steps” of the Twelve Steps, so that we regularly conduct our inventory.

So that we can also keep up our contact with God, and practice recovery principles day by day.

Moses’ emphasis was similar as he told the Israelites to “keep on keeping” God’s commandments.

Just as “a sow, after washing, returns to the wallowing in the mire” (2 Peter 2:22).

The addict / codependent will fall into relapse unless they maintain a healthy respect for their own health and for his ever-present enemy.

-     Melinda Fish