Here We Go Again

I’m not a spiritual guru or a mental health counselor. I’ll admit that I’ve got a lot of knowledge and experience in both fields thanks to years of floundering around in higher education, and well, years of banging my head against the wall in “lower” education… But here’s probably about the coolest thing that I’ve learned about life – you don’t need to be an expert to help people. God lets us experience life so that we can learn some stuff… stuff about ourselves, stuff about the world, and stuff about him so that we might be able to be of some use to the next person who finds themselves stuck in that same rut. That truth has led me to where I am today, and to this little slice of the internet pie.

Now if you’ve been following along in the saga of my life, then you are probably thinking, “hey this looks strangely familiar to your other blog.” Guilty. The truth is I let that old thing go unattended for so long that I lost the domain name. Probably God’s way of relinquishing me from my ego and opening a door for me to produce a blog that’s not named after myself. So here I am walking through that door. Honestly I don’t know what this whole thing is supposed to be about, other than Grace and Recovery. They are they my purpose on this Earth, so I figure that’s a good enough name to get things going.

Grace

How sweet it truly is, and not just because that old hymn is engained in my brain for life. I was a trainwreck for a lot of years. Sometimes it was worse than others. However, I am thoroughly convinced of this truth – I have not gotten what I deserve. And I don’t mean the good stuff. I mean for all of the mistakes I’ve made, laws I’ve broken, and people I’ve hurt over the course of my life, I’ve only gotten a fraction of the consequences that I am entitled to… and that’s just here on Earth. Compared to God’s justice, I honestly can’t even begin to comprehend what life would be like if I had to answer for all of it.

As a person who is thoroughly convinced of this reality, I’ve become more inclined to look at life through a lens of gratitude. It’s not always my first inclination, however it is the place where I land when I take a step back from the minor inconveniences of life and take a realistic look at my circumstances. Grace has afforded me a life beyond my wildest dreams, and so then it is also my responsibility to be a vessel of that grace to the world around me. I can practice being a steward of God’s grace by practicing forgiveness and acceptance of others by seeking not to repay anger with anger. I’m given the ability to reach out and down and help those who need to hear about the promises God has made to not only me, but to everyone through Christ Jesus. That promise is a life filled with purpose and meaning. A life that resists evil and oppression in all forms. A life that is freed from the wicked ways of this world and focused on that which brings the light of love.

Recovery

When I first started my journey of recovery I was obsessed with the notion of getting everything back that I had thrown away in my addiction. I had been victimized by my own thinking and behaving. I thought that the main goal of being in recovery was to restore my life to what it had been before it all started to fall apart. However, I have learned that this is not the case. The person that I was at one time was still woefully inadequate and incapable of truly embracing and embodying a life of recovery, hence the reason that I stayed wrapped up in cycles of destruction for so long.

No, being restored to my former self wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t the goal. Rather I have found that recovery is much more about leaving behind that old man, and becoming someone completely new. Recovery as it has turned out, has begun to restore me to the person that God desires me to be. What I’ve recovered is the desire to be more like the God who has created me in his own image. A new thing for a guy who’s goal in life was to be the image of anyone or anything that covered up the scared little child who inhabited a man’s body.

What’s the Point?

Well the point of all of this and of this blog is simple. To help people. To let them know that they are not alone. To help them wrestle with theology, The Bible, recovery, and generally living life on life’s terms (which is a really cryptic way of saying “living life of God’s terms). My hope is that people will ask questions, and I will do my best to answer those questions so that complex ideas can be understood and then space can be created to better understand God, his revelation to us in scripture, and what it means to us.

I want both believers and skeptics to feel free to explore my thoughts and the heart of God. I’ll be honest with you. I’m a Christian Pastor and I’m an active member of a 12 step recovery program. I want people to understand and explore how Christianity and recovery compliment one another. I want to help people understand how they have worked together in my life. I want Christians who are not in need of 12 step recovery to explore how the principals of the program can change their lives. I want people in recovery who are not Christians to explore the possiblity that maybe that loving, caring, and all powerful higher power that they rely on might just be Jesus.

So welcome to the party, I look forward to hanging out with you all. Feel free to disagree with me on anything, I don’t take myself real seriously, and I certainly don’t think I have all of the answers. All that I ask is that we keep an open mind with one another and that we treat each other with grace. -Tim 🙂