I am grateful for this promise: “The Lord is passionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love” (Psalm 103:8). I can’t imagine where I’d be if not for that grace. But God’s grace doesn’t take away from our need to do the hard work of recovery. James R. Miller said, “It is a great…
In order to stay sober, you need to know when to surrender. The Old Testament writer said, “There is a time to search and a time to give up” (Ecclesiastes 3:6). For most of us, surrender doesn’t come easily. Why is this? Answer: we are all control freaks. That’s the nature of sin. We want…
You don’t relapse because you don’t know what to do. You relapse because you don’t do what you know. Mark Twain was right: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble.” We don’t lack knowledge; we lack wisdom. David prayed, “God, look within the hearts of men and examine all their motives”…
You are probably familiar with Robert Frost’s famous poem, The Road Not Taken, in which he depicts a person facing a dilemma. He has two possible pathways from which to choose – one that is frequently traveled and one that is rarely taken. In the poem, the person chooses the road less traveled. For the…
On April 20, Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s newest Starship rocket exploded just a few minutes after take-off. The next day, Musk lost $12.6 billion of his net worth when Tesla’s stock tanked. His response? Keep moving forward. Musk called the SpaceX explosion a “successful failure.” When others would drop their head and mope, Elon Musk learned…
Solomon offered interesting wisdom when he said, “What is crooked cannot be straightened” (Ecclesiastes 1:15). That doesn’t mean we are beyond hope. But some of our choices have consequences with which we must live for the rest of our lives. Chuck Swindoll said it well: “No one can deny the relentless pain brought on by…
“Although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their hearts, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21). The darkened heart is like a basement at the bottom of the stairs. While my childhood home didn’t have a basement, our relatives’ home in Kansas did.…
One of the most common questions I get is, “How do I overcome fantasy?” Of course, there is no silver bullet. The problem is that our biggest sex organ is our brain. As long as we have a brain, fantasy can be a threat. While there are many tools we can use to overcome fantasy…
Raise your hand if you can think of any failures in your life. A guy named C.S. Lewis had this to say about failures: “Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.” If you really believe in Romans 8:28, you must also believe that God uses our…
Relapses are the predictable outcome of a series of poor choices. A relapse is never an event, but a process. Relapses come in three phases: Don’t focus too much on the physical part of relapse, the actual acting out behavior. Focus more on how you get to that point. Give greater attention to what is…