Surrender, sacrifice, and service

Having a life in recovery with Christ is no different than a garden. A desire to "grow" leads to a seed being planted.  This seed is nurtured, fed, and tended lovingly.  The garden is kept free of weeds that if given the chance will choke the life right out of what you've planted.  What you will harvest is beyond imagination and your bounty will be more than blessed if you plant first with Christ at the heart of it.  This takes surrendering your life and will to His, sacrificing yourself for Him and His plan for you, and serving Him daily by living a life that puts others needs ahead of our own.  It will take these three S's to grow a bountiful garden planted in Christ rich soil. 

You can't have one without having the other, or at the very least without being called to another.  Follow me for a minute here...to surrender means to relinquish control.  For many of us, if we are relinquishing control of something we want, we are sacrificing our wants, and if God wants us to surrender and sacrifice our own needs to meet the needs of others, we are serving both our God and our siblings in Christ. 

How do you accomplish this task? By having an attitude of Christ.  In a letter to the Philippian church Paul wrote:

Philippians 2:1-11; Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from His love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? Then make me truly happy by agreeing whole heatedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and one purpose.
Don't be selfish; don't try to impress others. Be humble thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others too.
You must have the same attitude Christ Jesus had:

Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead He gave up His divine privileges, He took up the humble position of a slave and was born a human being. When He appeared in human form He humbled Himself in obedience to God and died a criminals death on a cross.
Therefore, God elevated Him to the place of highest honor and gave Him the name above all other names. That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow in Heaven and on Earth and under the Earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father.

Remember the slogan that came out a few years ago WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) Well lets talk about what He would want us to do. It is just one addicts opinion take what you want from it.

Surrender: (Planting the garden) As you know step 1 says, "We admitted we were powerless over our addiction and that lives have become unmanageable". So we have to surrender ourselves to the fact we have a problem with using sex and having unhealthy sexual behaviors that lead to rather life complicating situations and unwanted emotional dependency on sexual activity of various forms. To counteract this activity we have to do like step 3 says "decide to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him". Then we have to surrender our problem and our lives over to Him because He can help us over come the lies the enemy tells us and help us the learn the truth that He promises us. We have to depend on our creator not our computer, strip club, adult book store or latest tryst. I wouldn't say this unless I was not doing it myself. An example of this is I work at a place where there is a lot of female customers. My wife understands that it is not one specific person that can trigger me but a lot of skin can. Therefore, I say to God a helpful prayer, usually daily, "God help me stay focused, help me keep my mind and my eyes focused, and when I start to get on the wrong path please Lord pull me back." and He helps, but I have to surrender my addiction to Him daily. Otherwise, experience tells me it can go bad quickly. To have an attitude of Christ with surrendering our problem to Him to is no different than when Jesus dedicated His ministry to the Father. We have to dedicate our recovery to Him.

Sacrifice: (Tending the garden) This is where the weeds that choke the life out of a Garden come in. By nature addiction is selfish. The negative sacrifices that occur around the world in addiction dramatically affect families, spouses, jobs, finances and peoples sense of worth. We give up a lot of things to satisfy the addiction and make sure it is well cared for. We have to sacrifice our selfishness to recover. There is no other way. You can not recover and still hold on to this part of it or that part of it, because holding on to one piece of the addiction can basically make that part grow like a weed that ends up taking back over a garden. By example I tell you, that will happen every single time. I can not tell you how to sacrifice the addiction because you know how far and to what extent you have gone and what it will require you to give up the problem. The only thing I can really say is look at the positives in your life and decide not to be selfish enough to ruin those things. People remember, kids remember, everyone remembers even if they forgive you. You have a chance now to water and weed a different garden. One that produces bountiful things, and completely bull doze the one that sucks the life out of you and your family. Now let me leave you with one final thought on sacrifice: Christ sacrificed His life to give us life. We will not recover if Christ is on the Cross and self is on the throne. To recover we must put Christ on the throne and Self on the cross and sacrifice the life of our addiction to gain a life with Christ. Plain and simple that is the only way. Because who are we to think that we can share the throne and don't need to nail our sacrifice to the Cross, when Jesus Himself was nailed to it.

Service: (Harvesting the Garden) This is where maybe I will sound a bit harsh but oh well. When Queen Elizabeth was a little girl she got in trouble and she felt bad, and her nanny saw her in her room talking to herself in the mirror and Elizabeth said "You are the future Queen of England, NOW ACT LIKE IT!" We are children of God and we must ACT LIKE IT! To serve others is what we are called to do. Addicts can not serve anyone but ourselves. In recovery we have a chance to slow down and think about others. We have the chance to change our way of thinking by thinking of others. In doing so we develop new senses of responsibility to our fellows which helps us get outside of ourselves in the more crucial moments when we feel ourselves wanting to act out. Just like Queen Elizabeth did, we will say our own things to ourselves in the mirror. In serving others we do harvest God like responsibility to help and do. We begin to feel better inside, like we actually have worth and can give back. We have to look at others first and ourselves second. There are many ways to serve others: service work at your meetings like making coffee, buying donuts, things like that. We can open a door for someone that has their hands full, buying someone a cup of coffee or giving them $5 for some gas to get to work. Smile at someone who looks sad. It doesn't have to be a mission trip over seas, it just has to be outside of yourself in an effort to help another somehow.

So you see having an attitude of Christ is basically living and loving right. WWJD is a good slogan, it is not an advertising campaign, it is a way of life worth striving for. Let me share the Parable of the Farmer scattering seed to demonstrate the garden theory of surrender. sacrifice and service:

Matthew 13:3-9; Jesus said, "Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds. As he scattered them across his field some seeds fell on a foot path and the birds came and ate them. Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seed sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they did not have deep roots they died. Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted!  Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand.

Plant yourself and your recovery in Christ and blossom where you are planted. Be transformed from an annoying weed to something beautiful. Tend your garden because no one will do it for you. Basically it comes down to this: in the movie Shawshank Redemption,the main character Andy said this after being turned down for parole, "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'" it is your choice.

Father in Heaven, we spoke today of our recovery and our relationship with you being like a garden. Many of us do not know gardening of this sort. We ask that you teach us and give us the proper tools to grow in a relationship with You. That we let go of the lies the world tells us and that we tend to others needs to help them grow and to help ourselves grow by learning how to love one another like Christ loves us. Humbly we submit, that you may help us blossom. Father we pray this in the Precious name of  your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

My prayers are with you. Jason.