How am I more aware of Jesus Christ and his power in your life than you were in the past?

"If ye will awake and arouse your faculties even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yeah, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a a portion of my words." - Alma 32:27

Awareness.

It's funny how awareness diminishes during stress.

How the world narrows to a dark tunnel when life becomes difficult.  I find that I am least aware, that I become less astonished by the goodness of God as my life gets more difficult. Then, when I'm at the bottom and I've looked down as long as  I can, then I finally look up.  It's as if I've been holding my breath, refusing to take in air, and then finally I give in.  When I am least aware, it is is difficult for me to reach out to God, to recognize the blessings in my life, and to feel gratitude and humility.  And when I am least aware of myself and my situation, and who I  really am in relation to God, then it is easiest to succumb to temptation.

When I am least aware, I am unable to give my children the attention, love, and guidance they need.  When I am most aware, I make time for my children, I patiently guide them, and I parent them with love.

When I am acting out, when I am trolling the internet for illicit images, I am unaware of my surroundings, I am choosing to shut myself off from God, and I become fixated on one thing, and that one thing consumes all my other decisions.

Today I am more aware of Christ's power than I have been because I recognize the good in my life when I am worthy of the Holy Ghost.   That influence and peace comes from the Savior.  I appreciate the promptings of the Holy Ghost when I sit down to my computer. I appreciate that God never leaves me (even if I try to leave him). I appreciate that forgiveness I have felt, the sweet peace of prayer, the kind and patient Bishops who have let me call them or email them when I am feeling weak.  I appreciate my wife and my children for loving me inspire of me. I appreciate the job I have, the blessing of an income, a home, a car, a backyard, a child who crawls up on my lap to hug me just because I'm Dad.

Today I am grateful.

Healing

“If thou believest in the redemption of Christ thou
canst be healed” (Alma 15:6, 8)

 When we think of healing, we usually think about our bodies. What else about you might require the healing power of Jesus Christ?

The need to be healed implies a wound or a sickness, so really this questions is asking in what ways am I wounded and it what ways am I sick?

Wounded

I find myself thinking that I shouldn't be "wounded," that the idea of having a wound that has been inflicted on me by someone else implies a victim, and I don't want to be a victim.  But waht if that wound has been self-inflicted....what if my spiritual wounds are my own doing?  That's not victimhood then, that's owning my actions and their consequences.

So, how have I wounded myself? How have made myself sick?

My spirit is weak, it is sick....I have allowed myself to become disensitized to to entertainment that drives away the spirit.  This is a wound that needs healing.

My body is weak, it is wounded...I have allowed my mind and body to be controlled by an addiction and that means my body and mind are not working the way they should, or could if I were not wounded physically and emotionally.


It is also true that my interaction with others--both how I have been treated and how I treat others--has made my spirit sick and has wounded my body, and the savior can heal that too.  He can give me the power to overcome my own self-consciousness, he can help me fear God more than man, he can grant me peace in righteous living, he can help me "Be still and know that I am God."

And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

The Israelites only had to look and live.  So it is my duty and my salvation to look to God.  and if I am looking to God, then it is a lot harder to veer off course.

Divine Strength for Recovery

How can the gift of divine strength enable you to
maintain continuous recovery?

Psalms 59:17  Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing:
 for God is my defence, and the God of my mercy. 

The Psalmist sings that God is his defence... in what way though?  When I need defending, in what way does God accomplish that for me? It would seem thait has something to do with the power that comes from:

1) divine grace-this is the power given to us by God through the Goodness and mercy of God.  This is the addedd power and strength that comes from the atonement, it is a gift from God and it is his way of empathizing with our mortal situation.  This is not predicated on our obedience or on our worthineess, but comes straight from God's love, compassion, and charity.  And it is this reason that charity is long suffering...because God is long suffering...God continues to give us his Grace even in the face of our struggles to be obedient.

2) obedience to God's commandments.  In addition to strengthening us through is grace, god strengthens us by granting us a portion of his Spirit according to our obedience to His commandments.  God cannot grant us more of his Spirit without our obedience. 

D&C 121:47: Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.

So, this is perhaps what it means when Nephi says we are saved by Grace after all that we can do.  Not that Grace makes up for our gap between Earth and Heaven, but that after all we can do, it is by grace that we are saved.  Nothing we can do on our own will ultimately save us. That will come by the Grace of God.  It is a divine gift.  But to be exalted, to receive all the father has, to be strengthened by the Lord so that our confidence waxes strong, we must be obedient to God's commandments.  Our job is not to save ourselves, but to follow the Savior and be what he would have us become, and leave the saving to him. When follow the savior, he blesses us with more of his Spirit, which makes it easier to follow him more.

So if divine strength is going to help me through continuous recovery I must

1) rely on divine grace. Pray for it, look for it, and acknowledge it when I see it.

2) seek the strengthening power of the Holy Ghost.  Live obediently, act on promptings, stand in holy places.

Will do!

-AC

Faith in Jesus Christ

“Preach unto them repentance, and faith on the Lord
Jesus Christ; teach them to humble themselves and to
be meek and lowly in heart; teach them to withstand
every temptation of the devil, with their faith on the
Lord Jesus Christ” (Alma 37:33).

I think for most of my growing up years, and the first few years of my marriage after my addiction resurfaced, I thought that it would just take will power to get over it.  I expected friends or priesthood leaders to hold me accountable, and i expected to be able to keep one foot in the addiction by viewing soft-core, or other titillating  material while telling myself that as long as I avoided hardcore pornography that I was okay.

Sometimes the addiction cycle felt like a slow ferris wheel, other times it felt like a tilt-a-whirl, but always i felt like the addiction was in control and that I was at its mercy.

It wasn't until I realized (and I'm still realizing this every day), that I needed to leave myself at Christ's mercy in order to no longer be at the mercy of my addiction.  Today I know better than ever that Christ is in control, if I let him be.  That his mercy and grace are sufficient for me if I humble myself and do his will. If i serve and sacrifice and love and pray and repent and rely on his goodness, then I have the power to overcome my weaknesses, to make them strengths, and to use my own challenges to help others.

"Self-Imposed Isolation"

"Eventually you will find yourself ready to
kneel and pray aloud. You will find how good it feels to
express your feelings and needs to God. You will feel you
have reopened a conversation with someone who will
always answer you, not always with a yes but always with
love. At last you will begin to experience the healing
effects of breaking out of self-imposed isolation."

Self-Isolation is an interesting concept in light of that famous footsteps poem. I don't think God ever really withdraws from us.  we can shut out the Holy Ghost from our hearts but he is always right outside the door, so to speak, waiting for us to let him back in.  We isolate ourselves by holding up something in front of our eyes so closely that it blocks out the reality that the Savior is standing right beside us. We isolate ourselves by closing our eyes tightly, by turning our head, by plugging our ears, by screaming to be "left alone" because sometimes dealing with the truth seems to hard.

But I think it seems most hard when we don't see hope for ourselves.  If all we see are our failures and mistakes, then its hard to feel God's love, hard to accept that he accepts us, hard to be okay with being human.


Consider Alma's words to Corianton, who, of all the characters in the scriptures, is probably our best example of a recovering sex addict (though there is not suggestion that he was addicted, only that he allowed himself to be tempted away by a harlot--which is kind of how it starts for all of us, right?"

 30 O my son, I desire that ye should deny the ^ajustice of God no more. Do not endeavor to excuse yourself in the least point because of your sins, by denying the justice of God; but do you let the justice of God, and his ^bmercy, and his long-suffering have full sway in your heart; and let it bring you down to the dust in ^chumility.

I must be humble in order to see God in my life, in order to bring myself out of isolation.  I appreciate that Alma exhorted his son not only to focus on the justice of God, but also on his mercy and his long-suffering.  These are the two characteristics of God that allow the atonement to work in my life, but they are also the two that I have to choose to take advantage of.  God won't save me in my sins, nor will he force me to repent, but he will be merciful when Ido repent, and he will suffer my infirmities, weaknesses, and habits as long as it takes for me to turn to him.

I am turning to him today.

"The action required in step 2 is simply to become willing to practice believing in the love and mercy of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and the accessibility and blessing of the Holy Ghost."

-AC