Recovery Articles

by Anonymous

Are you entirely ready?

Being entirely ready for change is not the same as wanting change. Journal about what it means to you to be entirely ready to have God remove your defects of character. Be sure to include specific defects and the harm they caused others as part of your journaling but refrain from asking God to remove them as this will be done in the following step.

Step Six is a massive struggle for me. Who knew that I would have such a hard time relinquishing my grip on so many defects of character? As the Twelve and Twelve describes, my addiction took me to rock bottom and made me ready for God to remove this one character defect but all these other areas are more subtle. Many have been around a lot longer than the addiction. They’ve been part of my whole life. Crutches I’ve leaned on to get through days and seasons. They don’t carry the same desperation. Do I really want God to remove them all? My self-contempt and core shame? My codependency? That lingering longing for over-connection to bring me fulfillment? Or, to get current, do I really want to give up my attempt to control the outcome of my marriage – whether or not my wife and I will survive or get divorced? Am I willing to address my weakness on personal finances?

This has felt like the invalid in John 5, lying by the Pool of Bethesda. For 38 years he’d been an invalid. It’s all he knew. All that was familiar to him. Supposedly the waters of Bethesda could bring healing but he’d never been healed. He stayed nearby. It was a peripheral option. But he’d rather beg for alms. Until one day, Jesus showed up and point blank asked him, John 5:6, “Do you want to be healed? Do you really want to be healed? To be lifted out of your constrained life and low existence of 38 years? Transformed from what you’ve always known into who I’ve come to make you? Are you entirely ready for it? Do you really want to be healed?”

The “sick man” makes excuses. No one’s helped him get into the pool. When he’s tried to, someone else has beaten him to it. The man never even says, “Yes.” Jesus is un-phased. Jesus just tells him, John 5:8–9 “’Get up, take up your bed, and walk.’ And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.” Jesus shatters the bondage of his invalidity and launches him into a fourth dimension of existence. But Jesus specifically issues him a command. There is an act of obedience to be done. This man must get himself up, take up his bed, and then walk. He takes Jesus at his word and does so.

As a 38 year old sick man, this feels personal. I’ve spent a lot of my life near the healing waters as a Christian or as a pastor without getting in. I’ve held on. Stuck to what I know. That constrained life and low existence of self-contempt, shame, and self-destructive medications like codependency and lust. Why? None of that is good for me. This isn’t an abundant life. But it’s what I’m familiar with. It’s the cell I’m used to. And I’m insane. I’m not operating rationally or logically.

So now Jesus shows up and he’s asking me what I really want? Do I really want to be healed? Am I entirely ready for him to remove all these defects of character? And this isn’t easy.

Jesus, I didn’t ask for these things. I didn’t want to hate myself. I didn’t want to try to find my meaning in others’ perspectives of me. I didn’t want to have to lie or deceive to become my false self – whatever someone needs me to be. I didn’t want to be sexually attracted to men. And you’ve healed a lot of people but things only got worse for me. I wrecked my life and severely betrayed my wife and brought destruction to our family and church. I used people without concern for their marriages or families. I broke the trust of everyone in my life. I sinned against you over and over again. And, even now, these defects still whisper to me. They still make their false promises for fulfillment and meaning and value. And these false promises still sound appealing! The self-despising, the desire to be perceived as perfect, the ease of lying to prove myself, the fears that I’ll be exposed as a failure and I’ll be rejected and abandoned, and the longing for over-connection to others to really feel loved. These are all still calling out to me. They’re all I know. They’re the mat I lay on. I can’t even imagine getting up.

So how can I surrender to your vision if I can’t imagine it? How can I embrace the abundant, thriving, Kingdom life you want for me when this rotting-in-the-gutter life is all I know? By surrendering everything. Even surrendering my limited perspective. Trusting in yours.

Jesus, I don’t know how healing works and I don’t know what a healed life could look like but I know you. I know you know all things. You know me better than I know myself. All things were created through you and by you. And you put on flesh and came into this world to know me, to suffer for me, and to die to save me. But death couldn’t contain you. You broke death. Nothing can hold you back or stop you. If you could bear the sin of the world and conquer death, then you’re more than capable of conquering my shame, codependency, deceitfulness, fears, and character defects. If you say you’re offering to heal them, then you mean it.

You are better, Jesus. You want to give me far better than these defects offer. You bring me life while my self-contempt kills me. You fill me with love while my self-contempt fills me with hate. You want me to thrive where my shame wants me broken and enslaved. You tell the truth when I tell lies. Your promises are a better outcome than I can achieve myself. My true self in you is real and my false self is only flimsy and empty. You are bedrock and I only have sand. Your value of me is unconditional and your will for me is only for my good. Lust is greedy, consuming, compulsive, and obsessive. It poisons the rest of life, ripping me out of the present and warping my relationships. Your love is constant, unquenchable, true, and empowers me for all of life. If I base my whole meaning in life on the outcome of my marriage, then I can’t sincerely love my wife or kids or authentically be myself. I’ll constantly be on edge, trying to perform out of my false self. Even then, I don’t have the power to ensure our marriage survives. You only want me to hand you my weariness and heavy burden, to receive your rest, to take on your yoke, and to go where you go. To just be me and follow you. You’ll carry the load. You only want the real me. The guy who’s weak and imperfect with his personal finances. Who’s weak and imperfect in so many areas. Who wrestles with an insane addiction. You want me as I am and you want to come through to deliver me. If you are who you say you are, you require me to confess my weakness and my need of help.

So I’m entirely ready. I surrender my cell. My mat. This life that I’ve always known. My false self. My self-contempt and self-reliance. My lies and projections of perfection. My longings for over-connection. My lusts and sexual desires. The sick bondage I’ve been in for 38 years.

In my powerlessness, I acknowledge that I can’t see to the depths of my heart. I can’t ensure that I’m 100% surrendered. But I want to be and I think that’s enough. I’m entirely ready for you to remove all these defects of character. I need you, Jesus, to do in me what I can’t even imagine you can do.