Sometimes, it seems like stuff piles up on you and then often will go smoothly for an extended period of time -with little to no worries. I guess that’s just how things are – up and down. How I handle those ups and downs is the subject of this post.
Lately, things seem a little scary. I’m sure some of it has to do with buying a house (made the first mortgage payment last night, as a matter of fact). It’s a two-family home and my wife’s daughter lives upstairs with her boyfriend and our grandson (another one is on the way). This arrangement actually means that we should live as cheaply as we did renting an old apartment, even after all expenses are taken into account -- while building equity in a home of our own that will hopefully be passed on to her daughter and family. Sounds good, doesn’t it? It does to us… and yet I can worry about every little thing. My wife has some health issues that she needs to address that could cause her to go on disability or seek another line of work if things don’t get resolved soon. I want what is best for her, because she is the most important person in my life. On the other hand, she pays for our health insurance through her job – at a fraction of the cost it would be for me where I work if I had to put us both on it. So I worry about what could happen to us financially – especially since we just undertook this big commitment with a house. I have to come back around to the fact that, no matter what happens, we will need to have a place to live and come up with money every month to pay for it – so it shouldn't matter that we bought a home versus continuing to rent. The simple solution is to just “do the next right thing” and trust God.
When I drank and drugged, the idea of home ownership was a pipe dream that I never truly thought would be realized. As it is, it has taken me over a half century of living and 12-1/2 years of sobriety to get there. Now that I’m there, I’m wondering if I should have done it. In my heart, I know it’s the right thing to do and the logical “next-step” in my journey. Any time I take those steps, though, there is the uncertainty of what lies ahead that my mind can run with if I allow it – building all sorts of unpleasant scenarios which never seem to come true but always deprive me of sleep and peace of mind.
There are two words I have not used here so far in this writing: God and fear. Both play an important role in my state of mind these days.
The fear that drove me when I was using is still alive and well and looks for ways to get back in the driver’s seat. The easiest way for that to happen is to neglect any thought of God and not spend time in prayer. Remaining God-centered should be my constant goal. When I have those moments where I’m thinking of Him and working on that connection, the fear slips away and is replaced with feelings of gratitude for what He has given me versus what I probably deserved to get.
The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous talks about being driven by fear and how we react – and how others react to use (see p.62). In fact, the word fear pops up all over the place in the book: between stories, the steps -and the traditions to follow in later writings. One acronym for fear is ”face everything and recover.”
So what is the answer to fear? What weapon do we have to overcome it before it does the same to us? One word: faith.
Here’s one way the Bible describes faith:
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb.11:1).
My original sponsor of many years taught me the difference between rational and irrational faith. Irrational faith was just described above: the evidence of things not seen. That is the kind of faith I got from listening to repetitive lectures from pulpits and being trained to say my prayers and read the literature through the “formative years” of my youth. Nothing wrong with that I share that faith that the author of Hebrews writes about, but I also have a different (more rational) faith in the things that are seen. In a twelve step program, after spending a little time there and working on having an open mind and ears, I could see God working in the lives of recovering alcoholics as they improved their condition and dealt with the day-to-day stuff life throws at us all with dignity and grace. Some of them I had known prior to the rooms and knew that was not usually the case with them. I wanted what they all seemed to have found and I came to believe I could get it -if I utilized that power greater than myself to restore me to sanity (step 2). That is the substance of things seen. If I work on fostering my faith, things are unseen usually seem to come out of the shadows and into the light of day -where they are clearly seen and easily understood for what they are. The end result of that is that my life is richer for it and the promises jump off the pages of the book and become reality in my life. I don’t shut the door on my past and seem to have an intuitive grasp on how to handle situations that used to baffle me. Hmm… what do you know?
Matthew 17:20: He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." (NIV)
2 Corinthians 5:7: We live by faith, not by sight. (NIV)
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