Step 2

“Come to believe that the power of God can restore you to complete spiritual health.”

This is the center of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is the crux of the Plan of Salvation.

Of all of the things that I believe, I believe this more resolutely and deeply than any other: that I can be made whole.  I believe that Jesus Christ, through His great atonement, has the ability and opportunity to take my sins from me, to restore me to complete and total spiritual strength.

I used to, for a long time, on believe in this idea.  I believed in Christ, and I believed that He could same people from sin, but I wasn’t so convinced that he could save me.  I didn’t believe Him when He said His sacrifice was sufficient for me.  I thought it might be sufficient for most people, or even for everyone else, but it certainly wasn’t sufficient for me.  I felt that I had betrayed Him too many times, that I had worn out my welcome.

I like to think of myself as being in control of my life (we all do).  I like to think of myself as having power over the things round me.  Yet, no matter my strength, no matter how much I think I can control things, I can’t heal myself.  I can’t, no matter how many good deeds I do, no matter how many times I go to the temple, or feed the poor, make my self spiritually well by myself.  Jesus Christ is the only one whose bandages are big enough and whose solvents powerful enough to cleanse my soul.

And so it is with addictions, whatever they might be.  Our addictive impulses overtake us, leaving us powerless; so powerless, in fact, that only the power of God can pull us from their grasps.

Step 1

Admit that you, of yourself, are powerless to overcome your addictions and that your life has become unmanageable.

That is easy for me to do.  I would imagine it is for many people, as it takes a certain amount of humility to even approach these steps.

Of value on a spiritual level is the principle of humility.  We like to believe that we are great and wonderful, that we are important.  But, as King Benjamin teaches us, we are all beggars.  We owe all that we have and are to our Father in Heaven.  This is not to say that we are insignificant, for we aren’t; what it is saying is that we are all equal before God in that we are all sinners, and that we are all dependent upon Him for every breath.

Until we are willing to be humble, willing to admit that we owe all that we are to something outside ourselves, we will continue to flounder and wander spiritually, just as we will in battling our demons.

12 Steps

Many of you are probably familiar with the 12-step program used by Alcoholics Anonymous.

I have been battling my way through my own addictions for many years.  Recently, I’ve “ramped up” my efforts to come to terms with these things, and (more importantly) with myself.  This has lead me, inevitably, to the 12 Steps.

LDS Family Services has an Addiction Recovery Program.  I have participated in several group meetings in the past.  One of the resources that is used there, is a 12-step manual.  LDS Family Services has slightly modified the AA steps (to bring more inline with LDS doctrines/insights).

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about all of these things lately, and I had the idea to work through the 12 Steps here.  I do not mean that I wish to use this blog as a forum to expose all of my weaknesses to the world, or to conjure up some sort of pity party.  I actually have a place for that already… What I’d like to do is examine the 12 Steps as insight into the Gospel.  I think that the reason that so many people have success with these programs is that they are built upon solid and beautiful principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So, I will discuss one step each week.  I will likely insert personal detail as seems appropriate.  I actually do have a blog dedicated to my journey out of addiction.  If you’d like more info on that, please let me know.  Aside from that, though, I’d like to use this blog to simply explore the spiritual lessons the 12 Steps offer, and to share the insights I (or you) find along the way.

Descending

I picked up Pema Chödrön’s Comfortable with Uncertainty again this morning.  Comfortable with Uncertainty is a compilation of 108 short teachings about cultivating fearlessness and compassion.  It is designed to be something like a daily exercise manual toward the Buddha-nature (if you will).  I especially like the premise about cultivating fearlessness as a way to remove suffering and hate from our lives (and from our selves).

The first chapter is called “The Love that Will Not Die.”  Usually we think of “spiritual awakening” as a journey to the top of a mountain, where we leave all of our possessions and worldliness behind.  The problem with this is that we leave everyone behind as well.  The warrior-bodhisattva (as Chödron calls it) makes his spiritual journey by descending, by moving ever downward toward turbulence and doubt.  He explores the realities and insecurities of suffering and pain.  At the bottom of everything we discover water, and calm, peacefulness.  Right there, at the bottom of everything we discover the love that will never die.

That descending is precisely what our Savior did.  Jesus Christ took upon himself our suffering.  He understands all pain.  I once had a professor who said, almost in passing, that Christ suffered for all who hurt.  As I was in enormous amounts of emotional and psychological pain at the time, this really touched me.

Christ was and is the warrior-bodhisattva.  He truly descended below all things, and he offers us the peace that will soothe us.  I wish I could say that I remembered this when things get difficult, but that doesn’t change the fact that He is there.