Work the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous with a biblical worldview in mind. Find series resources at https://www.pursuegod.org/steps-to-recovery-series.

Speaker 3 00:00:18 Step 11 says, uh, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of his will for us, and the power to carry that out.

Speaker 2 00:01:26 This. I can imagine some people are listening to this saying, you know, I don't know if I'm qualified to pray a lot of times when, I dunno if this happens to you guys, pastors, but a lot of times when I'm at a, at a, at a meal, at a dinner with a bunch of other people, and it's time to pray over the meal, everybody looks, looks at me and expects me to pray. Mm-hmm. . And, and I used to be like, come on, somebody else pray. But now I don't. Now I just say, I am a professional . Please don't try this on your own. You know, this is very dangerous. No, obviously I'm joking and everybody laughs. But that is what some people think about with prayer is they're, they think, I don't, I don't think I'm qualified to pray. And I don't know. Mark, what would you say to that, to the person who's new to this, or maybe, maybe they've gone to church for a while, maybe they're new to church even, but they're coming o they're coming into recovery and they feel almost disqualified to pray. And and I think we should probably maybe address that first and foremost.

Speaker 1 00:03:26 Yeah. And prayer takes faith, right? Mm-hmm. , because we're talking to someone that we can't see or touch or feel, you know? And so, um, we're doing this out of faith, uh, believing, right? Believing that this is good, believing that it's going to do something, um, that, that God will actually answer our prayers, that'll he'll hear us. And, and my experiences is that, you know, God answers my prayers now, not all the time and not all the time in the ways that I want him to mm-hmm. , but man has it been amazing to pray and to consistently pray or persistently pray about a certain thing and, and get answers. Right? Not an audible voice, but like God lines things up and just answers these prayers where, you know, it's him doing that. Right? And so you do have to experience it is an experiential thing. It's a faith thing, and you just do it.

Speaker 2 00:05:09 Yeah. In fact, the disciples, like you mentioned, and again, we'll get to this at the end, so make sure to listen all the way through to the end, we're gonna talk about the Lord's prayer. Jesus gave his disciples the Lord's prayer because they said, teach us how to pray. We don't know how to pray. Jesus didn't say to them, too bad, guys, you're not spiritual enough. I guess I picked the wrong people, that that almost qualifies them to pray. Because prayer is about coming to God and recognizing he's God, and you're not recognizing you have a need that he can fill. So really, the only disqualification for prayer is the person who's arrogant, the person who thinks they have it all together, and they don't need any help. Well, that person's not gonna pray anyway. Jesus said, let the little children come to me for, for of these is the kingdom of heaven.

Speaker 1 00:06:20 Yeah. And he, he talks to us through his word, through the Bible, and we've talked about that and how important God's word is. He talks to us through that, and we get to know him through reading about him and stuff. But, but we communicate to him through prayer, right? Mm-hmm. , and then he does answer back through our spirit and faith and everything. But it's just one other way to be in contact with God. And that's really the first point, is staying in contact with God is the best way to grow in your recovery. Um, Jesus himself, he used this analogy, I love it, uh, about vines and branches and fruit, um, talking about, you know, taking, taking like maybe cultivation or agriculture, uh, which would've been a huge part of the culture back then. And, and, and using it as an analogy, if you think about a, a branch, um, a branch really doesn't do anything.

Speaker 3 00:08:14 Well, yeah. That's what this whole step is about. I think we, we began this step clear back, uh, in step number three, right? Where we, we decided we were gonna, you know, give our will in our lives over to God. This step is about living that out and growing in that, right? Mm-hmm. . And as we, you know, you talk about this analogy that Jesus uses, I think it's really, it's powerful. I, you know, I think about, I, I was just, actually just the last couple weeks I've been out pruning all of my bushes and trees and everything, right? And, and snipping all these branches off and pile 'em up, and, and within a week they're dead. They're completely dead. They're dry. And, and I actually used them for firewood. Mm-hmm. that, I think that really is a really good analogy, because that's exactly how this works.

Speaker 2 00:09:44 Yeah. You guys, we, we need to remember at the end of our podcast, I want to ask you guys this question. How do you actually pray? Let's make sure to give people real specific examples. How long do you do it for? Where do you do it? Are you on your knees? Are you standing up? Are you holding hands with your spouse? Like, I want to talk about the real details. Cuz again, I, I always think about the person who's new to this. They probably have a picture in their head of what prayer is. Maybe they see a monk in their head, and you're chanting in a, in a big, in a big cavernous, you know, chapel. Hmm. So I want, I want to make sure that we get really practical by the end of this, but we're not gonna do it just yet. We need, we've got some other things to talk about with prayer, but let's make sure to do that. And, and on that note, I, I was looking back at the way this step is worded, it said, sought to through prayer and meditation. So let's, before we continue on in prayer, let's just make a comment here about meditation. What is meditation? And is, yeah. Is that a biblical thing? Is this something that Christians should do? Because when we think about meditation, you might be thinking about Buddhism or something like that.

Speaker 2 00:11:15 It's

Speaker 1 00:12:05 And sometimes there's so many distractions in life, you know, uh, that we need to get to a place of solitude. We need to get to a place where nobody is, we don't have any sound. We can be alone. We can actually focus, get away from all of our electronics and even the voices and, and just try to shut out even even the thoughts in our head. And just focus on one thought. You know, God says, think on, on the good things, those things that are lovely and pure and honorable. You know, like, think on good things and the good things are the things of God. And so we're, we're just practicing focusing at a deeper level. I think that's what meditation is. Christian meditation.

Speaker 3 00:13:24 Well, from what I've learned and understood, it's about emptying your mind. Yeah. Right? Like, and when we empty our minds, , that's a dangerous place.

Speaker 1 00:13:41 It's about renewing your mind, renewing your mind, getting it focused. Yeah. Filling it with God's, God's way and God's word, not your own ideas and other That's

Speaker 1 00:15:02 Yeah. He wants us to align our wills and hearts with his will and his heart. That's, that's what I think a lot of people miss about what, what prayer is, is we're asking God what he wants from us, and we're asking him for power to carry that out, you know? Mm-hmm. , we're asking f from him the things that we can't do on our own. Right. That's the whole reason that we need him. He's a higher power, greater than us. Right. The only God, and he's our only hope, as we've talked about, he's taken care of our sin problem. And so in prayer, we're going to God and saying, okay, you can do this. I can't do it. God, I trust you. You're reaffirming your faith to him over and over again. You're, you know, and, and, and you do ask for things sometimes also in prayer.

Speaker 1 00:16:44 He probably thought, you know, there could have been some thoughts, like, I could, I could zap this guy and I could, I could, you know, fly away somewhere far away, and I could get away with this. Right? Like, like what we do, we think in our minds, well we could, we plan all these plans out and, but here's what Jesus says. And I I have it in the King James version cuz it just, I'm sure even non-believing people probably have heard this before. That's why I like, I love the wording of it. It has so much flavor to it. It's in Luke 2242, Jesus says, he says saying, father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. He's saying, God, if, if I don't want to have to go through this, they called it a cup of suffering, remove it from me. But if it's your will that I have to go do it, go through this, then I want, I want your will. Like show me your will. I'm willing to follow you. I am willing to go your way instead of my way. I think that's just such a strong example about, you know, kind of what

Speaker 3 00:17:51 Should be about. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. And that's what our model is. Jesus modeled it for us right here. Like you said, that that's powerful. That is powerful because we all feel that way. I I, I have my own ideas and I don't, and he had to, he had to suffer more than any of us could, can ever really understand. Mm. Right. Taking on the wrath of God that, so that we wouldn't, but, but he finishes that. It's, it's kind of this, it's this moment of him being really genuine and vulnerable where he says that, you know, if this could be removed from me, I I would really like that. But at the end of the day, your will be done. It's the, and he modeled that for us because we all, like you said, Eric, we all have our ideas of the life we wanna lead the things that we want to do. But we've made a commitment going through these steps, accepting this new way of life that now we're going to accept God's will for us. And this is about that. This is about that ultimate submission to this new life that's going to gonna lead us away from death, away from darkness.

Speaker 2 00:19:51 This is what I want you, won't you give me what I want. That's actually not what prayer is about at root. Mm-hmm. prayer is just like you read in, in that, that King James verse that you read, which by the way makes you sound so much smarter when you read the King James, that was so good. That was, that was wise of you. But Jesus himself, who is God, Jesus himself said, I wanna do your will not mine. Your will be done. Not mine. That's such a great example for us to say in my prayer time, my daily prayer time, I'm tr what I'm trying to do is align my will with gods. And then, then what's gonna happen, you can take it to the bank that your prayers are gonna be answered. Mm-hmm. . Right? Because you're aligning your will with Gods. A lot of times when your prayers aren't answered, it's cuz you're not praying according to God's will, but you might not realize it.

Speaker 1 00:21:36 Yeah. We're only, you know, we're only conduits. Right. Vessels. If you think about, back to the branch analogy, right. We're the, the conduit of of the power and the nutrients that actually goes to bear the fruit. Right. And so, so yeah. We've talked about prayer should be, um, asking what God's will is. And prayer should be about asking him for power to do God's will basically. Right. We need, cuz we've never been able to do it before, right? Mm-hmm. like even in our addiction, you know, we had a conscience. I mean, it was seared, but we would do all kinds of things and, but we had, we had thoughts of wanting to be better, wanting to be healthy, wanting our families to be functional and everything to go well. But we could never do it on our own. We needed God and his power. We needed him to step in and supernaturally change us from the inside out.

Speaker 3 00:23:27 Yeah. I mean, we were lost before we came to this faith. Right. We tried doing it our own way and we were, and it failed time and time and time again. And so that's where we came to this place where we recognized in step one, our powerlessness mm-hmm. . Right? And so we know we don't have the power to do it. Now, this step here that we're coming to after we've gone through all the steps that we've gone through, uh, now we want this. It's like, it's clarity. It's clarity of his will for us and his strength. And that's what prayer is all about. It's, it's leaning into that, that clarity, um, and that strength that we need because we have to live this new life, like I said before, this new life that, that we have, you know, stepped onto this new path. We can't walk it on our own. We need him to light the way and we need his strength to push us through.

Speaker 3 00:25:01 . Okay. Dad joke in the ear right there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:25:42 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. What a great prayer for someone who is trying to have sustained recovery in their life. We're gonna break it down with a simple little acronym that I learned what y years and years and years ago. I still use this to this day in my prayer time. I use the Pray ACR acronym, P R A y. Remember, prayer isn't just about asking, that's the A. We'll get to it. There are other things in that too. The P stands for praise. And that's what Jesus is talking about here when he says, our father in heaven Hall would be your name. He's saying, I praise you, I worship you. So it's kind of like with your, with your wife. If you're gonna have a conversation with her, you better you. I hope your relationship with your wife isn't just all about asking, asking, asking you the dishes.

Speaker 1 00:27:08 Yeah. And that word halloid, it, it really, it means let his name be famous. Like make him famous over all the earth. Like by your actions, by your words. Tell tell his name to everyone. Let him be known how for how great the works he's done. This is what we should want to do. Right. This is what, what he is teaching us to tell God like, you should be famous for who you are. You're the father of heaven. Like, we, we love you, we praise you. And I, I do the same thing as Brian does. I use the same acronym. He's the one who taught it to me many years ago. And it just, it's, it just keeps me organized. I'm not the most organized person in my own life, but I think our natural reaction is to go to God with asking and demanding.

Speaker 3 00:29:12 Yeah. And I think the praise part comes out of, you know, when we, when we see what God has done in our lives, that becomes an automatic thing to want to praise him. Right? So thi this is something that will come naturally, but sometimes we, we skip over it, right? Like, like my, my wife for example, you talk about we need to praise our wives. Well, I know how amazing my wife is so I can praise her now, am I praising her , right? Mm-hmm. , am I doing that? So I think it's just consciously doing it because it's not hard to do this. It really isn't right. When we know who God is, it's not hard to praise in, right?

Speaker 1 00:30:53 .

Speaker 1 00:31:05 Yeah. I, uh, how I start my prayer off is, I, I like d I like to be in the dark. And so I'll, I go by the fireplace and I'll get a little grandma blanket on me and, and praise God, praise God. I'm gonna praise him right now for the invention of a cell phone so that I can actually read in the dark with, I can use my Bible app because I, I use my Bible app. I have it on dark mode on the Bible app, so it doesn't blind my eyes. And, and I, I start, I start by reading his word, um, and ingesting it. You know, just really trying to, what is, what is this passage saying to me? And it's just, it's amazing when I read God's word, even though it's a story I've read or heard time and time again, it's just, it's, it's like living and active and it speaks, you know?

Speaker 2 00:33:07 Mm-hmm. . That's good.

Speaker 3 00:33:59 What we did is I would pray one night and she would pray the next night. And, you know, right at the start, it was really awkward cuz I hadn't really prayed in front of anybody before. Never. But man, it became so powerful and this praise that would come out from just, just him gifting me with the fact that my wife wanted to work through this mm-hmm. that she wanted to stick around the fact that he was rescuing me from this life that I'd been living. Uh, it, and then, and then being able to pray for my wife. It just, I, it just began to transform our whole relationship. Our relationship became focused on and centered on, on God instead of just, you know, on ourselves or each other. It, it just changed everything. So, um, yeah, that's just something, it, it was really awkward at first, but man, it became one of the most powerful things in my life.

Speaker 2 00:35:39 We've been talking a essentially we've been talking about repentance a lot throughout the, the, these steps, right? That this is something you have to acknowledge, you have to speak it, you have to, you have to repent to others. And we've talked about also repenting to God, telling him, I'm sorry I did this, forgive me. And then repentance then really is about making up your mind to go the other way mm-hmm. and to do something else. I always like to say this about repentance. If you can learn to repent to God, if you can learn to say in your prayer time, God, you need to show me what I need to repent of, which is what I do at this point. This is where I'll journal. I have a little prayer journal and I'll actually write down some of the things I feel like God is saying to me.

Speaker 1 00:37:14 . Yeah. And again, you know, for me how that usually comes out again is God's, God's word convicts me, you know, through the, the spirit takes the words that I'm reading in the morning and I'm, I'm saying, okay, how do I measure up to your word? Like in this story, who am I? You know, who am I? Am I the sinner? Am I, am I the person that would be prideful? Am I the, the the one who told a lie or the adulterer? You know, there's always this comparison game that I think I can do with God's word. It's like a mirror we talked about in se several lessons ago. It's like a mirror. You hold up to yourself to see who you truly are, you know, when you're taking an inventory of yourself. And so I use God's word to, to help, help dig out those deep rooted, uh, sins that I haven't repented about yet or ask for forgiveness for.

Speaker 3 00:39:38 Yeah. I, this is where we are doing our daily inventory. I think that's, yeah. This is where we're letting him, because I'll have a bunch of things in my mind too. Like, so it's funny when you're talking about this, I'll have all these things in my mind of, oh, I gotta, I definitely need to repent for this and pemp for this. But then as I'm doing that, it's almost like he, like, God's like, whoa, what about that? Mm-hmm. , what about, you know, like, he, he starts to reveal more things and you're just like, oh yeah. Like, and it's just funny how that works. It's, but yeah, this is the daily inventory and it has to be done through prayer. It really does because there's, otherwise it's just things are gonna get missed. And we, we might not even end up taking him to God. You know, this is, this is the time for that. And he'll reveal what needs to be revealed if we're really, um, repentant in a repentant state of mind.

Speaker 2 00:41:24 Um, and so what are the, what are some of the things that you have on? This is where I like to get to my prayer list. Literally keep like a bunch of lists that I go through and pray. Honestly, most of the things on the list are names. Most of what I ask for are names. I'm asking for God to move in this person's life or in that person's life. I'm asking for God, I, I pray for you guys as pastors on at our church. Um, this is what I, this is what fills my list up as people. I'm asking God to, to do a work in people, to continue to use you guys in ministry to, uh, you know, as, as we meet people at our campuses, at our churches, you know, I, I write those names down and I pray for those people. I pray for those needs. There's this an addiction here. There's this, this wayward child over here. So these are the things that are on my list. What are the, what are some other things that people might find on their prayer list to be asking for?

Speaker 1 00:43:11 And I'd been praying and praying and praying, Lord, would you, cuz the church that we were at, um, that I used to be the pastor of, uh, we had like a smaller building and it was like we were all, I was always looking for future. What are we gonna do down the road? What are we doing? And I was thinking of building relationships here and there, whatever. And there was a lot of kind of dying churches in the area where we were at, but we were a thriving church. And I thought to myself, well man, one of these churches, you, you'd think they've got these paid off buildings, you'd think that they'd just, you don't want to give us one or something. You know, my wife's like, you're crazy. You know,

Speaker 1 00:43:48 That wasn't the first time she said that. . Yeah. And I'm like, and I would just be, you know, a building relationships, yes. But then going and praying on it. So doing work towards vision and then coming back and praying, okay, God, like you've, you've opened some doors. I'm trying to seek your will. I'm trying to, to be aligned with you. I'm following you. Um, so is this something that you would want to do? Because it's on my heart. There's this desire on my heart and I can't get rid of it. So Lord, I can't do anything else. You've gotta make this happen. And it's just so amazing. Recently, you know, as you guys know, um, the, the church now recently just like really quickly handed us over the deed to the whole property and everything. It's like a miracle. Mm-hmm. , you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 00:45:35 Luke Levin. Luke Levin says, what father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent. Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion. If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father, who's not evil give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So this is God's heart toward us. God wants, he wants a relationship with us. And some people listening might not know that God, they might not realize that that's how God is. And maybe that's hindered your prayers. I want you to know you can go to God and you can ask him, and you can build this relationship with God through prayer, praising, repenting, asking. And then finally coming to this last thing, which for me is my favorite part of prayer every day is yielding.

Speaker 2 00:47:13 For me, a lot of times for me, this ends up in, he, a name will come to my mind that I need to call someone I need to call reach out to someone. I didn't pray for that day, but as I'm yielding to God, he, this is where, not all the time, but every once in a while I feel like, I feel like, like God speaks to me and gives me some marching orders. And sometimes it's just a matter of just, just stopping quieting myself and, and listening instead of talking. What does yielding for you guys look like?

Speaker 1 00:48:43 . Yeah. I, I keep thinking about the traffic signs that say yield on him, and nobody knows what that means.

Speaker 1 00:48:52 I think it just means wait for a second until you get assigned to go ahead. Right. basically, right, like in a roundabout or something, right? Yeah. They're, you, you got these yield signs in the person who comes up. They're supposed to wait until they have a, a safe, uh, time to actually venture out. And I think, so for me, that's how I do it. A lot of my prayers are, I'm praying when I feel like God is pressed upon my heart, the passions that I have. Maybe it's visions that maybe through, I'm not saying like vision as far as looking into the future and, and how God wants me to do my work or, you know, love my family or disciple someone or build relationships or whatever, make connections. I'm looking at that. Um, and then I'll say, okay, but I'm going to wait until you give me a sign.

Speaker 1 00:50:40 And I'm all, I don't know why, you know what, why are you saying that? Like, we didn't read that Nothing came out. She's like, I just feel like this verse is being, God's putting it on me right now with James four 14. And we go and read it, you know, and it's, it's talking about what is your life? It's but a mist. It's but a vapor, you know? And, and, and he's like, don't ma basically the gist of it is don't make all these plans without the Lord being involved, you know, without waiting on him. If the Lord wills it, then you can go right. If, if not, it's a sin, basically. So if we don't wait on him, and we, we venture out, um, and do do the things without it being clear, oftentimes we can make the wrong decision. And that's really what I think, you know, prayer is all about, especially this la last part, you know, yielding to the Lord. We wanna listen and humility and patience. Yep.

Speaker 2 00:52:18 I want it to be done perfectly. Now, it might not be done perfectly, but that's your heart. That's, that's what you're doing. You're saying, God, I want to yield to you and your will and your way. And I think the biggest question people will probably ask is, well, how do you know? How do you know if it's God's will? How do you, cuz a lot of people have, uh, paralysis by analysis. They, they just, they stop. They, they just won't take any steps. They won't step out in faith ever because they're waiting for just the perfect sign. So maybe Eric, how does, how did your story end? You had this perfect weekend away without the kids. I think nine months later you had added another child. , do I have the math right? I

Speaker 2 00:52:56 Know. Yeah, it's gotta be close. I

Speaker 2 00:52:58 Happened. But , but, but tell

Speaker 2 00:53:00 tell me, Eric, how did you know, how did you make the decision to, you did end up well eventually going to the next campus.

Speaker 2 00:54:08 Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2 00:54:55 That's the examples we're talking about now. But for a lot of people, it's just a matter of God, I want to yield to you. I want to yield to your way. I want your will to be done in my recovery. I want, I want one more. I want one more good day. I want to be able to trust you one more day. And then tomorrow I'm gonna yield to you again. I'm gonna yield to your way instead of trying to get my way and try and trying to fulfill my needs with this addiction the way I would've done it before. So for a lot of people listening, that's really what we're talking about. Yielding to God can be in the big stuff. And it can be in the little stuff. It can be in the day-to-day choices. And it can be in this, these big huge decisions that, that change the course of our families and our lives. It can

Speaker 2 00:56:29 Mark, you wanna read that step one more time? Eric did a pretty good job. Me, uh, reciting that one, but read it one more time and let's close out this episode. Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:56:47 All right. Well this was step number 11. If you wanna find these resources for your family, your small group, or your mentor or sponsoring relationship, you can find all of it at pursue god.org/recovery. And guys, we got one more. Next week we'll talk about step number 12.