12 STEPS to Recovery — STEP #9
Focus on the Recovery Process
12 STEPS to Recovery — STEP #9
One of the texts that is often associated with Step Nine is Matthew 5:23-24. “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
It is interesting, in pondering Step Nine, to pay careful attention to the word “remember.” Actually, it is in Step Eight that we “remember” the names of people who might have something against us and make a list. But I believe it is telling that the word is found in the text associated with Step Nine as well. The Greek word is mimneskomai, and for me, the different ways that it is translated in the New Testament helps me to understand the way I am to “remember” the things for which I am to make amends. Sometimes the word refers to something flashing through my mind, other times it refers to things that I keep in my mind and reflect on.
For me, having something flash before my mind while I am “standing at the altar” is usually indicative of insight brought about by openness to the Holy Spirit. These flashes often come when I am bowed in humility and powerlessness. But though the Spirit sends these flashes, it is my conscious choice to keep them in my thoughts and reflect on them. Reflection on the insights of the Holy Spirit is one of the lost spiritual habits, I believe. This shallowness keeps us superficial rather than transformed Christians.
I will know how best to make amends, and to whom, when I can think things through with the Holy Spirit along these lines . . . “what was going on in my life when I offended?” “Why was this going on?” “What does God’s Word say about what was happening, or about the offense?” “How will life work better now that I have accepted this word of truth?”
When the Holy Spirit has changed the flash of insight into a steady light of truth, it is a glimmer of God’s unconditional love—both for me as well as for the person to whom I will make amends. I have no need to fear making these amends because I have been assured that perfect love casts out all fear.
Kathy Beagles