12 STEPS to Recovery — STEP #10
Focus on the Recovery Process
Normally, when one needs their alignment checked, they drive down to the nearest Midas or favorite auto garage. You wait a little while, pay the normal fixed price for your alignment, and then you’re off and running. After that day you tend not to think about your alignment for, well, who knows how long.
What about your life’s alignment? In the 12-step recovery process, if you’re ready to work step 10, then you should be proud of yourself. Give yourself a pat on the back for you’ve just completed one of the more tedious but important parts of the 12 step program. To be perfectly honest with you, probably one of the most important steps of your life are steps 8 and 9.
When we speak of life’s alignment, we speak of aligning your will with God’s will. Working step 10 will benefit you tremendously when it comes to the wonderful feat of accepting God’s will as your own. Step 10 says to promptly admit when you are wrong, not promptly justify or promptly sweep it under the rug. Promptly admit it! One may ask, “Well, who do I admit it to?”
You have already won half the battle by simply recognizing the wrong. You’ve already admitted the wrong to yourself, now it’s time to admit it to your Heavenly Father. One might say, “Well the Lord knows and sees all, so why should I have to admit my wrongs to the Lord?”
When I say admit to God your wrongs, what I really mean is ask Him for forgiveness. There is nothing you can offer God to appease Him for your wrong doing and sin. What God wants is repentance. King David writes, “For you do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; you are not pleased with burnt offering. Psalm 51:16. Understanding your sin and wrong doing and how it makes God the Father feel, is the first step of reconciliation and promptly aligning His will with yours. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Psalm 51:17. And we also know that “God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Sam 16:7
On the Journey to Wholeness we’re using the 12 steps of recovery to overcome obsessions, compulsions, and addictions. It is said that if you work step 1 through 9 and apply step 10 on a daily basis, God will remove these obsessions, compulsions, and addictions. We hear the term, “one day at a time,” in 12 step programs all over the world, and you may also hear something else called a “daily reprieve”. This daily reprieve is contingent on the maintenance of your spiritual condition. So when it comes to looking for that daily reprieve from the aforementioned obsession, compulsion, or addiction, then promptly admit your wrong and ask God for forgiveness. By doing so, you develop and strengthen your relationship with your Creator and align your will with His, which is good, acceptable, and perfect. Sounds like a pretty good contingency plan to me that everyone should try.
“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is: that which is good acceptable, and perfect.” Romans 12:2!
Michael W. Voegele, Co-Director