Once upon a time (no, this isn’t a fairy tale), a long time ago, there was a guy who worked for me whom I will call Mike. We talked occasionally about things like where we were from and where we had been, what we liked to do. Guy things. One day, Mike told me he was an alcoholic. Over a period of time, he gradually revealed parts of his story. He said he had been sober for over four years. He said he had a great sponsor, and went to AA meetings on a regular basis. He said he drank for well over 10 years and no one outside of his family suspected he had a drinking problem. He “knew” he didn’t have a drinking problem; he just liked to drink and thought nothing of the fact that he poured himself into bed every night. His wife nagged at him to stop or slow down and he ignored her. What he didn’t know was other people were aware that he liked to drink and some began to suspect there was a problem. He told me it all came to a head one evening when his family and friends ganged up on him for an intervention. He said it was pretty ugly, but after a lot of angry words and loud voices, he agreed to go into a treatment program just to get them off of his back so he could get back to drinking. He “knew” the treatment program would prove to them that he didn’t have a problem.
During the treatment, he finally admitted he was an alcoholic and began the 12 Step Program that is a part of AA. He said it took a while and he managed to work through some of the steps only with the help of his sponsor. He said one of the toughest was asking forgiveness from all of the people he had hurt during the years he was drinking, even his young kids. He said that part of it, asking his kids for forgiveness, “ripped his heart out”.
Even though he remained sober, attended the AA meetings, and worked with his sponsor, he said he still felt there was something missing, something that wasn’t quite right. He said he had been very upbeat and outgoing when he was drinking, but now he felt there was something wrong. He said he was a Christian, went to church regularly with his family, and stayed sober. He told me that the last part was really tough sometimes and there were many nights when he called his sponsor in the middle of the night to keep from starting back down the path back to alcohol. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong, what had changed that left him feeling down and, most importantly, feeling down about himself. One day his sponsor asked him about different Steps and how well he had done with them, in particular getting forgiveness from everyone. He said he had done that, and he knew God had also forgiven him. Then the sponsor asked him the key question. He asked Mike if he had really forgiven himself. He said it was like being shot right in the heart. He told his sponsor that he had not and could not forgive himself for what he had done to his family, friends, and others. The sponsor then asked what he was getting out of it. What was he getting out of not forgiving himself? He said he realized he was having a perpetual guilt party and the guilt was as addictive as the alcohol he used to drink. He said, “Dan, I forgave me.” He said once he did that he felt an enormous weight come off of his chest. He felt a freedom that even being sober up to that time had not given him. He said that since God forgave him, his sponsor told him he was, in effect, placing himself above God. He realized at that point that Satan had been tempting him and keeping him in that mindset.
About a year later, Mike and I went to different assignments and I never saw him or talked to him again.
How about you? We all do things from time to time that offend God and others. We ask those we have hurt or offended for forgiveness and we know, as Christians, that God forgives us. How do you feel about yourself? Are the things you have done, the ones that have been forgiven still weighing you down? Look deep inside yourself and see if Mike’s problem is also yours. Is the devil keeping you in aguilt party? Remember that the devil’s temptation of Eve was that the forbidden fruit would make her at the same level as God, or even greater. By convincing you that you can’t forgive yourself, he is doing the same to you. He is telling you that you are superior to God and that you can’t do what God has already done. If that is where you find yourself, then it is time to break out of that trap and tell yourself, “I forgive…me!”
No comments:
Post a Comment