Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17
if you’ve ever read the 12 steps to recovery from Alcoholics Anonymous you will see that the steps can be valuable to us all and applied to any vice in life, and we all have them. Just by way of being human we find ways to cling to things that aren’t good for us These can be habits, faulty beliefs, unhealthy roles, even toxic relationship. They are often things we put our identity in, things we serve or trust outside of God.
We can learn about the nature of being human in the book of Genesis where we learn first and foremost that man was made in the image of God and was made to be in relationship with God, with others and with creation itself. This is at the core of what it means to truly be human. Disobedience introduced sin which then distorted and confused what it means to be human and introduced shame as well as death ( which created in us vulnerability and fear).
God then covered man in his shame. ( which was felt in our nakedness) and has in a sense been “recovering“ us ever since. If you read the 12 steps they spell out what that process of recovery looks like, not just for addicts and alcoholics, but for us all. The process of putting God in the right place in our life, humbly depending on Him, confessing to Him and to others who we have wronged. These are the steps that help us access the strength to release those things which harm us, which enable us to grow in intimacy with both God and others and in essence help us recover who we were actually made to be from the beginning. It is the process that is outlined in the journey to Metanoia to which this blog is about,this journey that involves Knowing- who we are and who we were meant to be, Healing- from the wounds we’ve experienced by way of being human, and Growing, more and more toward the person we were truly meant to be.
This post has been part of the five minute Friday community. You can join along and fibe out more herhttps://fiveminutefriday.com/2021/05/27/fmf-writing-prompt-link-up-recover/e. This weeks prompt was Recover