mrsct

I apologize I have not been in here for a while. A lot has taken place. My father in law was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer and passed away a week later. During this time, we had to move into another apartment complex. I had to then begin working on getting our apartment unpacked and set up the apartment the way I liked it as well as work. I hope by next month, I will be able to get back into the groove of things in here.

3. Our Attempts To Play God. We play God by denying our humanity and by trying to control everything for our own selfish reasons. We attempt to be the center of our own universe. We play God by trying to control our image, other people, our problems, and our pain. We Try to Control Our Image We care so much about what other people think of us. We don't want them to know what we're really like. We play games; we wear masks, we pretend; we fake it. We want people to see certain sides of us while we hide others. We deny our weaknesses, and we deny our feelings. "I'm not angry." "I'm not worried." "I'm not afraid." We don't want people to see the real us. Why are we afraid to tell people who we are! The answer is, "If I tell you who I really am and you don't like me, I'm in trouble - because then I'm all I've got." We Try to Control Other People Parents try to control kids; kids try to control parents. Wives try to control husbands; husbands try to control wives. Coworkers vie for office control. People try to control other people. And along the way we develop a lot of tools to manipulate each other. Everyone has his or her preferred methods: Some use guilt and shame; some use praise and affirmation. Others use anger, fear, or an old favorite - the silent treatment. All in efforts to gain control. We Try to Control Our Problems "I can handle it," we say. "It's not really a problem." "I'm okay, really. I'm fine." Those are the words of somebody trying to play God. When we try to control our problems, we say, I don't need any help, and I certainly don't need counseling or recovery." "I can quite anytime. I'll work it out on my own power." When a TV repairman was asked about the worst kind of damage he'd ever seen to a television set, he said, "The kind that results from people trying to fix their TVs on their own." The more we try to fix our problems by ourselves, the worse our problems get. We Try to Control Our Pain Have you ever thought about how much time and effort you spend running from pain? Trying to avoid it, deny it, escape it, reduce it, or postpone it? Some of us try to avoid pain by eating or not eating. Others try to postpone it by getting drunk, smoking, taking drugs, or abusing prescription medications. Some try to escape through sports, traveling, or jumping in and out of relationships. Others withdraw into a hole and build a protective wall of depression around themselves. Still others become angry, abusive, critical, and judgmental. We'll try almost anything to control our pain. But the real pain comes when we realize, in our quieter moments, that no matter how hard we try, we're not in control. That realization can be very scary. You may remember on Saturday Night Live when Chevy Chase would come on and say, "Hi, I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not." Can you imagine God saying "Hi, I'm God, and you're not"? Agreeing with God that He's God and we're not leads us into our first healing choice: REALIZE I'M NOT GOD. I ADMIT THAT I AM POWERLESS TO CONTROL MY TENDENCY TO DO THE WRONG THING AND THAT MY LIFE IS UNMANAGEABLE. The first step is always the hardest, and this first choice is no exception. Until you are willing to admit your need and recognize that you are not God, you will continue to suffer the consequences of your poor choices. As the beatitude says, "Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor." Admitting your need is what being "spiritually poor" is all about.

I apologize but I will not be able to post anything this week as I and my husband have been busy apartment hunting. I will be able to post next week.

Let's look at it this way: Should you be disowned for your sins in your life? Just because God hates sin doesn't mean He hates us. He loves us so much that he sent His Son to die on the cross for you and for your friend. He does not nor did He ever disowned her for the abortion she had. So your question if you are wrong for disowning her because of the abortion.... YES YOU ARE WRONG! Definitely not Christlike.

2. Our Desire To Be God Why do we continue making poor choices? Why do we repeat the same mistakes? At the root of our human tendency to do wrong is our desire to be in control. We want to decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong. We want to make our own choices, call our own shots, make our own rules. We don't want anybody telling us what to do. In essence, we want to be God. But this is nothing new. Trying to be God is humankind's oldest problem. In Genesis 3, even Adam and Eve tried to be in control. God put them in Paradise, and they tried to control Paradise. God told them, "You can do anything you want in Paradise except one thing: Don't eat from this one tree." What did they do? You got it; they made a beeline for the forbidden tree - the only thing in Paradise God said was off-limits. Satan said, "If you eat this fruit, you will be like God." And they wanted to be God. That's been our problem from the very start of humanity. today, we still want to be God.

1. Our Tendency to Do Wrong We will always have the sin nature - this tendency to do the wrong thing. In fact, we will wrestle with it as long as we are on this earth. Even if you have already asked Christ into your life, even after you become a Christian, you still have desires that pull you in the wrong direction. We find in the Bible that Paul understood this, for he struggled with his sin nature just as we do: "I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong... but I can't help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things." Do Paul's words sound vaguely familiar to you? Sure they do. We end up doing what we don't want to do and not doing what we do want to do. For years I thought I could control my drinking. I believed the lie that I could stop whenever I wanted. It really wasn't that bad. My choices were not hurting anybody. I was deep into my denial. As the pain of my sin addiction got worse, I would try to stop on my own power. I was able to stop for a day, a week, or even a few months, but I would always start drinking again. I wanted to do what was right, but on my own I was powerless to change. I WILL CONTINUE TO POST ON THIS TOPIC.

The cause of our problems is our nature! No, not the trees, rocks, and lakes kind of nature, but our human nature - that is, our sin nature. The Bible tells us that this sin nature gets us into all kinds of problems. The Bible tells us that this sin nature gets us into all kinds of problems. We choose to do things that aren't good for us, even when we know better. We respond in hurtful ways when we are hurt. we try to fix problems, and often in our attempts to fix them, we only make them worse. The Bible says it this way: "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." This verse lets us know we can't trust our human nature to lead us out of our problems. Left on its own, our sin nature will tend to do wrong, desire to be God, and try to play God. I WILL CONTINUE TO POST JUST PLEASE BE PATIENT.

For a while, I will be posting from Life's Healing Choices before we continue to proceed to the next choice. Choice 1: Realize I'm not God. I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that my life is unmanageable. Part of our human nature is to refuse change until our pain exceeds our fear - fear of change, that is. We simply deny the pain until it gets so bad that we are crushed and finally realize we need some help. Why don't we save ourselves a bit of misery and admit now what we're inevitably going to have to admit later? We are not God, and we desperately need God because our lives are unmanageable without Him. We'll be forced to learn that lesson someday. We may as well admit it now. If you answer yes to any of the questions below, you'll know without a doubt that you are a citizen of the human race. * Do you ever stay up late when you know you need sleep? * Do you ever eat or drink more calories than your body needs? * Do you ever feel you ought to exercise but don't? *Do you ever know the right thing to do but don't do it? * do you ever know something is wrong but do it anyway? * Have you ever known you should be unselfish but were selfish instead? * Have you ever tried to control somebody or something and found them or it uncontrollable? As fellow members of the human race, we all deal with life's hurts, hang-ups, and habits. In the next pages, we'll look at the cause of these hurts, hang-ups, and habits, their consequences, and their care. As we look at the causes and consequences of our pain, our spiritual poverty will become obvious. How can we be happy about being spiritually poor, as the beatitude for this chapter tells us we will be? Admitting the truth that we are spiritually poor - or powerless to control our tendency to do wrong - leads us to this happiness and to the cure we so desperately need.

Although I will post the 12 Steps and Biblical Comparisons, I will not be posting the questions. The reason is because these are to be done with a sponsor. A sponsor is someone you trust who is of the same sex as you. This is to be protect you in every way possible.

Currently I am worried about our finances as my husband has changed jobs. I am uncertain how we are going to pay rent this month as well as all of our bills as we are still on one persons income. Currently I have a mason jar where I posts my prayer requests and my answered prayers. When I place my prayer requests in the jar, I am turning it over to God and allowing Him to provide the answers.

Often times when we worry about something, we are not trusting that God is able to provide for our needs. While we are worrying about an issue, we are preventing Him from providing for our needs. We don't need to go into details, but what are some of the things you are worrying about? List them in the comments. Are you willing to hand over those worried issues to God? How do you think you can hand it over to Him? List those as well in the comments.

When I was sponsoring a group of women, I was trying to help them, but also was a bit of controlling. This caused me to be a bit prideful.

Pride is defined: An inordinate self-esteem; an unreasonable feeling of superiority as to one's talents, beauty, wealth, rank, and so forth; disdainful behavior or treatment; insolence or arrogance of demeanor; haughty bearing. We all have pride of some sort. Think about some of the things you are prideful of. What is the few things you have pride about that is being an hindrance?

In our 12 Steps and Biblical Comparison lesson titled "Powerless" We sort of discussed "Only Ifs". We are going to discuss it some more in this weeks lesson. Growing up the abuse I went through, I often heard myself saying things like "Only if I was a better child, my parents would love me." The truth of the matter is no matter what I said or did, it would have never been "good enough" for them. They always found something negative about whatever I had said or done. The abuse I went through would have never stopped. Questions for discussion: 1. What in your past and present have you doing your "Only Ifs"? 2. What are your "Only Ifs"? 3. How are you using it to rationalize what your hurts, habits, and hang-ups?

I will post the questions for discussion in this topic later. We have a lot to discuss before going into the questions.