Serenity Now
Serenity, the book, is a companion for 12 step recovery that includes the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs. Each step is accompanied by a list of passages and a meditation for reflection. I highly recommend it as a devotional guide. In one of the meditations for Step 2, which reads “We came to believe in a Power greater than ourselves that could restore us to sanity,” was a definition for addiction. It reads,
“Addiction and codependency are often defined as an unhealthy reliance on the control of exterior things in order to fill interior needs. The belief that these spiritual hungers can be addressed on a physical, material, or financial level alone is its own special form of insanity.”
So the belief that we can address our internal spiritual needs through external physical action is insane according to the 12 steps. I think that is an accurate description of addiction – trying to deal with the pain you feel on the inside by working harder or drinking more or thrill seeking or looking at porn or restricting your food or whatever. It’s an outside in type of approach.
In the book of Romans Paul talks about a group of people that are doing this very thing. They were seeking to establish their own righteousness before God. Romans 9 gives us the immediate context that Paul is referring to the Jews. As he says in verse 32 they pursued righteousness through the law “as if it were based on works.” They were pursuing righteousness through external works. But Paul says in chapter 10 verse 10, “For with the heart one believes and is justified…” Paul is picking up on one of Jesus’ main teachings here. Righteousness or unrighteousness is a condition of the heart. In Luke 6:45 Jesus says, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” Righteousness or goodness is an internal matter of the heart that cannot be changed by external effort.
To be very clear, the Jews are not alone in exhibiting this form of addiction. All of us fall into that pattern of self-reliance. It’s just a description of sin really. Relying on our own effort to attain goodness or righteousness as opposed to relying on God. And a lot of the time we aren’t even really concerned with righteousness as much as we are simply concerned with coping with our pain and brokenness. I know none of you do this, but most of the time I believe that I’ll be able to alleviate my pain, or the potential of pain, by performing better…pleasing my spouse, or my kids, or friends, or boss, or anyone’s judgment I fear. Or worse, I turn to something more destructive trying to ignore or numb out the pain. If I’m honest with myself, I think there is a point in each day when I realize that I am falling back into that addiction, that insanity, as Serenity calls it.
Paul is aware of this reality in all of our lives as well because in most of his letters he spends a great deal of time reminding his readers of what they believe. In fact, he wouldn’t have even had to write his letters if once we became Christians we never forgot the truth. The fact is that we forget all of the time. We return to our sin like dogs return to their own vomit (thanks for that image Proverbs 26:11). As Step 1 of the 12 steps says, “we are powerless over our dependencies and addictions.” We cannot save ourselves. We need Someone to break into our lives and stop the addiction cycle. Thankfully, God does. Consider the end of Romans 9 where Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah. “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame” (v. 33).
We stumble over the rock of Jesus Christ. When we find ourselves back in that place of insanity, back in that place of relying on our own outward effort to try to deal with our desperate inward brokenness, we have hope in God’s great mercy and grace to place Jesus Christ in our path once again. SO THAT we might stumble and fall and wake up to the reality of our powerlessness and once again call out on the name of Jesus Christ. “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).
This is our message. This is the good news that God’s righteousness has been made your own. How radical is His love for you! How radical His grace that He would send His own Son to bleed for you, to be broken for you, to die for you, and then be raised again conquering the dead for you! We need to remind each other each day of this radical truth that changes hearts. Each time we hear this message and share it with someone else we get to experience God’s radical love for us again for the first time. “How beautiful [indeed] are the feet of those who preach the good news!” (10:15) Amen.
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