We Fear Fear Itself

Consider Isaiah 21:4.

What are you afraid of? Oh, let me count a few. Fear. Failure. Embarrassment. Humiliation. A strap showing. A runner in my hose. (More explicitly, people knowing there's a runner.) Falling on my face in the middle of the street. Again. Calling somebody the wrong name. Making a fool of myself. Forgetting something important, like the time I was the scheduled speaker and forgot to show up. That's been ten, fifteen years ago, but the fear and humiliation and shame remain. We fear fear and the familiar paralysis it spawns.

Step 4 directs us to list our fears, and a fearful task that is! The Big Book says of fear:

This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It is an evil and corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve. But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling? Sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble. (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 67-68)

Stealing? Maybe. I haven't dealt with that one like I have with fear. It's not as crushingly familiar. Why should fear and stealing have anything in common? That one doesn't compute. At the same time, though, deep in the recesses of my mind, I know there's truth in the statement. So why? What have I done to deserve this fear? Stealing is wrong! Is fearing a crime? A sin? 

How many times does the Bible say, "Fear not"? More than a hundred times. That's a command, in the imperative mood as far as verb analysis is concerned. In other words, it's an order. I'd love to obey that order--if only I could. 

Perhaps there is a better way--we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust Infinite God rather than our finite selves.... Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity. (page 68)

So, if we turn our lives and our wills over to God, we really will not fear? What a deal!

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List your fears. Then describe what life would be if the fears were removed. How is fearing like stealing from yourself?

Ready to Let God

Consider 2 Chronicles 20:1-30.

Step 6 says we were entirely ready to let God remove our defects of character. It feels a lot like Step 3 revisited. Maybe revisiting 3 is a good idea after 4 and 5. We've discovered how deeply entrenched our character defects are by Step 6. We figure we've already asked for relief from our weaknesses, many of us for years and years. We've earnestly prayed, "God, give me the power to resist..." and "God, help me stop...." We've had mixed results. The same outcome we got in dieting for years and years and years. The same success we had from the resolutions to do anything right. The same failures, time after time. Why hasn't God helped us when we asked? We already admitted way back at step 1 we were powerless and couldn't do this.

There's a shorthand version of the first three steps: I can't. God can. I'll let him.

But we don't let him. We're still asking him to help us. And therein lies the problem. Look at the story of Jehoshaphat on hearing of the coming threat from Moab and Ammon. He cried to God for help, bewailing. He reminded God they would turn to him in the event of famine or plague. He blamed God for not letting Israel defeat Moab and Ammon earlier. He griped that now Israel didn't have the power to defeat the armies advancing. In all his protestations, he overlooked the obvious. "This is God's fight, not yours, King." Jehoshaphat sent out what we'd now call a praise team. And God won.

I can't. God can. I'll let him. That doesn't say "I'll recruit God as my assistant." It says, "I surrender. Here I am, God, reporting for duty. I stand here, cowed by my character defects lined up here before us. Can I hang onto your coattails and watch you wipe them out?"

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Write what it would be like to be an actor in God's play, not the director of your own. Describe how you've tried to live by self-propulsion. How have you been self-centered in your relationship with God?

The Lesson of Balaam's Donkey

Consider Numbers 22.

"They" say in writing children's stories not to use anthropomorphic characters in books and stories. We who grew up with Winnie the Pooh and Beatrix Potter's books find this a little sad. It still feels like Peter Rabbit and Eeyore have something to teach us. I guess "they" would have told the author of Numbers not to speak of Balaam's donkey. If "they" did, I'm glad they were ignored.

The story and words of Balaam take three chapters, Numbers 22 through 24, but introducing it is the delightful story of Balaam's donkey, taking only a few verses. Obviously Balaam trusted and followed God; Balaam made his living by divination for fees, cursing or blessing events and people according to God's instruction. The journey with Balak's agents began with God's blessing but a limiting instruction to take it step by step and wait for divine direction. Had Balaam actually been open to that guidance, we'd never have met his mode of transportation, though.

What happened to change Balaam's focus, to shift his attention from God, is never stated. However, evidently he'd been promised opulence and traveled with esteemed companions. Often when we're recognized we make the mistake of believing it to be for our own abilities, even knowing full well we're powerless on our own, that our progress and abilities come through turning our lives over to God. A gentleman I see most weeks just asked if I'd been losing weight. Yep. Over a hundred pounds since he's known me, more than fifty in the last year. He commented that it takes a lot of work, real will power. I disagreed and told him with OA, it's easy, the compulsion's been taken away.

The twelfth step gets scary. What do we have to offer others? How can we guide? WHAT? You want ME to be your sponsor? We tremble. Why?

Because we forget those divine directions. We forget we don't have to sponsor, we just have to pass on God's words.

Balaam didn't listen, didn't see an angel blocking the path. The donkey did. The donkey stopped short, refusing to go even when Balaam beat him. Three times. Balaam threatened to kill the donkey for embarrassing him. And the donkey spoke. "What's going on? We've been together a while, don't you trust me? Look around!" Well, not quite, but just the speaking is the point.

And the point of my speaking to you through this text is to say don't worry about being a sponsor. Just look around, be aware of God's presence, and be a spokesman for him. That's all. That's all? That's POWERFUL!

And after all, if you don't do it, God can use the nearest donkey, or kitten, or even goldfish. Relax. You're in God's hands.

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Think about times you've heard somebody speak, either in an OA meeting, on an email, reading the Big Book, or even a novel, and known that God directed you to that statement at that time. Write about the times you think of. Then write about times God's had you say something you had no idea would mean anything to the person you were talking to and it did.

Oops! I wasn't just lazy for a day!

Greetings. I knew I hadn't posted in a while, but it never occurred to me it had been nine days. I need to be here, and I appreciate the fact you're here for me. I'm thankful for those of you who have said these posts are meaningful for you.

I'm thankful also for my very first abstinent Thanksgiving! It was a blessing, and I found it easy and joyous. Thanks be to God! It's been eleven months and two weeks since my last compulsive eating, and now that feels natural. Wonderfully, naturally natural. Geesh. Who'd a thunk it?

I was asked by the sponsor coordinators at The Recovery Group if I was still "full" and not taking on new sponsoreds (my word--I don't like sponsee or pigeon or anything else, and I really don't like this one either. What does work?) Anyway, I have three new people, and they're a real treat. I needed this, and it all came at the proper time for me in my program.

Another event happened appropriately this weekend. I've expected for more than a month for my hard drive on my favorite computer to crash. It failed while I happened to have a computer programmer in the house, home for Thanksgiving. He installed Windows for me, and I was confident when I sent him home I could take care of the rest. However, I kept running into glitches. Not permanent roadblocks, just glitches, making it impossible at this point for me to connect to the Internet on that machine or to even copy all the carefully backed up files I've been saving for the inevitable event of the hard drive crash. I've discovered, though, it's not a problem. It's a blessing. I've needed these two days without ready easy access to cyberspace to put my life and my priorities back in perspective, the perfect end to the long Thanksgiving weekend. Tomorrow I'll ask the question I need to ask for access to be restored, but for today, I've chosen not to. With God's guidance and help. I licked through the power of the twelve steps the compulsion to play computer games that caused me to start this blog on September first. (I've not played a game online since then, have started two paper sudoku puzzles and lost interest, leaving them unfinished. Amazing!) Now I've seen the problem with the instant access to the Internet, and while I'll maintain the access to work with my sponsoreds, to blog, and to communicate with my partners on a major project and my friends and family, with God's help it will be in the proper moderation.

The post is long already. I'm tempted to go ahead and do a devotional that's playing in my mind, but I guess I'll post this and very soon, I'll post the devotional. Thanks for reading and for walking these steps with me.

Lazy Today

I haven't posted a devotional for a while. Okay. I posted a couple on Wednesday, but I don't think I wrote them on Wednesday. Anyway, this isn't a devotional. I don't think.

It is, however, a report on how it was, what happened, and how it's different.

I lived stretching the limits of my small life, but it remained a small life. That's how it was. What happened is I found these rooms, and nothing's been the same since. That will be eleven months tomorrow. Wow, what a transformation!

How it is today. Wonderful. What an empty word to attempt to describe how it is, despite the fact I'm tired. But the reason I'm tired is that it's wonderful. I have exploded the limits of my small life, and I'm stretching the limits of an unlimited life. Wow!

I knew my world was growing, and I was pushing on it, encouraging it, watching God do what I hadn't even imagined in it. Then Tuesday, the dam burst. My three partners and I--well, we are. But the enterprise was new enough we haven't signed a partnership agreement. I guess now it's time and well past that!--had with sane, logical steps started a new business enterprise, stretching our worlds, but testing the strength of each limb before we ventured onto it. All of a sudden our group conscience (thanks for letting me borrow the term for non 12-step stuff) was challenged, declared wrong and invalid by a professional. Individually each one of us might have caved in and submitted to the "better" judgment of somebody with experience. With the strength of our commitment to each other and to our common idea, goal, project--dream--we stood our ground, reduced the participation from one plus four back down to four, and became a business. My heart still speeds as I type that "became a business." But we're going to do it, we're going to do it our way, and we're going to do it up right as well as right.

I'm spent a lot of nights lately at the computer until about midnight, back on it at 5, and I'm tired. I'm tired, but actually, I'm not really lazy. I lied to you. I apologize.

What's your dream? It can come to fruition if you work these steps and put it all in God's hands then let go and let him use you. I promise.

Why me, God?

Consider Numbers 11:10-15.

Two extremes typify our reaction to discord, tension, and tragedy in our lives. One is this response of Moses, mad at the inconvenience, blaming God for dumping on him rather than putting one foot in front of the other and in God’s peace walking through the mess, discovering in the process who he is and the talents God has bestowed on him.

The other extreme is to accept responsibility for all ills and trouble in our lives, blaming ourselves because of a past indiscretion or a general feeling of blameworthiness. “I tell myself it's because I stole the man’s wallet twenty years ago. When I got cancer I knew that was why.”

Neither is healthy. Both express anger misdirected. Both cause us, compulsive overeaters, to turn to food. So what can we do?

Look at the problem realistically. Turn to God and ask him -- not in a blaming way but praying for guidance, for stamina, for God’s presence to walk through the current problem. And look at the past problem in the same light. What have you done in the past that actually may have affected the present? How can you understand the whole situation so you can address it rationally and in God’s power.

Numbers 12 tells an interesting story of Moses’ siblings feeling him blameworthy. That’s between Moses and God and long past. It’s not our inventory to take. Take your own.


Look at the resentments you listed in List my tears, God! and the reasons for your anger. Beside each, look within yourself and examine what you might have done—or definitely did—that could have caused the situation or worsened it. Write it down, being completely honest with yourself.

List my tears, God!

Consider Psalm 56:5-8

The big “THEY.” How huge a word that is. Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. For the compulsive overeater, that poison has many names, among them sugar, corn chips, pizza, cola, and mashed potatoes lathered with gravy.

What is resentment? The Latin root is “to feel”—resentment is to feel again. Feel what? Anger. Anger? What am I angry about, you may ask. Probably the real question is, “What are you not angry about?" Perhaps you grew up believing nice people didn’t feel angry, that good children don’t have bad thoughts. It’s time to rethink that old idea.

We do get angry, and over the slightest things. In the middle of preparing a meal, we’re interrupted when our child comes in, needing us to do something simple. We love the child, it’s appropriate we’re asked to do it, but the interruption is, well, interrupting. The child’s business takes precedence over ours. Maybe in the larger sense we even see it’s proper that way, but it doesn’t stop the fact we felt resentment.

Most resentments aren’t that small. The ones we remember and re-remember, the angry moments we live time and time again are far from small. It can be from decades ago when your mother would not have stopped to help and the child was you. It can be a terrible wrong, a crime, committed against you. Until you take them out and look at them, they remain. And as they remain, you deal with them. For compulsive eaters, we deal with most problems by numbing the pain with food.

The psalmist resented. “All day long they twist my words; they are always plotting to harm me. They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps, eager to take my life.” What do you resent?


Who is your “THEY?” Why do you resent them? Take a piece of paper, and along the left side of the page write the names that come to mind of people you resent, skipping a line between each. Add ideas (you can’t date until you’re 16, respect your father, etc.) and institutions (the church always just wants money, the bank won’t leave me alone.)

Go back and briefly describe why you resent that person, idea, or institution.