Praying For The Spiritual Awakening Mentioned In Step Twelve

 Well, our little snapshot visits with the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous brings us to the final Step – Step 12 today.  We have only touched one small aspect of each step in this journey.  Maybe in a few months time we can return and take a fresh look at where we’re at with putting these spiritual principles into practice in our everyday lives. 

But we can begin to consider that today because Step Twelve says:

Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

So, the focus of this step is putting these principles into practice in all our affairs.  But as I was praying about where to focus our thoughts today the phrase “having had a spiritual awakening” came into focus for me.  We can try as hard as we like to be as good and disciplined as we’d like to be but we’ll always fall short.  I’m not telling us anything we don’t already know. 

Certainly in areas where we are facing character defects and pain and disappointment, it will be a huge challenge to respond and behave in the right way.  No wonder we are informed that what we first need is a spiritual awakening.  What is the spiritual awakening we come to experience as we walk with God in recovery?  Here’s a pretty clear description from the Bible in Romans 6:

We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God.  So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.  Romans 6:6-11

Before we came into relationship with God we probably never thought much about Him or consulted Him about the plan He had for us when we were created.  We lived our lives as though God did not exist. 

As we came to believe that God could and would restore us to sanity, we turned our will and our life over to His care.  We confessed and turn away from our sin and admitted that living in separation from God resulted in our lives becoming unmanageable.  We humbly asked God to come into our miserable existence, take control, make us children of God, and fill us with the new life that Jesus died to make available to us. 

The Holy Spirit of God awakened our spirit and we began to know the unfailing love of our Heavenly Father. We make a decision to abandon our old life and humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings and to empower us to live His way.  Life began to change.  That’s the spiritual awakening that assures us that we are dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ.

And so we each need to ask ourselves today, have I had that spiritual awakening?  Have I come to God in that way and turned over control of my will and life to His care, receiving forgiveness, cleansing, healing, and new life from Him?  It’s not automatic.  Knowing what to do is not enough.  It takes us making those choices of opening our lives to God and surrendering

But God is faithful and fair.  If we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins.  He will forgive every wrong thing we have done.  He will make us pure.  See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!  And that is what we are!  (1 John 1:9  1 John 3:1

Heavenly Father, we know that only a spiritual awakening can bring us to that place where we believe, and enter into, this wonderful, living and intimate relationship with You.  We know our relationship with You is the only foundation on which we build a purposeful life.  The reality of Your unfailing love God and Your presence with us, has over and over again confirmed deeply within our being that our future will be fine.  This is the life experience we’ve always desired and now have found in Your embrace. This is what gives us rest, gives us comfort, gives us peace.

For those who have not yet had this spiritual awakening we pray, Loving God, that they will, even in this moment, open their hearts to You and give You control of their lives.  It’s never easy to lay down our self-will and admit that we need something different from what we’ve been living but I pray today that Your Holy Spirit will work in the hearts of those in need so they make that admission and fully surrender themselves to You.  We know God that You will meet them in that place and take them forward one step at a time to a life that is infinitely more enriching than what they have today.

And all of us, once again want to say, Thank you, thank you, thank you for this new life we have with You.  Amen