Rationalizing (4)
Saturday June 24, 2017
Today we are continuing to look at the excuses and faulty reasons we give for making poor choices and our tendency to justify our actions.
We don’t always make the right choices, certainly not in active addiction and now in recovery it’s still a learning process. God has provided a way for us to learn and grow. That way is to first receive the forgiveness God is offering us because Jesus died on the cross to pay for the damage of all our wrong choices. We need to stand in the truth of who God says we are – flawed human beings but precious and valued sons and daughters of God who are washed and cleansed from all our sins.
There is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. (Romans 8:1-2 NLT)
Without forgiveness and a right relationship with God, we rationalize because we are afraid of the shame, the pain, the embarrassment, or the disappointment that has resulted from previous poor choices. It seems easier to make excuses for our behaviour or to blame someone else in order to get the burden off our shoulders. As long as rationalizing makes us feel better, we deceive ourselves into thinking that the situation has improved. To be honest and confess that we have made a poor choice may, in the short term, threaten our comfort zone, be inconvenient in the moment, or even cause us embarrassment. However, we still need to admit that we were wrong or did wrong.
Sometimes we've rationalized our behaviour for so long that it has become an unconscious process rather than a deliberate deception. We need to seek God to awaken us to the harmful choices we are making. He knows the poison stored in the roots of our destructive actions and reactions. He knows and understands the actual impact of all the events that make up our lives – good and bad.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, help me to take responsibility for my actions, give up excusing and rationalizing my behaviour, and live in the freedom you are offering me as I live in the truth. Amen
©2017 Partners in Hope
More information on this and other related topics @ http://www.partnersinhope.ca/life-with-god-in-recovery-resources/
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