![]() God wants to bring His light into every corner of our hearts, not to harm us but to help us. Let us search out and examine our ways, And turn back to the Lord (Lamentations 3:40 NKJV) Light is needed to penetrate that darkness and take us forward with confidence to the future God has promised. In reality, it is the covering of darkness that keeps us shackled in the prison of the past. When we are hiding in our shameful behaviours and holding onto our addictions the darkness seems to be a friend. Darkness seems helpful when we are trying to hide, but light is needed if we are going to walk without stumbling. Are we willing to allow God to heal and transform every dark area of our being that is currently occupied by secrets? God knows all about the deadly secrets anyway and offers His strength to help overcome them. (John 3:19-20 NIRV)Īs Jesus was 100% obedient to God’s plan, so we are invited to follow Him. They are afraid that what they do will be seen. “Everyone who does evil things hates the light. They loved darkness because what they did was evil. Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light. When talking about those who refuse to trust Him with their whole life, Jesus said, Here is the judgment. We need to determine if we are hiding things that are contrary to what God says is good. We need to ask ourselves, “What is the one area of disobedience and darkness that holds me back and keeps me from experiencing the light of God’s love, joy and peace?” God has given us a clear description of what works to produce a good life and what causes harm. We also know what we have done, and we project how we would feel if someone found out. Regardless of the reason for our kept secrets, we know there is discomfort inside us. And what is out of sight will be brought into the open and made known. Then those who come in can see its light. Jesus said: People do not light a lamp and then hide it in a jar or put it under a bed. We then tell ourselves, we’ll be fine in our recovery if we adopt the same “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach. In society, people say things like “don’t ask, don’t tell” as a way to live in tolerance with others who embrace a certain lifestyle. We think we are getting away with being accountable. We may live with secrets simply because we haven’t been caught. Sometimes, we simply want what we think is the best of both worlds. We have certain areas of our past that we are not ready to deal with yet. We are afraid of scorn or misunderstanding. We convince ourselves that no one needs to know about certain things that have happened. We turn away from guidance in the word of God regarding a specific area of lying. Sometimes, when it particularly suits us, we make excuses for not telling the truth. He who does not love Me does not keep My words and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me. Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. To the extent that we surrender our lives to the light of Christ, we will be strengthened and directed by Him to live in new healthy ways. Darkness causes us to reject, or not even recognize, hope and help when it comes our way. The longer we cooperate with darkness, the more we will hide from the light. God wants us to be completely separated from the things of darkness. Light and darkness do not exist together. We struggle to come into the light because we’re unwilling to surrender all of ourselves to God and allow His healing presence to restore us to new life. So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armor of right living. The night is almost gone the day of salvation will soon be here. Because we are unwilling to expose these secrets, the guilt and shame in our past is left to fester and cause harm in our recovery. We want to keep these dark areas hidden from those around us. As we begin to put each of the steps into practice we may find that, while we are ready to pray for God’s will to be done in some areas, we continue to feel uncomfortable with having God’s light shine on others. We follow the outline of the 12 Step Program as a means to help us restore our soul. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. Why is this step part of the recovery process? Is it really necessary? In recovery circles there is a saying, “You are only as sick as your secrets.” Recovery is a process for each of us, and, in the right place, with safe and trusted people, we begin to deal with our dark and often long held secrets. STEP FIVE: We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. ![]()
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