“Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.” Galatians 6:1
I was taking
a long bicycle
ride around Loveland a while ago when I remembered an event years before on the same route that almost cost me my life. I was riding down a big hill (no bike lane) and I needed to make a left turn. I checked for traffic and as I made the turn, a car came dangerously close to hitting me from behind. It wasn’t the driver’s fault – it was all on me. I actually stopped and talked with the gentleman and he was as scared as I was. The lesson: It’s good to keep your eyes on the road and keep moving forward, but every once in a while, you need to look in the rear-view mirror. You never know what’s coming up behind you.
The analogy to recovery is similar. I once spent almost all of my time looking in the rear-view mirror of life, trying to move forward, but crashing at every turn. Forgetting the past is not the same as ignoring the past. Forgetting happens when we rely on God and his grace to work through the past so we can stay present in today and have an opportunity for a better tomorrow. That takes faith and work. While I spend much more of my time today looking through the windshield of life, I need to check that rear-view mirror once in a while. You never know what might be nipping at your heels. The enemy will sneak up on you when you least expect it.
One of the best tools we have in Celebrate Recovery to improve your 360° vision is journaling and reviewing your day – what went well and what didn’t, make any necessary corrections (amends/forgiveness), and pray and follow God’s lead.
As for bicycling, I added a small rear-view mirror to my handlebars. It’s amazing how my vision has improved and how much more I enjoy the ride.
Question:
What’s in your journal today?
“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.”Philippians 3:13
Dana Cramer
Celebrate Recovery // Crossroads Church
CELEBRATE RECOVERY/CROSSROADS CHURCH UPDATES/REMINDERS:
- If you are in need of prayer, please send your prayer requests to [email protected] and we will forward those to our Celebrate Recovery Prayer Team. The Crossroads Church Prayer Team would also love to pray for you, so when you send your email, please note if you are okay with us forwarding your prayer request to the church.
- Fridays at 6:30pm, we are hosting “CR Friday Night Live.” To subscribe to our YouTube channel, please click on the following link and select the subscribe button. CR YouTube Channel Link. There will be a song or two of worship and then a short recovery based dialogue between a couple of CR members. This will be streamed on YouTube.
- On Fridays we will be hosting on-line open share group meetings at 7:30pm. There will be one mixed issues group for men and one mixed issues group for women. Men’s Open Share Group Sign-Up / Women’s Open Share Group Sign-Up. These meetings will take place using the Zoom App. In order to participate you will need a tablet, smart-phone or computer with camera. In order to ensure confidentiality of these meetings everyone who participates will need to find a private room to set up, have their camera on, so others can see that there is no one else in the room and they will also need to wear a pair of headphones so that they are the only ones that can hear. This is a free app and you can download it on google play, apple app store or through your web-browser on your computer. For help on how to join a Zoom meeting please click on the the following link, which will take you to their support web-site Zoom Set-Up Help
