Step 10: We continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
1 Corinthians 10:12 - "If you think you are standing strong be careful not to fall."
Habits are sometimes hard to break. That's why when we're young we should try really hard not to begin practicing bad ones. Faith, Hunter, Mia, you guys may not realize it right now but everything we do in life matters. Every choice we make, every thing builds on what we've already done in our lives. It's like stacking leggos together. One leggo at a time each day over the course of 1 year will get you 365 leggos. That's a pretty tall stack of leggos. The same thing is true with sin in our lives. One little sin that seems o.k. today like a fib, or you taking something that doesn't belong to you, or something like that, can lead to a life time of bad consequences. The more bad things we do the easier and more frequently we will feel comfortable doing those bad things. Usually the little things turn into great big things with great big consequences.
In my life, I have made several attempts to get right with God and to live right. 1 Corinthians says a mouthful. When you are doing good "look out", Satan doesn't want to see anybody do well and stand strong when he thinks they are even thinking about God. I have had several stabs at faith or sobriety in my life only to fall back into some old habits that I let get started early in life. That's why I say if you don't start them you don't have to break them and it just makes your life easier that way.
Looking back on my life, when I was trying to make attempts at doing well or staying sober, I can see that I did so with reservation. I tried to put my own personal twist on God's will for my life. It might work for a while, but eventually, for me anyway, that twist came crashing down on my head and gave Satan the upper hand in my life. You ever heard the saying "Give it your all" or "All or noting" etc.? I think that there is something to that! It's obvious that we need to clear our slate with people and God on a daily basis. In my experience, the weight of sin in your life is too much to bear. To me it's like getting a tattoo. When you get started it's just a little stick and not bad at all, but before you get done you're thinking to yourself "what in the world did I do this for" but now you can't quit until you're done and it hurts like hell. Remember this, that when you are doing well and on the right track in your life, Satan is going to tease and taunt you with something that you have desire for but "no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man". God is faithful and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability but with that temptation He will provide a way of escape, that you will be able to endure it (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Prayer: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore me to the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit (Psalm 51:10-12).
Random Thought: I was looking out my cell window last night after the lights went out and talking with my cellie. I looked down at the bunks in the trailer park. That is the spot where new guys go before they get a cell. Usually you live in the trailer park for two weeks before you get a penthouse sweet. Anyway, I started counting the number of men in our pod and praying for them. I then asked my cellie how many prisoners were locked up in Missouri. He told me about 20,000. Now I have 5 kids, Zarria, Savanah, Faith, Hunter, and Mia. I figure most have 2 or 3 children. I started doing some math and came up with 60,000. That's the capacity of Arrow Head Stadium I think. Multiply that by 50 for simplicity, you get 30,000,000. There are probably that many children or more going without fathers in their lives right now across the nation because of sin, bad choices, and selfishness. Where I am located I'd guess that 80% of us are here because of some type of addiction in our lives, probably more. If you stood on a stage looking out at a crowd full of innocent children and broken families 50 times the size of Arrowhead Stadium, 30,000,000 million strong, could you look across that crowd and feel good about selling dope or someway some how contributing to the loss of that many children that just want to play with their fathers? If I could have looked at dope or sin like that the first time I did it, knowing the pain I had when I was little because of missing my (1) father, I would never have made that choice I don't think. We don't look at sin that way though. Before we do it, we minimize it, but just like stacking leggos, fathers, the sin in our lives adds up and across the country and the world the numbers are staggering. That's too much for one man to bear. So next time your sitting in a room full of people and a sack of dope gets passed around, do the math and ask yourself if you want to contribute to the loss of 30,000,000 million innocent children's hopes, dreams, and fathers!
It works both ways. The leggos stack to the good or the bad one at a time in either direction. Take a stand, 1 man for 30,000,000 million kids to "...be careful not to fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12). If we can figure out a way to change the lives of 1 father a week every day for the rest of our lives we will have made a huge contribution to the lives of many beautiful families!
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