Last night’s Celebrate Recovery Step Study was lesson 19–Crossroads.  This lesson focuses on our need to do a daily inventory:  the good of the day and the ills of it.  For the ills we need to own them and quickly repair them.  The interesting part of this lesson isn’t so much that these steps should be taken, it is that the first question centers around the strength of relationships we have established by now with self, others and with God/Jesus.  It solidly reinforces the truth that life is lived first and foremost for relationships.  We cannot have strong relationships if we keep injuring them and not addressing the injury we caused.  The Crossroads lesson allows us to address the significance of this and to help us establish a new habit or way of living each day so when we fail we can see it, own it and correct it quickly.

There is one question asking: “What specific relationships have been repaired or improved?”  This brought me to share with the guys my current awakening with God my Father. Having a fulfilling relationship with Him is (I’m grasping for words which can describe what I wish to say here).  I’m simply stunned and amazed to finally awaken to the truth that I don’t have to earn my relationship with my Heavenly Father.  What I’ve known in my head for much of my life I now know for certainty in my heart and spirit.  When I shared this with the men last night one of them said, “Wow Earnie, that’s really deep stuff.”  My thought was that this was never intended to be deep by God.  Sin’s deception is what has kept me and everyone else believing the lie I’ve had.  I’m so humbly grateful to finally be fully awake to this.