Posts Tagged: Melody Beattie
“Advice vs. Guidance”
Before I threw the covers off this morning, I prayed that God would guide me through and throughout this day. My 12-step affirmation for today is “Today, I am allowing my Higher Power to guide me to make good choices and to follow through on those choices.”
Then, strangely enough, in one of my 12-step readings, I encountered a section entitled “Divinely Led.” It began with an epigraph, which is also a prayer:
“Send me the right thought, word, or action. Show me what my next step should be. In times of doubt and indecision please send your inspiration and guidance.
—Alcoholics Anonymous” (https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/thought-for-the-day?book=2&date=2021-02-11)
It is so much easier to give advice than guidance. An advisor points out the direction you should go. A guide goes with you.
According to both the Old and New Testaments, God is not an advisor. God is a guide. Of course, God is not just a guide. God is many things. But God isa guide.
I really appreciate that sometimes. I can get lost in my own close closet—and it isn’t even a walk-in closet. For sure, I can get lost in my own mind. As someone has said, “The mind is a dark and scary place. Don’t go there alone!”
My Guide often accompanies me to places I don’t want to go, but my Guide goes with me. And when I follow and arrive at this place I did not want to go, there is a delightful view or a needful lesson to be learned—sometimes a view and a lesson.
God guides me in many ways: through the Bible, for sure, but in other ways as well. Here is a very partial list of ways in which my Guide guides:
- The Bible.
- Other books and articles, both sacred and secular.
- Music.
- Friends.
- 12-step readings.
- Internal nudging from the Holy Spirit.
- My dog.
- My circumstances.
- Trial and error.
- My own internal longings. (Well, some of them.)
Who’s to say? Perhaps God even guides through blog posts like this one. May you be guided through this day!
“Giving Ourselves What We Deserve”
My wife went out to run some errands yesterday. One errand was to return some clothes that did not quite work for her. She called me a couple of hours after she had left, and sounded rather frustrated and apologetic. I don’t remember the exact conversation, but it went something like this. “I haven’t gotten anything done,” she said. “I’ve just wasted time trying on a bunch of clothes. Do you want me just to come home and fix dinner?” She knows that I like to eat dinner early, whereas she doesn’t really care what time she eats.
Now, you must realize that my wife is not a compulsive shopper. Quite the contrary! She buys what she needs if it’s on sale or on the clearance rack, and then makes it last a long, long time.
So, it wasn’t really being a stellar husband for me to be a little nice. “Just go ahead and do your other errands, and we’ll eat whenever you get home.” Even though, given my wife’s nature and style, it wasn’t a big thing for me to be a little kind, it was a big thing for me to do. Hey! Lighten up on me! I’m a beginner at being thoughtful!
So, this morning, I read the following words from Melody Beattie’s book The Language of Letting Go:
“Wednesday, May 8
Giving Ourselves What We Deserve
‘I worked at a good job, making a decent salary. I had been recovering for
years. Each morning, I got into my car and I thanked God for the car. The
heater didn’t work. And the chance of the car not starting was almost as great
as the chance that it would. I just kept suffering through and thanking God.
One day, it occurred to me that there was absolutely no good reason I couldn’t
buy myself a new car – that moment – if I wanted one. I had been gratitudeing
myself into unnecessary deprivation and martyrdom. I bought the new car – that
day.
—Anonymous’ ”
It is good to be grateful for what we have. However, there are times when we deprive ourselves when there is no good reason. This is especially true of us addicts. We know that we don’t dare go for immediate gratification. We know that gratitude for what we have—and even what we don’t have—is extremely important.
However, as addicts, we also tend to turn every good thing into an addiction. Some of us get addicted to deprivation. Perhaps there should be a twelve-step group called “D.A.” This would stand for “Deprivation Anonymous.”
The Apostle Paul has a wonderful little instruction for Timothy, and indeed for all of us. He says,
“17 As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.
18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share,
19 thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” (1 Timothy 6:17-19, English Standard Version)
Yes, we are to trust God. Yes, we are to be generous with others. But did you catch a couple of words at the end of verse 16? Let me highlight them for you. “. . . God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” Not abuse, not hoard, but enjoy!
I hope that you enjoy your day!
“Guilt Prolongs the Problem”
Here is a meditation for addicts that I read just this morning. This is a Hazelden reading from a book by Melody Beattie that everyone in the world should take buy and read until it has disintegrated. We should also put a lot of her good suggestions into daily practice until they becomes part of who we are. Here is today’s reading from her book on Hazelden’s “Thought for the Day” (https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/thought-for-the-day, accessed 02-08-2019).
“Friday, February 8
Letting
Go of Guilt
Feeling good about ourselves is a choice. So is feeling guilty. When guilt is
legitimate, it acts as a warning light, signaling that we’re off course. Then
its purpose is finished.
Wallowing in guilt allows others to control us. It makes us feel not good enough. It prevents us from setting boundaries and taking other healthy action to care for ourselves.
We may have learned to habitually feel guilty as an instinctive reaction to life. Now we know that we don’t have to feel guilty. Even if we’ve done something that violates a value, extended guilt does not solve the problem; it prolongs the problem. So make an amend. Change a behavior. Then let guilt go.
Today, God, help me to become entirely ready to let go of guilt. Please take it from me, and replace it with self-love.”
(From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.)
I was especially struck by her statements that “. . . extended guilt does not solve the problem; it prolongs the problem. So make an amend. Change a behavior. Then let guilt go.”
When I choose to prolong guilt, rather than choosing to make an amend to someone and to change my behavior, I am simply adding one more wrong thing to feel guilty about—my guilt. Guilt itself becomes one more wrong behavior whenever I do not address honesty the wrong behavior that gave rise to the guilt. Prolonging guilt is merely a way for me to avoid the hard work of trusting God, asking for forgiveness, and doing the next right thing. Real guilt is good. Prolonged guilt is not.
“DON’T TRY TO CATCH THE GERBIL!”
Melody Beattie tells a wonderful story in her book The Language of Letting Go.
Her son brought home a gerbil to live with them. Sometime later, the gerbil escaped and eluded capture for the next six months. Melody and her son would catch sight of the gerbil, and would scream, “Catch him!” However, the gerbil was still on the lam.
Finally, she decided to give up. If the gerbil wanted to live a reclusive life, let him!
Shortly after deciding to let go of her attempts to catch the critter, he stopped beside her chair one day. She very gently stooped down, scooped up the gerbil, and put him back in his cage.
She concluded, “Detachment works.”
Yes, it does! It works for catching runaway gerbils—when they are ready to be caught.
There are times when I think that I am the gerbil. I am afraid to be caught, not realizing that what I call “being caught” might actually be a better version of freedom than my own furtive hiding and eating crumbs off the floor.
But I want to take this in another direction: Fear is why we run and why we hide. Fear is also why we want desperately to catch and cage certain memories, certain feelings, certain relationships.
Perhaps, in a sense, fear is the gerbil. Maybe we—maybe I—try too hard to track down, corner, and cage our fears. Maybe we should just let them run wild for a while, until we become more accepting our fears, and they become more accepting of us.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said that “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” Maybe we don’t even need to fear our fears.
Much of the evil I’ve done in my life, evil to myself, others, and ultimately to God, has been primarily caused by my fears and my desire to control them. I’ve wanted desperately to detach from my fears, when maybe what I have really needed to detach from was my desire to catch and cage my fears.
My new life-motto is “DON’T TRY TO CATCH THE GERBIL!”
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
- “God is in the Details” October 11, 2024“The devil is in the details.” (A general saying, often quoted by lawyers, reporters, and negotiators.) “God is in the details.” (Me, almost certainly not original.) “Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Jesus) God does not micromanage, but God […]
- “Grandma’s Pump” October 8, 2024When I was a little critter, I would stay at my grandma’s house for a night or two sometimes. I liked this for a lot for many reasons. One thing I liked about staying with her was that Grandma’s house was much more technologically advanced than ours was. For one thing, she had indoor water—sort […]
- “Wearing the #14 Wrong-Side-Out” October 5, 2024Pete Rose, #14, is dead. Many of the old guys with whom I play softball watched him play and appreciated him greatly. I do as well. He was one of the greatest players who ever played the game. Yes, he admitted (eventually) to betting on baseball. But many of us still regard him as one […]
- “Passing Along the Love (and a Link)” October 4, 2024Several years ago, a friend of mine put me onto a daily meditation by Richard Rohr and friends. I don’t read them all the time, but I probably should. They are good! I thought that today’s writing was especially good, and I also figured that this would be a good way to post something. I […]
- “Witnessing Versus Being Witnesses” September 19, 2024“Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, Acts 1:2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Acts 1:3 He presented himself alive to them after […]
- “A Bathroom Prayer for Hurting Hands” September 11, 2024A week ago Sunday, my hands were hurting so badly at church that I went to the bathroom to run hot water over my hands. Arthritis perhaps, or carpal tunnel, or general orneriness—I don’t know why my hands hurt, but they do. They have for years. So, while I was running hot water over my […]
- “Waiting and Seeking” September 10, 2024“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! Lam. 3:20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Lam. 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Lam. 3:22 ¶ The steadfast love of the LORD […]
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