What life are the 12 steps calling you towards?
Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
17 So I’m telling you this, and I insist on it in the Lord: you shouldn’t live your life like the Gentiles anymore. They base their lives on pointless thinking, 18 and they are in the dark in their reasoning. They are disconnected from God’s life because of their ignorance and their closed hearts. 19 They are people who lack all sense of right and wrong, and who have turned themselves over to doing whatever feels good and to practicing every sort of corruption along with greed.
20 But you didn’t learn that sort of thing from Christ. 21 Since you really listened to him and you were taught how the truth is in Jesus, 22 change the former way of life that was part of the person you once were, corrupted by deceitful desires. 23 Instead, renew the thinking in your mind by the Spirit 24 and clothe yourself with the new person created according to God’s image in justice and true holiness.
Ephesians 4:17-24, CEB
Seeing as this is part II of our convo on Step 12, I’m going to focus on the latter part: …and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
As I’m writing this, I’m remembering prior conversations we’ve had in our community on Step 12. I can remember people expressing discouragement at the prospect of practicing these principles in every aspect of life. It’s a bit overwhelming. I wonder if it would be so overwhelming if we shifted our focus a bit.
When we talk about trying to apply principles to various areas of our lives we start to think about performing or behaving. Our fear says something like: I won’t be able to behave the way I’m supposed to in all aspects of my life. That’s too much.
Part of the reason this feels so overwhelming is because it’s a totally unfocused way of approaching change and growth. If somebody asked me, “What should I work on?” And I answered, “Only everything,” then what kinds of changes might we expect to see? There’s really no way to answer that question- but I would seriously doubt we would see any change at all. When we say “everything” we may as well say “nothing.” Again, because it’s discouraging and overwhelming, like drinking out of a fire hose.
In light of that- I want to make a recommendation. Let’s focus less on how we should perform the principles of the 12 steps and more on using the 12 steps as a means to become the kind of people we want to be in the world, trusting that becoming a certain kind of people will naturally lead us to practicing our principles in the ways we’re called to. In other words, don’t think about all the places you need to apply the principles. Think about who the 12 steps are calling you to be and let the life you live take care of itself.
Now, that may help solve the problem of overwhelm, but it doesn’t necessarily solve the problem of focus because we also need to ask ourselves, “But who are the 12 steps calling me to be?” There may be an infinite number of answers to that question…but we at least have some guidelines to operate within.
Here’s a few ideas:
We are called to be humble and acknowledge that the universe does not revolve around us.
We’re called to recognize the importance of asking for help and placing trust in the people (and God) who offer it.
We acknowledge mistakes and character defects and work to compensate for them (and we continue to do so over and over).
We strive to deepen our spirituality and to find ways to be a light for others who are living in darkness.
I am of course selectively summarizing some of the key ideas in the steps and undoubtedly missed some things…but…here’s where we may find our focus, our guidance, our northstar, the thing(s) we want to prioritize in order to move closer to the people we want to be.
So…I’ll close with a string of overwhelming questions…which of these things stands out to you? Who do you feel called to be? Which of these things do you think would get you closer to that person…and how might you focus 5% more of your energy into doing it?
