"Now your attitudes and thoughts must all be constantly changing for the better. Yes, you must be a new and different person, holy and good. Chothe yourself with this new nature. Stop lying to each other; tell the truth, for we are parts of each other and when we lie to each other we are hurting ourselves."
Ephesians 4:23-25, The Living Bible
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Steps l0, 11 and 12 are the maintenance steps.
For me, Step 10 is "pray without ceasing" and humbly seeking God's will in my moment-to-moment decisions. Whenever I get a twinge of "ut oh"....I ask God what His will is for me in side-stepping my "old" way of handling the situation. It's typically around my pride, judgement or my wanting to control a person or a situation.
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"God help me!" is a prayer. When I ask, He responds. Then the l0th step teaches me to listen. If I make a mistake (and the "ut oh" comes after an inappropriate reaction or response), I apologize, forgive myself and move on.
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Another aspect of the l0th step is taking a daily inventory of the goods and not-so-goods in the day. After lunch, I review my morning...and the next day (when I am on my knees), I look at the afternoon and evening of the preceding day. If I need to apologize for something, I commit to doing that, and I also commit to "living amends" which is living in the solution to the best of my ability.
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I make mistakes, but I keep trying. I have learned that there is no perfect this side of heaven, and I am okay with my imperfection (although striving to be God's best at the same time).
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As Joyce Meyer says repeatedly, "I may not be where I want to be, but I am certainly not where I used to be!"
2 comments:
Hi Pam,
It looks like the link to the booklet didn't come through on the blog yesterday. Here it is again:
http://www.kingshighway.org
/plain_and_simple/
first_to_change/
I broke it down in sections, but if anyone wants to look it up, you need to copy the whole thing into your browser with no spaces.
I love step 10. I like to do it in the morning with my devotions. If I wait for the end of the day, I will snooze right through it. :o) I find that when I don't do step 10 on a regular basis, I wander off the path the Lord would have me travel. It takes a while for me to notice that I am off track. Then I have to backtrack. It is such a waste of time!!
:o) Christine
Christine,
I agree--Step l0 is a daily inventory....and it is so important for me to keep double-checking my responses, my reactions and my motives...and make amends when I go off-track from my goals.
Love,
Pam<><
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