Spiritual Survival Guide
6: Keeping It Going: Moving Beyond Survival Mode
Walk Like a Christian: 12 Steps Toward Thriving Spiritually
In the morning “God, please help me keep my head up today.” “God, I’ll be with you today if you’ll be with me.” “God, give me patience and courage, wisdom and strength.” “God, this day is yours.” In the evening “God, thanks for bringing me through another day.” “God, I trust you with all I saw and heard today.” “God, watch over me as I sleep.”
When Christians think about Jesus calling himself “The Way” (see John 14:6) and inviting us to follow him, we’re reminded that following him is an ongoing journey. Jesus never wanted people to stand still and tip their hat to him. He wants us to be on the move, to walk with him, to walk like him. But walking with Jesus doesn’t come naturally for us. We’re used to walking our own way, doing our own thing, heading down our own path. Walking like a Christian—walking like Jesus himself—is a learn- ing process. Just like a child learning to take those first awkward baby steps then slowly walking, then running, learning to walk spiritually is a bumpy process that includes a lot of falling. We need to take it one step at a time to get up to speed following Jesus’ way of life. Speaking of “steps,” for over seventy years Alcoholics Anonymous has been engaged in a journey of transformation, one group of people at a time: from deeply-addicted repeat offending to sober living, from insan- ity to sanity, from broken spirits and broken relationships to restoration, from the terrible isolation of addiction to true community. In A.A., people undergo change by following a 12-step program—a series of steps that are both incredibly practical and incredibly spiritual, incred- ibly personal and incredibly communal, that are incredibly hard, but that work incredibly well. A.A. isn’t a perfect organization, but they’ve helped a lot of people along the way. You may be surprised that A.A. has deep Christian roots that go back to the Bible itself. The “step-process” itself can be traced back 500 years to a Catholic saint by the name of Ignatius Loyola and his Spiritual Exercises. These roots appear again in the twentieth century, in a group
Think About It. Talk About It.
1. Did you pray as a child? If so, who taught you to pray, and what kind of prayers did you pray? If not, have you ever tried to pray as an adult?
2. Do you find prayer
a) natural
b) weird
c) difficult g) other
d) comforting
e) scary
f) powerful
3. Look back at the prayers that other inmates said helped them know that God was with them and for them. Which of those prayers appeals to you the most right now? Why do you think that is? 4. When it comes to prayer, do you find it difficult to follow the advice to “be persistent and respect God’s No”? Do you tend to give up easily? Do you have a hard time accepting No for an answer? 5. Of the top ten things we shared about prayer, which one(s) did you find the most helpful and meaningful?
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