SerenitySeekers

“Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God. Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause, those who seek to destroy me.” Psalm 69:1-4 (NIV)

Here we go again! Will David ever get off his pity pot? “David, just get over it!!” Some of us have done exactly the same thing as David seems to be doing here in Psalm 69. In the face of our own powerlessness and unmanageability, we sar on our own pity pot and complained to God and anybody else who would listen to us grumble. There certainly are plenty of people out there that are willing to feel sorry for us. As they listen to our complaints, if we are paying close attention to their body language and verbal response, we can see that our demonstration of misery is having its desired effect. We get immense amounts of sympathy and pity directed toward our cause. “Oh you poor thing. That’s just about the saddest story I have ever heard.” These are just a couple of comments we hear. One of the most fun experiments I have ever done was to watch people’s response to my cane when I use it. People get out of my way, open doors for me and treat me with uncommon courtesy. I remember Dr. Charles Swindol telling a story about the time he sat in a wheel chair at an airport. One person patted him on the head in a demonstration of some kind of pity. The good doctor said it was the first and last time he has ever been patted on the head. Well, the truth is that pity and sympathy, while seeming to be good for the moment, never really provide solutions to the problems at hand, powerlessness and unmanageability. But then, Psalm 69:1-4 only tells part of the story. Reading the whole of the Psalm reveals that it is Messianic in nature; Christ Himself was to experience the same traumas that we all experience. Yet He, and David, learned to be dependent of our Heavenly Father to provide the solution. A reading from Serenity Seekers comes to mind, “The solution is to let God be the loving parent we seek.” It is a solution that works every time we apply it.

In Service to God and Country,

Chaplain Pete

“My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death assail me. Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me. I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest-I would flee far away and stay in the desert; I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.”   Psalm 55:4-8

We are almost there; the end of our journey through the NT, Psalms and Proverbs with a look at the First Step of admission of powerlessness and unmanageability. It seems as though David has spent a lot of time lamenting over those selfsame issues. In this Psalm, he is so desperate that he pleads for wings of a dove to get away from it all. And yet, doves also have enemies, do they not? Hawks and eagles circle overhead looking for just such a tender morsel as a dove. But nonetheless, we all do the same thing in our search for peace and serenity. Some of us recall the Calgon commercial, “Calgon, take me away.” Calgon promised peace, quiet and rest as we soaked in a tub of bubbles under its relaxing influence. But then the bubble bath came to an end and life continued to throw its stuff at us. Some of us have tried more self destructive means of escape, abuse of alcohol and drugs to name just a couple. However, as we move through the rest of the Psalms we will see a glimmer of hope that begins to shape up as the Second Step, “We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” This is where the journey begins to provide a view into the release we are looking for. We discover hope; hope is a good thing.

In Service to God and Country,

Chaplain Pete

“My disgrace is before me all day long, and my face is covered with shame at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me, because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge.” Psalm 44:15,16

Disgrace, dishonor, discredit, scandal, ignominy, humiliation. We have all been there. We’ve done something wrong that that someone has witnessed. Their judgment and criticism drives us away from them, we want to crawl under a rock and hideout. We want to become invisible because of embarrassment and mortification. The more enmity between me and the observer of my wrong doing, the more he seeks vengeance. “Aha! I’ll fix his wagon this time!” You become the victim of name calling and harassment. You mind joins in on the crucifixion, “You fool! Idiot! That was a stupid thing to do. How could you do such a foolish thing?”  Once again you sense the powerless and unmanageability of your life. But yet, there is good news that will show up in the “Rest of the Story.”

In Service to God and Country,

Chaplain Pete

“Show me, O LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath.” Psalm 39:4, 5

We humans are so very arrogant. We work so hard at being in control and live under the delusion that we really are in control. The Psalmist seems to want control of some kind and asks the LORD to inform him about the length of days that he can expect to live. Why did he want to know? Would he have lived his life differently if he knew today would be his last day on earth? Would he have lived this day as well as he could? Or would he have, “ate, drank and been merry” because tomorrow he would be dead? Today is 9-11. It is a day of national remembrance. The grief and loss is still being felt by the families and friends of 9-11 victims. I was watching memorial pictures on the news last evening. I could only take so much remembering of that horrific event. I live 3,000 miles away and am only remotely connected. But still the horror of it overwhelms me. Ground Zero, like Pearl Harbor, will forever be etched in our minds. The question remains to be answered, “How much in control are we really?” Powerless and unmanageability are uninvited guests in our lives. We didn’t ask them to come our way; they show up whether we like it or not.

In Service to God and Country,

Chaplain Pete

“O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. For your arrows have pierced me, and your hand has come down upon me. Because of your wrath there is no health in my body; my bones have no soundness because of my sin. My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear.  My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning. My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart. All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you.”

Psalm 38:1-9

There is so much in the Psalms that I can relate to. It seems as if the Psalmist is me. Is he living inside me, reading my mind? Has he travelled alongside me all these years, thinking and feeling all my thoughts and feelings? The fear expressed here is so very real. “O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath.” The author senses that he had done some foul deed that deserves just exactly that kind of punishment. I am reminded of the hymn the Church was singing when I walked the isle in surrender to the LORD; “Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God I come.” I still sing that song on a regular basis. It echoes the basis for the only hope I have for hope of obtaining grace, mercy, hope and life. Some moments the negative thoughts and feelings are overwhelming. But, as they say in AA, “This too shall pass.” I’ve learned to accept the negative in my life; it is all part of the powerlessness and unmanageability I experience as part of my life. It’s all ok, the Lord is ultimately in charge. “Sorrow may come in the evening, but joy returns in the morning.”

In Service to God and Country,

Chaplain Pete

“Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.” Psalm 31:9,10

Boy can I relate!! I’ve started a new job last week, driving school bus part time. I have my alarm set for 5:30AM, but continue to wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning and can’t get back to sleep. There is nothing like exhaustion to make ones’ eyes grow weak with sorrow. Of course, there are all kinds of things that bring on exhaustion and grief that remind us of the powerlessness and unmanageability of our lives; discontent of all kinds wears us out. Think about it: fighting and arguing at home, work place problems, health problems, and economic problems for sure. Our lives can certainly be consumed by anguish, as David so eloquently writes. All of this exhaustion prevents us from living “full steam ahead” for the LORD. Maybe we make too much of ourselves and should figure out how to slow down; is it really our job to (_________?); fill in the blank. There is a principle speaks to the frustration we sometimes feel when we think life is not ok. It comes from the Serenity Prayer: “Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.” That is another lesson the Psalms teach us, one that we’ll look at in Step Two: “We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

In Service to God and Country,

Chaplain Pete

“Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish. Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins. See how my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me!”  Psalm 25:16-20

Thirty eight passages of Scripture referencing the First Step are highlighted in the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs in “Serenity: A Companion for Twelve Step Recovery.” An overwhelming majority of them are found in the Psalms. We are not yet half way through examining these all important messages that address powerlessness and unmanageability. That must be an important topic to consider. Here, the Psalmist issues a dictum, “take away all my sins,” instead of a plea. He is not asking the LORD to do this, but rather directing Him to do so. Rather bold, don’t you think? All of the statements in this part of Psalm 25 are directives, rather than requests. Is it insightful that the Psalmist also ties his sins to his distress? He seems to understand that his sins are at the root of his loneliness and affliction. He is examining the log in his own eye, and not the toothpick in the eyes of others. He is looking at his own powerlessness and unmanageability, is he not? The Psalms are filled with such examples for us to follow. Let us continue to “Trudge the Road to Happy Destiny” as AA states it. Let us move on to freedom from self imposed oppression. Again, the First Step is a key that unlocks the chains that bind us.

In Service to God and Country,

Chaplain Pete

^“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent…Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.  Roaring lions tearing their prey open their mouths wide against me.” Psalm 22: 1, 11-13

In this Prophetic, Messianic Psalm, we see not only a reflection of us in David’s powerlessness, but also powerlessness that Christ would willingly accept in His role as Redeemer of mankind. The purpose of these little essays is to get us to examine our own powerlessness and unmanageability, to bring us to a point of humility in which we recognize the futility of existence outside of God’s loving care and assistance. Without God, life is devoid of all hope of freedom and joy. Remember the wording of the first step, “We admitted we were powerless over our dependencies and that our lives had become unmanageable.” Two points to notice in regards to the syntax of the First Step: “we” demonstrates a group effort; I am not in this battle alone, you are part of the “we” if you choose to be. The second point is to reflect upon the fact that the First Step is written in the past tense; we, the group, and you as a part of the group, are no longer powerless and we now have a way of life that will teach us how to become better life managers. The really good news of the First Step is that it is just exactly that: The First Step. We, and you as part of the group, get to move on with life and begin to sense growth and success in a way that has never been experienced before.

Chaplain Pete

          As no truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of Inspiration nor any more fully demonstrated by experience of all ages, than that a deep sense and due acknowledgment of the governing providence of a Supreme Being and of the accountableness of men to Him as the searcher of hearts and righteous distributor of rewards and punishments are conducive equally to the happiness and rectitude of individuals and to the well-being of communities; as it is also most reasonable in itself that men who are made capable of social acts and relations, who owe their improvements to the social state, and who derive their enjoyments from it, should, as a society, make their acknowledgements of dependence and obligation to Him who hath endowed them with these capacities and elevated them in the scale of existence by these distinctions; as it is likewise a plain dictate of duty and a strong sentiment of nature that in circumstances of great urgency and seasons of imminent danger earnest and particular supplications should be made to Him who is able to defend or to destroy; as, moreover, the most precious interests of the people of the United States are still held in jeopardy by the hostile designs and insidious acts of a foreign nation, as well as by the dissemination among them of those principles, subversive of the foundations of all religious, moral, and social obligations, that have produced incalculable mischief and misery in other countries, and as, in fine, the observance of special seasons for public religious solemnities is happily calculated to avert the evils which we ought to deprecate and to excite to the performance of the duties which we ought to discharge by calling and fixing the attention of the people at large to the momentous truths already recited, by affording opportunity to teach and inculcate them by animating devotion and giving to it the character of a national act.

          For these reasons  have thought proper to recommend, and I do herby recommend accordingly, that Thursday, the 25th day of April; next, be observed throughout the United States of America as a day of solemn humiliation, fasting, and prayer; that the citizens on that day abstain as far as may be from their secular occupations, devote the time to the sacred duties of religion in public and in private; that they call to mind our numerous offenses against the Most High God, confess them before Him with the sincerest penitence, implore His pardoning mercy, through the Great Mediator and Redeemer, for our past transgressions, and that through the grace of His Holy Spirit we may be disposed and enabled to yield a more suitable obedience to His righteous requisitions in time to come; that He would interpose to arrest the progress of that impiety and licentiousness in principle and practice so offensive to Himself and so ruinous to mankind; that He would make us deeply sensible that “righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people: that He would turn us from our transgressions and turn His displeasure from us; that He would withhold us from unreasonable discontent, from disunion, faction, sedition, and insurrection; that He would preserve our country from the desolating sword; that He would save our cities and towns from a repetition of those awful pestilential visitations under which they have lately suffered so severely, and that the health of our inhabitants generally may be precious in His sight; that He would favor us with fruitful seasons and so bless the labors of the husbandman as that there may be food in abundance for man and beast; that He would prosper our commerce, manufactures, and fisheries, and give us success to the people in all their lawful industry and enterprise; that He would smile on our colleges, academies, schools, and seminaries of learning, and make them nurseries of sound science, morals, and religion; that He would bless all magistrates, from the highest to the lowest, give them the true spirit of their station, make them a terror to evil doers and a praise to them that do well; that He would preside over the councils of the nation at this critical period, enlighten them to a just discernment of the public interest, and save them from mistake, division, and discord; that He would make succeed our preparations for defense and bless our armaments by land and by sea; that He would put and end to the effusion of human blood and the accumulation of human misery among the contending nations of the earth by disposing them to justice, to equity, to benevolence, and to peace; and that He would extend the blessing of knowledge, of true liberty, and of true and undefiled religion throughout the world.

          And I do also recommend that with these acts of humiliation, penitence, and prayer, fervent thanksgiving to the Author of All Good be united for countless favors which He is still continuing to the people of the United States, and which render their condition as a nation eminently happy when compared with the lot of others.

          A Proclamation—Fasting, Prayer and Thanksgiving by John Adams, President of the United States of America on March 7^th, 1799

In Service to God and Country,

Chaplain Pete

“How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day and have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall.” Psalm 13:1-4

“How long, O LORD?” Great question. Look at the questions, ponder them, and weigh them in your mind. Here is another Psalm of David expressing his powerlessness the despair he feels because he has been a poor manager of his own life. Are we still there with David; in that spot of powerlessness and despair? How long was David on the ropes? The Serenity Bible lists 23 Psalms that express David’s sense of doom and devastation. But they all end with a sense of hope and faith. Perhaps that is one more reason why David was called a “Man after God’s own heart.” Here again is the rest of the story.

“But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me.” Psalm 13: 5,6

In Service to God and Country,

Chaplain Pete