The Heart Of Recovery By Deborah and David BeddoeSample

Day Seven

The Power of God

Scripture: Philippians 1:6

As a culture and as a church, we’ve taken we can’t change people to mean people don’t change. And we’ve taken we can’t change people to mean there’s nothing we can do to help them change.

But when we buy the idea that people don’t change, we deny both the human capacity for change and the power of God to change the human heart. And maybe, most tragic of all, we free ourselves of the discomfort of close relationship with someone who needs us, effectively abandoning the mission God has set right in front of us. 

Grace allows time and space for transformation. People do change. People consumed by addiction can recover. Marriages can be saved. Children can survive dysfunctional homes. But it’s a process. We forget this. Recovery takes endurance. 

Dave has been clean now for more than a decade, and though we celebrate his recovery, it hasn’t been easy. The addiction years were a trauma of their own: we sank deep into a pit trying to fight addiction alone. But the recovery years have been a long haul of living “one moment at a time,” taking slow steps in the right direction, getting knocked down, and being pulled to our feet again by each other and the willing bystanders in our lives. If the strength and power of the years of addiction was secrecy, shame, and darkness, the power of the recovery years has been transparency, love, and community. 

After more than a decade free from pills, we can say with confidence, here’s how we got this far: people around us set aside their fears, prejudices, and objections and chose compassion instead. Hope began in community through a group of bystanders who were willing to do what they could to help bring new life from the grave.

God, you who began a good work in me will complete it. You who began a good work in [name] will complete it. You are powerful. We choose to hope. Amen.