Trusting the One who sees the road.

So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together for good… Romans 8:28

I read a post on social media where someone was upset about driving on the highway behind a highway patrol officer. The officer was going about five miles over the speed limit for thirty or forty miles, and all the traffic moved at his pace. What bothered the person was not that traffic was crawling, but that it was not moving fast enough for their liking. The officer was criticized for being unreasonable and inconsiderate. What stood out to me was that the officer was doing exactly what his job required. Highway patrol is literally in the name. He was hired to manage traffic, keep it flowing safely, and look out for the public’s best interest, whether it was appreciated or not.

At first, I thought the complaint sounded unrealistic. The officer was already above the speed limit and clearly focused on safety and flow. But the more I thought about it, the more I saw myself. I get frustrated when things do not move at the pace I expect. I want answers, progress, healing, or change to happen faster. When they do not, I question the process. Sometimes I question God. Why are You not going faster? Why does this feel stalled? Why am I still here? Just like the driver on the highway, I focus on my urgency instead of the bigger picture unfolding in front of me.

What I have to keep reminding myself is that God is doing His job too. He is not passive or absent. He is guiding, protecting, and keeping things moving in ways I may not recognize in the moment. Just because I do not like the pace does not mean nothing is happening. It does not mean I am not moving, growing, or making progress. Acceptance, for me, is trusting that God sees the whole road when I only see my lane. He sees what lies ahead, what I cannot yet see. It means trusting that He is working things out for my good, even when progress feels slower than I want. When I let go of my expectations for how fast life should move, I begin to notice that His peace is already here, right where I am. I am still moving forward, still growing, even when it does not feel like it.

Prayer
God, thank You for continually looking out for my best interest and leading me. Help me accept and understand that Your pace is keeping me safe. Give me Your peace and grace to trust that You are guiding me, even when I am not aware. Thank You for working things out for my good. Amen.

How God prepared my heart long before I was willing.

The steps of a good person are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Psalm 37:23

After leaving the ministry, I struggled to find a job in a way I never had before. I was depressed and it showed. One friend told me he knew who I was and what I was capable of, but he would never hire me because I was such a downer. That hurt, but it was true. I needed to pick myself up. At first, I did it outwardly, not because I felt better, but because I needed to function. Eventually, I was hired as a manager with Goodwill Industries. I had no idea what I would really be doing there or the impact it would have on me and my perspective. Looking back, I can see now that God was leading me toward healing and wholeness, even though I was not aware of it at the time.

Working at Goodwill changed me in ways I did not expect. I worked with people who were disadvantaged or disabled, many of whom were learning very basic life and work skills. Things like setting an alarm clock, showing up on time, and being ready to work mattered more than resumes or ambition. As I walked alongside them, something began to shift in me. I was no longer as dogmatic or critical toward those I once viewed as less fortunate. I started seeing them as equals. It does not please me to admit this, but it is the truth, and my healing and recovery depend on me being honest. I began to accept and listen to others. I became willing to consider possibilities I had never allowed before. I met and became friends with people whose beliefs were completely opposite of mine, yet I discovered we often valued the same things, just for very different reasons. I became aware of my tendency to prejudge people and made a conscious effort to stop. Over time, I broke free from the suffocating grip of being judgmental. I thought God gave me that job so I could help others, but I can see now that God placed me there so others could help me. God used them to transform me.

What I could not see then was how much that season was preparing me. At the time, I had completely rejected recovery. I openly refuted it and even spoke against it in my teachings and sermons. I was certain it was unnecessary. And yet, I was working every day with people who were in recovery, watching them learn basic skills, rebuild their lives, and move forward in practical ways. Somehow, I overlooked that. I did not connect the dots. I can see now that God was placing me close enough to recovery to witness its fruit, but not yet willing to accept it for myself. That season softened me. It humbled me. It slowed me down. It did not change everything, and it did not lead me straight into recovery. But it created a crack. The hardness around my heart and the walls around my thinking began to weaken. Nearly ten years later, when I finally hit my bottom, I was no longer as closed as I once had been. God had been preparing me long before I was willing to admit I needed help.

Prayer
Father, thank You for leading me patiently, even when I could not recognize it at the time. Thank You for using ordinary work and ordinary people to soften my heart and reshape my thinking. Help me trust that You are still guiding me, one step at a time, even when I do not yet understand where You are leading. Amen.

Conscious Contact: Choosing connection over perfection

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and power to carry that out. Step Eleven

I was sitting in a meeting, and like we always do, we read through the Twelve Steps at the beginning. I have heard them hundreds, maybe thousands of times. But this time, Step Eleven landed differently. The wording stood out to me in a way it never had before. This statement seems so simple, but it is profound and powerful. I was also very thankful that this is Step Eleven and not Step One. I would not have been able to do this at the beginning. I did not have the honesty, the humility, or the willingness yet. But now, at this stage, I can see it more clearly. If I could have lived Step Eleven from the start, I would have. I tried but I could not. I did not know how and I was not ready yet.

What stood out most to me was the simplicity of what this step is really asking. I am not praying for outcomes, control, or relief from discomfort. I am seeking God, asking only for the knowledge of His will for me and asking for the power to carry it out. That means I am learning how to be a better person, how to have peace, and how to respond instead of react. It means asking God to do for me what I cannot do for myself. Asking Him to reveal to me what I do not see and what I do not yet know. To give me strength where I am weak. Sometimes that comes as insight, inspiration, correction, or simply a nudge to change something I have been avoiding. This is not about perfection. It is about direction. It is about connection. It is a lifelong pursuit of peace, experienced both in the temporal and the eternal. It doesn’t get any simpler. And it doesn’t get any better than that.

Step Eleven is placed exactly where it belongs. After I have worked through the other steps, honesty, humility, surrender, responsibility, and service begin to manifest in me. As I let go of resentment, hurt, and pain, I realize that I am worthy of accepting and giving love. Then I am clear and free to seek God and try to carry this message to others. I cannot give away something I am not living. I cannot carry a message if I am not seeking God myself. As I seek Him, I experience peace, healing, and freedom, just as promised in the recovery solution. And then I am equipped to share a real lived message with others. Not theory. Not advice. Experience.

Show me Your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day. Psalm 25:4–5

When I stopped running, I realized He’d been chasing me all along.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Psalm 23:6

I gave my life to Christ when I was a teenager. When I heard the message of salvation, I accepted it with open arms. Not long after that, I unknowingly escaped into religion. Church became my safe place, a way to hide from the chaos and dysfunction of my home life.

For years I pursued God and a spiritual life the only way I knew how. I built my newfound life of hope and freedom on the broken foundation of survival skills developed by a child. I studied, prayed, and served. I went to Bible college and eventually became a minister. I was searching and longing for unconditional love and acceptance. But all to no avail. Hidden deep inside I still felt lacking and unfulfilled and became discouraged and depressed.

In working the steps of recovery, I began to realize something huge. The spiritual principles and concepts that I had so diligently sought after were surprisingly now tangible. In my thinking, I was to eternally seek but never actually attain. If I were to ever really be righteous or holy, then in my mind that meant I was prideful. But in recovery they became realistically attainable. My soul was broken and mangled from the abuse I experienced as a child. It needed to be mended. This caused a disconnect I was not able to fix. Recovery helped me see things as they really are. And the unconditional love that I had known about for years began to drip into my conscience, and I finally felt accepted and my heart began to heal.

Through recovery, I am learning that I can experience my life and not just hope for it.

As my healing emerged, I started to see how everything I had believed finally fit together in recovery. The same truths now had substance, and I began to live them.

Here’s what religious service looks like to me now:

• Willingness to change is repentance.

• Sponsorship is discipleship.

• Working the steps is putting aside old ways.

• Service is serving God.

• Carrying the message to others is sharing the good news.

It’s the same thing, just demystified and practical, every day where the rubber meets the road.

It was in recovery that my thinking changed from believing I had been seeking after Him my whole life to realizing He had been the Hound of Heaven, patiently pursuing me with fierce gentleness and reckless compassion, until I stopped and let Him catch me. That’s when He truly revealed Himself to me. I am so very grateful to God because He never stopped pursuing me. I love Him so.

Reflection

Have I stopped long enough to let God catch me, or am I still running even while serving Him?

God can’t heal what I keep hidden.

When I finally let Him search my heart, He set me free.

God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through; find out everything that may be hidden within me. Psalm 139:23

“Sounds like you hate your dad?” my sponsor said to me one day when we were doing step work.

I quickly responded, “No I don’t. I don’t hate anybody!”

He grinned and said, “Okay, that’s just what it sounds like to me.”

I pushed back, “No! I don’t!”

“Well, that’s good,” he said, smiling. “Then it shouldn’t be too hard to write about. Let’s do that.”

“Okay, I will,” I said, respectfully defiant, (if there is such a thing).

So we stopped what we were working on, and I began a Fourth Step on my dad. It went on for several weeks, but it felt like forever. (That should have been a clue for me; denial, how great is thy sting.) Then one night as I was sharing about something that happened when I was a kid, I heard myself say, “Man, I hated him for that.”

My sponsor’s eyebrows raised ever so slightly. He gave me a gentle but intent look that said, “Did you hear what you just said?” I froze mid-sentence, the silence was deafening, he leaned in gently and asked, “You heard what you said, huh?”

“Yeah, I did,” I said quietly. I continued, bewildered, “But, I don’t hate… anybody? I love God and I have love for everyone.”

He saw the confusion on my face, nodded, and gently asked if I wanted to talk about it. A weight lifted off me that night, like a five-ton stone sliding off my heart.

I’m so grateful I had a sponsor who listened to my pain and not just my words. He heard what I was unaware of and unwilling to admit. I really did hate my dad, but I had covered over it with “Christian love.” I had been taught in church and read from the Bible that we are to love everyone and not hate anyone. Because of that, I denied the hatred in my heart since I wasn’t supposed to feel it. That night I saw how important it is to look at what is, not how I want things to be. I didn’t want to hate, but I did.

Working the steps, even the ones not written in the books; you know, the ones your sponsor tells you to do, has brought me freedom, peace, and love. Facing the truth freed me from hidden hatred and fear. After that night, I no longer hated my dad. I let it go. It lost its power over me, and my Fourth Step on him ended that same evening. God used my sponsor to show me what needed to be healed, and I’m thankful for His grace.

𝗣𝗿𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿:

God, thank You for loving me enough to reveal what I’ve hidden, even from myself. Search my heart today and bring to light anything that stands between me and Your peace. Help me face truth with honesty and humility, and thank You for replacing my fear with freedom. Amen.

A story of honesty, healing, and rediscovering grace.

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. James 4:8

Recovery did not just help me stop self destructive behavior. It helped me rediscover who God really is. The story of how that happened is where this devotional begins.

When I first came into recovery, I was hiding from God. I had known God closely once and never stopped believing in Him, but I wanted nothing to do with church or religion. I did not want to be preached at or told what I should be doing. I felt I had drifted too far away, was now too broken, and too ashamed to face Him again.

I avoided churches of any kind, yet it seemed like most recovery meetings were held in one, and I avoided those too.

Attending my first Christ centered recovery group happened completely by accident. Or did it. I do not believe in coincidences.

I had gone to my regular Friday night meeting, but when I arrived, no one was there. I walked up and down the empty halls of the school, checking classrooms and even interrupting another meeting by mistake. I called everyone I knew, and finally someone told me there was no meeting that night.

I was crushed. I needed a meeting. It had been a rough day, and the thought of being alone that night was unbearable. I was scared.

As I sat there in my car, desperate for connection, I remembered that sign at the church.

Sitting there, uneasy feelings of rejection and being unloved began to surface. I thought about that sign in front of the church that I drove past on my way to my meeting. It seemed to jump out at me that night and catch my attention.

It said Celebrate Recovery. It sounded like a meeting, but it was still in a church, and that did not feel safe. Did I mention I used to attend that church. Yeah. Talk about insult to injury.

Every time I drove past it, I told myself, “That’s not for me.”

But that night something felt different. I did not want to go home, and I did not want to be alone. I knew the meeting was already well underway and probably almost over, but I had enough recovery to know that some meeting was better than no meeting.

So I decided to take a chance.

The sign said it started at seven. I walked in around seven forty five, and the meeting was still going and just breaking into share groups.

This was different. It was a welcome change.

A man named Jeff greeted me like he had been waiting for me to arrive. He asked my name and what brought me there. I was caught off guard. It felt personal to be asked that directly, but as I later learned, that is recovery in action.

I told him I was just looking for a meeting, and he smiled and said, “You found one.”

That night marked the beginning of something I never expected. A renewed connection with God.

He was bringing me back to Him slowly and at my pace, even though I had done everything I could to keep Him at arm’s distance.

I felt like the prodigal son being welcomed home. For the first time in a long time, something inside me stirred. It was hope.

It did not take long for me to realize something was happening that I could not fully explain. I was not just going to meetings anymore. I was starting to open up.

Each time I shared honestly, something inside me loosened.

The walls I had built to protect myself were starting to come down. I began to sense God’s presence again. I started to feel like it might be safe to trust these people.

An experience I had as a teenager convinced me that trusting church people with my struggles and fears was impossible. But the people in recovery did not judge me or preach at me. They listened. They understood. They cared.

In their acceptance, I began to see God’s grace in practice.

Recovery was doing what religion never could. It was teaching me how to be honest, how to trust, how to connect, and how to belong again.

Somewhere in that process, I realized that God had not given up on me. He had been waiting there the whole time for me to humble myself, let go of my resentments, and surrender to His will.

As I followed the suggestion to keep coming back, I noticed these meetings had three parts. There was a time of worship and giving thanks to God, a time of teaching or testimony, and then the share groups.

The share groups were familiar to me from other recovery meetings, so that is where I started. Once I understood the structure, I began arriving just in time for them, and that was okay. No one looked down on me or made me feel different. I was accepted just as I was.

After a while, I started showing up right after the worship so I could hear the teaching on one of the steps or listen to someone share their story. Jeff, the man who greeted me that first night, became my sponsor.

He encouraged me, which is a nice way of saying he told me, that it was time to stop running from God. He invited me to attend the whole meeting, including the worship. I reluctantly agreed. I am so glad I did.

Through those moments of worship, something came alive in me again. God was meeting me where I was and gently leading me home. I started to feel grateful.

I did not realize it at the time, but each small step I took toward honesty, connection, and openness was also a step toward God. I had been running from Him for so long, but through recovery He patiently waited for me to come back.

The verse says, Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. James 4:8.

For years, I thought that meant I had to clean myself up first. What I really had to do was show up. One honest step in His direction. God did the rest.

Looking back now, I can see that recovery did not just bring me healing. It brought me back to God. It brought me home.

My relationship with God is no longer based on performance. It is based on understanding that He accepts me just as I am. I began to see that in the rooms of recovery, and it helped me understand that God accepts me, listens to me, and loves me, imperfections and all.

This devotional was written from that place. From the heart of someone who discovered that healing is not just about recovery, but about relationship. My prayer is that as you read these reflections, you experience the same grace that brought me home.