God Expects You To Be Better By
Now
by Dale S. Ryan
The third in a three part series on resistance to recovery.
In the first of this series of
articles I emphasized that the most difficult form of resistance to
recovery is our own resistance. Recovery is not easy. It is a
difficult process. Telling the truth, acknowledging our need,
accepting help, making amends - these are some of the difficult tasks
of recovery. It is understandable that we resist such a difficult
process. In addition, recovery involves change. We have spent many
years practicing our dysfunctional ways of living. The path of least
resistance for us is to keep doing the same old things. Change is
difficult and it is understandable that we resist it. In the second in
this series of articles, I emphasized that in addition to our own
internal resistance to recovery, recovery also often takes place in a
hostile environment. For a variety of reasons, not everyone in our
lives will welcome the changes which recovery brings.
Many of us, unfortunately, have experienced some distinctively
Christian forms of resistance to recovery and it is this kind of
resistance which I would like begin to discuss in this article.
It is, I think, important to begin by acknowledging how painful it can
be when resistance to recovery comes from sincere Christians, is
expressed in theological language or comes as a pronouncement about
God's character. It is hard enough to hear "you should be better
by now." But, it is very difficult, indeed, to hear "God
expects you to be better by now." It is painful to hear
"Stop being so self-focused." But, it can be excruciatingly
painful to hear "God hates it when you focus on yourself."
There are many reasons why this kind of resistance to recovery is so
painful.
First, we know that our recovery is dependent on having a Higher Power
that is prepared to help us do things we cannot do for ourselves. But
if our Higher Power is unsympathetic, impatient, uninformed or
intolerant, what hope is there? If God is angry about the changes
which recovery brings, what then? If God thinks we should be better by
now, what do we do? Resistance to recovery that comes wrapped in
Christian language is particularly painful because we know that the
stakes are very high. If God really is the kind of God implied by
these forms of resistance, then we might as well give up. That's how
it feels. We might as well give up.
Specifically Christian forms of resistance to recovery are also
painful because we can easily end up feeling that we must make an
impossible choice. It's either God or recovery. Make a choice. But, if
we choose recovery instead of God, we know it won't work. Recovery is
about God's work in our lives. Spirituality is not an optional part of
recovery - it is at the very heart of things. But, if we choose for
God and reject recovery, that doesn't work either. The kind of God we
would wind up with is not a pretty picture - we would wind up with an
attachment to an idol constructed out of our experiences with mortals
- a God who is not God. Impossible choices can, of course, immobilize
us. I can remember times when spiritually I felt like a deer caught in
someone's headlights - I couldn't make a move but I had to move to
survive.
Because resistance to recovery that comes wrapped in Christian
language can be so painful, it is important to emphasize that
responding to this kind of resistance is not just an intellectual
exercise. We are not dealing here just with a conflict of ideas. Don't
misunderstand me, ideas are important. But what's going on here is
also a very emotionally complicated situation.
Suppose, for example, that you were married and someone in a position
of authority were to come to you and say "I know you think your
spouse is supportive of what you are doing, but you are wrong. They
hate what you are doing and want you to stop." The problem would
not merely be a factual dispute about what your spouse thinks. The
more important issue would be about trust. You would find yourself
asking: "Is my spouse on my side or not?" and "Can I
trust my spouse's statements of love and support or not?" This is
the delimma we find ourselves in with God. Is God on our side or not?
God says he loves us, but can we trust what he says? The issue raised
by Christian resistance to recovery is whether or not we can trust
God.
At the risk of saying the obvious, trust is a major league issue for
many of us in recovery. We don't always make good choices about who to
trust. We have trusted people in the past and sometimes have been
hurt. And we have trusted ourselves at times when we were not
trustworthy. As a result, rebuilding our capacity to trust in
relationships is an important part of the recovery journey. Perhaps it
will clarify the trust aspects of this issue if we look at two common
kinds of resistance, not so much to the personal dynamics of recovery,
but to the development of recovery ministry in the local church.
Recovery will damage our reputation
When I first helped organize a support group in a local church, I
needed the approval of the governing Board of the congregation. At the
critical meeting, one of the Board members asked what turned out to be
the key question: "Can you tell me one more time, Pastor Dale,
why it is that you want more people like that to come to our church?
Won't it effect our reputation in the community?" Many people
resist the development of recovery ministries because of concerns that
the presence of 'people like that' will adversely effect the way
people in the community perceive the congregation. One person put it
to me like this: "To build a healthy congregation we need to find
healthy families, not sick ones."
Now, let's be clear about one thing: this is not, in principle at
least, a difficult issue. About this, Jesus was clear. "If you
are well," he said "you have no need for a physician".
Jesus never envisioned that his followers would create a community
filled with presumptively 'well' people who would be anxious about the
inclusion of people who might spoil the community's reputation for
being 'well'. This kind of resistance to recovery ministry would, to
Jesus at least, have seemed quite bizarre. This is not graduate level
Christian theology we're talking about here - not some esoteric point
of debatable interpretation. This is your basic, back-to-the-Bible,
Christianity 101 kind of issue. If the question "why would we
want more alcoholics to come to our church?" is a difficult
question, then we need to get back to the Bible and to reconnect with
Jesus. Jesus' passion was for 'people like that'. It was 'people like
that' that he invited into the center of his fellowship. He knew that
the future of the fellowship he established would rest on the
one-day-at-a-time faithfulness of 'people like that'.
Now, just because the theological issues are fairly clear in this
case, does not mean that resistance of this kind is easy to hear. Even
when we can get the theological issues clear in our heads, our guts
may still be hearing something like this: "God doesn't want you
here." That's what I hear, at least. I hear that God is hesitant,
at best, to have me in his house. So, the real question is this: Can
God be trusted to want me? Do I belong? Am I wanted? That's the stuff
that gets hooked when we experience this kind of resistance to
recovery ministry.
Our part, then, is to work on our 'hooks.' I need to take full
ownership of my 'hooks' and my 'triggers.' The point is that the
emotional intensity of my response to this kind of resistance has a
context. This is not the first time that I have been afraid that an
important and powerful person in my life is hesitant to spend time
with me. This is not the first time that I have been tempted to
conclude that I am not wanted.
I can, however, use the occasion created by this resistance to
recovery as an opportunity to grow in my recovery. I can face again
the truth about me - I am not yet secure emotionally in the reality
that I am wanted by God. And I can, once again, grieve over the
circumstances which led to this fear of rejection. And, I can, once
again, approach God, even with all of my fears, and ask the obvious
question: "Do you want me?. And I can be surprised, again, when I
find that God is not like the people who are hesitant to spend time
with me. On the contrary, I can find, again and again, until
eventually I start to take it in, that God is delighted to pay
attention to me. I can come to know a little better the God who
Zephaniah said "will take great delight in you, he will quiet you
with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing".
Recovery is great but irrelevant
It is, thankfully, becoming less common but I still occasionally talk
to a pastor or congregational leader who says something like this:
"I think recovery ministry is wonderful. I'm delighted that the
Christian community is beginning to work in this area. And, if we had
anyone in our congregation with these kinds of problems, I'm sure we
would want to have a recovery ministry." This kind of resistance
to recovery ministry is also fairly simple to understand. It's just
plain, old-fashioned denial. It's wrapped up a bit in supportive
language, but basically it's the same thing which most people whose
lives are dominated by an addictive process will say: "We don't
have a problem". It should not be a surprising form of
resistance, I suppose. Most all of us have been there. "I don't
have a problem" is familiar territory for all of us. As a result,
this kind of resistance is not usually difficult to identify for what
it is.
But, even though it is not particularly complicated conceptually,
resistance of this kind can hook a lot of pain in us. We may be able
to figure this out in our heads but sometimes our guts will hear
"God would prefer for you to pretend." In terms of it's
emotional dynamics, the real issue is: can God be trusted with the
truth about me? Or: wouldn't God be able to get more done if I would
just suck it up, put on my cheerful face and start counting my
blessings? That's, at least for me, what gets triggered when I
encounter this kind of resistance to recovery ministry.
The opportunity for recovery in this for me, then, is to take another
look at what gets triggered by "we don't have any problems like
that." What I 'hear' is this: "Good Christians - like the
folks in our congregation - have managed to avoid problems like this
by being good." And I also hear: "If you had been good, you
wouldn't need help either." Again, my job is to work on my
"triggers." I am predisposed to 'hear' certain things. My
'radar' for this kind of stuff is turned up all the way. If I accept
these triggers, grieve over the losses which created them and move on,
then 'getting hooked' can be a temporary stage in the process of my
recovery. But if I pretend that the problem is entirely external to
me, then I run the risk of projecting my unconscious anxiety back onto
other people - run the risk, in brief, of trying to change the things
over which I have no control and ignoring the things over which I do
have some control.
My job is to work on my stuff. If resistance to recovery comes in
Christian language but it's just plain, old denial, I can still use
the occasion to reinvest in my recovery. I need to come back to the
basics. God calls me out of pretense into honesty - away from denial
of need and into confession. It is truth that frees me to seek the
help, healing and forgiveness I need. I think I will always probably
struggle with whether or not God will accept me if I tell the truth -
but I don't have to crash and burn every time this gets hooked. I can
identify what's going on, ask the obvious question (Can God be trusted
with the truth?) and one-day-at-a-time seek to grow more deeply in my
capacity to trust God.
There's a lot more that could be said about Christian resistance to
recovery. I have chosen not to focus primarily on the theological
issues - which are real enough - but on the emotional dynamics of
responding to resistance. Recognizing how I get triggered and using
resistance as an occassion to work on my own recovery is only one of
the elements of dealing in a healthy way with resistance. My hopes are
that this will help you to continue your recovery even when you meet
with resistance. My prayer is that in the process you will be
empowered to sink your roots deeply in the soil of God's love.
Go to Dale
Ryan's Articles in STEPS Magazine.
NOTE: Reproduction in any form
without the express written permission of the author is prohibited.
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