Don Cobb
The Miracle: Time to review...
By Don Cobb
If you've been tracking with me, and are actively following along, you'll have accomplished a foundation through which your life and your very personality and behavior have already begun to change for the better. I've introduced and pointed to several foundational principles required in order to facilitate a profound change in one's personality, starting with Honesty and Humility and a humble admission that I am not all that I could be, that I may have a problem or problems which stand in the way of my usefulness to my family, community or even my own life. Open-mindedness immediately comes into play as we acknowledge that we don't have the answers to our problems nor the ability to change ourselves in any real and significant or long-lasting way, and so we open our minds to the fact that our Creator most definitely has the power and ability to both create and change us. That should have begun a regimen of daily prayer, required to establish and initiate a deeper relationship with God, enabling us to connect with Him, to confess and plead and request from Him His intervention in our lives. Eventually, He grants us the ability to see Him working around us and in us. It is Spiritual principles and God's power which have the ability to change and restore lives in a permanent way. Man hasn't the power or ability to do so, save attack therapy, and left to their own devices, individuals affected by attack therapy will always return to their old ways unless such destructive, negative therapy continues.
The recovering community learned back in the 1930's that God's directions found in the Bible, when explicitly followed, bring the insane back to sanity, the broken-hearted experience miraculous and joyful healing, relationships previously destroyed magically begin to mend and be restored, and lives formerly on the rocks are rebuilt on a Spiritual foundation of solid Rock. Bill W. and Dr. Bob, the founders of A.A., were not prophets, therapists, magicians or wizards, but were chronic alcoholics who were driven to their knees where they found their loving Creator waiting, and His Word. Devastated by the wreckage of their past as their addiction destroyed their lives, their careers and their family and community relationships, those two men became open-minded enough to try what the Oxford Group was actively teaching at the time — a 6 Step program of recovery based on Biblical principles that was working for many.
The obsession of the mind which results in both genius and insanity drove Bill and Bob to take the Oxford Group's methods seriously, and to another level. Bill, after learning to practice the OG's 6 Steps initially, broke down a little further what he found primarily in the book of James, 1 Corinthians and in the Beatitudes (the Sermon on the Mount), and 6 Steps became 12 Steps. These men worked with the sickest of the sick, the chronic alcoholics of the day, the hopeless, insane out-of-control low-bottom drunks that society and families had all given up hope on. They were the scourge of society, homeless, drunk and impossible to reach or help. Psychiatrists and physicians failed to help them, despite their best efforts. Only through an honest relationship with our loving Creator were the insane restored to sanity, whose lives were mended and where devastation was replaced with prosperity.
Your problems, whether financial, strained interpersonal relationships, a failing marriage, drugs/sexual/obsessive behavior issues, depression, loneliness, career issues, etc. can all be changed, resolved, healed, restored and your lives launched into a newfound joy and freedom you've never experienced before. Consider the last toothless, dirty, homeless, belligerent drunk you saw downtown or anywhere. Think about how unmanageable and mental they must be in order to be living the life they're living right now. Are your problems greater than theirs? Probably not, but their problems are all solved through this process I call "The Miracle." Upside down lives are turned right side up. People who've spent years in isolation are suddenly involved with helping others, with new and exciting relationships with people who love them and care about them and who help them without conditions.
Your problems, whatever they might be, are probably relatively minor compared to the last drunk you saw on a street corner or downtown in your city. America's problems, as well, are likely not as deep-rooted or serious as the man or woman who has lost everything and everyone and who accepts homelessness and drunkenness as a way of life. And yet, these drunks are being restored to sanity. Their relationships miraculously restored, their lives given new breath, with doors opened and opportunities previously unimaginable, the least, the last and the lost are finding freedom and victory from their life's troubles through this process called "The Miracle."
If their lives can be fixed, so can any problem, personal or relational, that you might have. Those who experience the profound changes that The Miracle facilitates all start the process in the same way I've described for you already. The honest and humble admission that they need help and that they don't have the answers to their problems yet is but a beginning. That a Creator that they probably have never really known loves them more than they'll ever really understand, and that He can pick them up, dust them off, clean them up, and teach them a way of living that results in joy and freedom and success and love. Your problems, be it broken relationships, loneliness, anger, depression — fill in the blank — will also be resolved, healed, changed, restored, mended and eliminated through this same process, provided you're willing to be all in. As the truth is revealed through this process, as light is shed on the dark areas of our lives, and as God is invited in and given everything we've got, life is restored.
It's not my way, and it's not yours. It is the way laid out clearly in the book of James, and in 1 Corinthians, and in the Beatitudes. It is His way, taken seriously and put into action, and it never fails to bless the person who decides to give it 100% effort. Simply put, it's just Christian living, although there are millions on the planet who aren't Christian who have adopted His way of life and have found freedom from selfishness and addiction and apathy and opinions. The Miracle, however, is more than that. It is a process which restores folks to right living, to right relationships with themselves, with others and with God. It is an amazing process that changes darkness to light, wrong to right, evil to good and weakness to power.
We've already embraced honesty, humility, open-mindedness, confession, faith, and trust in this series so far. Those who have been tracking with me are well on your way to the kind of profound change that will resolve your given issues or problems which used to seem insurmountable. We're about to embrace one of the most powerful life tools you've ever experienced in the next few columns, and these are the essence of what changes a person from lost to found, from confused to crystal clear, from dysfunctional lives to functional lives, from despair to joy and contentment. It's the way that our Creator laid out for us, but which we likely never took seriously, and it's free. All that it requires of you to experience this is your complete commitment to walk it all the way out.
America can be restored to her former greatness. You can become an integral part of that transformation. Your lives can become beyond your wildest dreams, and you can be the person that you always wanted people to think you were. We can do this.
("The Miracle" is an ongoing series of articles by Don Cobb regarding the process through which an individual and/or a group of individuals or even a nation get and stay right-side up. Addiction, sexual, life, social or relationship issues, regardless how deep or serious, are all resolved through this miraculous transformation.)
© Don Cobb
July 12, 2009
If you've been tracking with me, and are actively following along, you'll have accomplished a foundation through which your life and your very personality and behavior have already begun to change for the better. I've introduced and pointed to several foundational principles required in order to facilitate a profound change in one's personality, starting with Honesty and Humility and a humble admission that I am not all that I could be, that I may have a problem or problems which stand in the way of my usefulness to my family, community or even my own life. Open-mindedness immediately comes into play as we acknowledge that we don't have the answers to our problems nor the ability to change ourselves in any real and significant or long-lasting way, and so we open our minds to the fact that our Creator most definitely has the power and ability to both create and change us. That should have begun a regimen of daily prayer, required to establish and initiate a deeper relationship with God, enabling us to connect with Him, to confess and plead and request from Him His intervention in our lives. Eventually, He grants us the ability to see Him working around us and in us. It is Spiritual principles and God's power which have the ability to change and restore lives in a permanent way. Man hasn't the power or ability to do so, save attack therapy, and left to their own devices, individuals affected by attack therapy will always return to their old ways unless such destructive, negative therapy continues.
The recovering community learned back in the 1930's that God's directions found in the Bible, when explicitly followed, bring the insane back to sanity, the broken-hearted experience miraculous and joyful healing, relationships previously destroyed magically begin to mend and be restored, and lives formerly on the rocks are rebuilt on a Spiritual foundation of solid Rock. Bill W. and Dr. Bob, the founders of A.A., were not prophets, therapists, magicians or wizards, but were chronic alcoholics who were driven to their knees where they found their loving Creator waiting, and His Word. Devastated by the wreckage of their past as their addiction destroyed their lives, their careers and their family and community relationships, those two men became open-minded enough to try what the Oxford Group was actively teaching at the time — a 6 Step program of recovery based on Biblical principles that was working for many.
The obsession of the mind which results in both genius and insanity drove Bill and Bob to take the Oxford Group's methods seriously, and to another level. Bill, after learning to practice the OG's 6 Steps initially, broke down a little further what he found primarily in the book of James, 1 Corinthians and in the Beatitudes (the Sermon on the Mount), and 6 Steps became 12 Steps. These men worked with the sickest of the sick, the chronic alcoholics of the day, the hopeless, insane out-of-control low-bottom drunks that society and families had all given up hope on. They were the scourge of society, homeless, drunk and impossible to reach or help. Psychiatrists and physicians failed to help them, despite their best efforts. Only through an honest relationship with our loving Creator were the insane restored to sanity, whose lives were mended and where devastation was replaced with prosperity.
Your problems, whether financial, strained interpersonal relationships, a failing marriage, drugs/sexual/obsessive behavior issues, depression, loneliness, career issues, etc. can all be changed, resolved, healed, restored and your lives launched into a newfound joy and freedom you've never experienced before. Consider the last toothless, dirty, homeless, belligerent drunk you saw downtown or anywhere. Think about how unmanageable and mental they must be in order to be living the life they're living right now. Are your problems greater than theirs? Probably not, but their problems are all solved through this process I call "The Miracle." Upside down lives are turned right side up. People who've spent years in isolation are suddenly involved with helping others, with new and exciting relationships with people who love them and care about them and who help them without conditions.
Your problems, whatever they might be, are probably relatively minor compared to the last drunk you saw on a street corner or downtown in your city. America's problems, as well, are likely not as deep-rooted or serious as the man or woman who has lost everything and everyone and who accepts homelessness and drunkenness as a way of life. And yet, these drunks are being restored to sanity. Their relationships miraculously restored, their lives given new breath, with doors opened and opportunities previously unimaginable, the least, the last and the lost are finding freedom and victory from their life's troubles through this process called "The Miracle."
If their lives can be fixed, so can any problem, personal or relational, that you might have. Those who experience the profound changes that The Miracle facilitates all start the process in the same way I've described for you already. The honest and humble admission that they need help and that they don't have the answers to their problems yet is but a beginning. That a Creator that they probably have never really known loves them more than they'll ever really understand, and that He can pick them up, dust them off, clean them up, and teach them a way of living that results in joy and freedom and success and love. Your problems, be it broken relationships, loneliness, anger, depression — fill in the blank — will also be resolved, healed, changed, restored, mended and eliminated through this same process, provided you're willing to be all in. As the truth is revealed through this process, as light is shed on the dark areas of our lives, and as God is invited in and given everything we've got, life is restored.
It's not my way, and it's not yours. It is the way laid out clearly in the book of James, and in 1 Corinthians, and in the Beatitudes. It is His way, taken seriously and put into action, and it never fails to bless the person who decides to give it 100% effort. Simply put, it's just Christian living, although there are millions on the planet who aren't Christian who have adopted His way of life and have found freedom from selfishness and addiction and apathy and opinions. The Miracle, however, is more than that. It is a process which restores folks to right living, to right relationships with themselves, with others and with God. It is an amazing process that changes darkness to light, wrong to right, evil to good and weakness to power.
We've already embraced honesty, humility, open-mindedness, confession, faith, and trust in this series so far. Those who have been tracking with me are well on your way to the kind of profound change that will resolve your given issues or problems which used to seem insurmountable. We're about to embrace one of the most powerful life tools you've ever experienced in the next few columns, and these are the essence of what changes a person from lost to found, from confused to crystal clear, from dysfunctional lives to functional lives, from despair to joy and contentment. It's the way that our Creator laid out for us, but which we likely never took seriously, and it's free. All that it requires of you to experience this is your complete commitment to walk it all the way out.
America can be restored to her former greatness. You can become an integral part of that transformation. Your lives can become beyond your wildest dreams, and you can be the person that you always wanted people to think you were. We can do this.
("The Miracle" is an ongoing series of articles by Don Cobb regarding the process through which an individual and/or a group of individuals or even a nation get and stay right-side up. Addiction, sexual, life, social or relationship issues, regardless how deep or serious, are all resolved through this miraculous transformation.)
© Don Cobb
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