Image via WikipediaObjective•To explore Steps Ten through Twelve in order to understand the role of reflection, prayer, and witnessing in living an addiction-free lifestyle.
•To reflect on how well we are doing in following the Twelve Steps.
•To discuss a passage from Philippians in which Paul models for us what the Christian life is all about.
Consider
Step Ten:
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Step Eleven:
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
Step Twelve:
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and practice these principles in all our affairs.
Steps Ten through Twelve describe how to live a life that is free from addiction. If Steps One through Nine describe how we can free ourselves from the power of an addiction, then Steps Ten through Twelve tell us how to maintain an addiction-free lifestyle. The activities identified in these final three steps are not strange. They are familiar New Testament practices. Step Ten calls us to daily reflection and repentance. Step Eleven urges us to daily prayer and meditation. And Step Twelve calls us to share with others the story of our spiritual awakening, its impact on our addiction (witnessing), and to continue to live our lives on the basis of the Twelve Step principles.
Reflection
Step Ten describes the kind of ongoing vigilance we are called upon to display as Christians. It has been said that the unexamined life is not worth living (Socrates). And indeed, as followers of Jesus, we are called upon to pay attention to how we live. We know that our natural, unaided tendency is toward selfishness and self-destructive behavior. This is just what being a human being is all about. The aim of daily reflection is to prevent ourselves from being caught by these negative patterns.
At the heart of the reflection process is the inventory. Making an inventory is a familiar practice by now. We did this in Steps Four and Eight. There are various ways to undertake Step Ten inventories:
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