Band-Aids Don’t Work | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Band-Aids Don’t Work | Previous Challenge Entry
By Art Fahy
01/10/24
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When I began my journey in Alcoholics Anonymous, I thought it was only about not drinking. I learned it was a disease and it ran deep into my soul. I had a spiritual melody. It was a deficiency in not having a relationship with God.

It is suggested in Alcoholics Anonymous to have a good chance of recovery from this fatal disease a few steps are necessary. There are twelve steps in the program. The fourth is taking a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. In other words, an inventory of my life.

It took me a while to do the fourth step. There were wrongs I wanted to leave out, but I was told in AA that if I left anything out that could cause me to go out drinking again. At the very least, it would hold me back on my growth. One could not put a patch over hidden wrongs that he has done. Eventually, the patch would break, and the wrongs would seep out and cause harm.

Searching deep inside no matter how scary it was I was going into an area I didn’t want to explore. I knew to be transformed. I had to get rid of the old. If I kept these defects under wraps subconsciously, they would push to the surface. Patching over something sooner or later, the patch will break away, and these defects will come up. I listed the wrongs that I did to others and myself and what caused me to do these wrongs. They were character defects that drove me to commit these wrongs. Defects like fear and anger. Just saying I’m sorry with no intention of changing was only putting a patch over the wrong.

The other is the fifth step where I would sit down with another human being, and admit to God, and this person the exact nature of my wrongs. I heard throughout the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous how intimidating this can be. I feared what would this person think of me and what I did and how I lived? God already knew about all the wrongs I did, so what could another human being do to me? But in reality, this is a cleansing and a step toward evolving into a new person. This step wasn’t as bad as I thought because down deep inside of me, I knew that I was moving closer to God. I wasn’t just patching up my life but stripping away the wrongs and transforming into a new person.

In Ezekiel 36 the Lord says He will give us a new heart and put a new Spirit in us. He will take that old heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. I was continuing my journey to a new freedom. A life led by the Holy Spirit. David, wrote in Psalm 51, “Create in me a new heart, Oh Lord.” God doesn’t want that old heart that is covered with sin. David knew to transform his life he needed a new heart. Only God is capable of giving us a new heart.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul wrote, “therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone the new is here now.” A new heart is a fresh beginning. By accepting Jesus, we can never be what we were before because God’s Spirit indwells us. We are no longer living for ourselves but for God, that is where the
spiritual malady ends. Today I attempt to the best of my ability to follow God’s will. When one of my character defects pops its head up, I asked myself what is my relationship with God at this moment? When I figure that out, I am able to get back on the right track and seek His will. I fall but I don’t stay down.

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