by Dr. Bill
Very often after individuals have graduated from the six or twelve month period at Transformation Life they have a relapse from mild to serious. What happened? Frequently they have returned to the place they had left and reconnected with friends and or family that supported their former ways. It is not long before they begin their former habits. The trigger may be another trial or tribulation in their life. Graduates walk out feeling good and have great hopes and intentions. Still they fall!
The source of this often reoccurring or growing issue is “the disconnect;” not being properly or deeply connected first to God and then to their family and friends. This often leads to desires for power and control as well as other dysfunctional behaviors. The intention is to protect our ego or false god. The desire is to protect or wall off the silent and invisible suffering, pain, and emptiness that is experienced deep within our souls.
It prevents people from being present in the here and now. It truncates maturity. The disconnect keeps one focused only on oneself and how we can use others for one’s benefit. We need to be connected to God and others and ourselves. It is clear in the Great Commandment.
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 22:37-40)
Without going down another path let us acknowledge that there are appropriate and functional connections as well as inappropriate and dysfunctional connections. This is true also of appropriate and functional disconnections.
There is a time to be connected for healthy life and disconnected from an unhealthy life. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) When I am strongly connected to God, my family and my neighbors, my light is on! (Matt. 5:13) The healthy spiritual path with the help of the Holy Spirit leads us upward towards God, outward towards others and inward towards our selves.
It will seem counter-intuitive however; the path towards God actually begins downward into our darkness or the hard soil of the parables. The challenge and test is that we have to surrender and follow the Holy Spirit’s lead into the unknown. With the help of the Holy Spirit we can then bring out darkness up into the light for healing and wholeness. This requires a confession and repentance on our part. We acknowledge the truth that our God already knows.
Struggles and suffering are always within us from the personal to the global conflicts. We cannot eliminate them or fix them. We can only come to terms with these things and accept them as part of our life. It is about “being” not “doing.” People quit while pursuing God and righteousness because of the pride that has inflated their swollen egos. People fail because they have become crippled by their internal dark side and have not dealt with it. It comes back with a vengeance, as evidenced in in Matthew 12: 43-45.
When the resident graduates, the unclean spirit has gone out of him, the demon goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. The graduate feels fine and has good intentions and high hopes. The demon does not like it and returns with seven more demons that are more wicked than he. All of a sudden a trial or suffering comes and the graduate now falls because he was not as strong as he believed.
2 Peter 2:20-22 says, “For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”
The graduate had access to the true teachings, but their life demonstrated that they ultimately had chosen to reject Christ. They would not listen, their hearts were hardened. Many were only putting in their time to avoid a less preferable circumstance.
The lesson for TLC is that we need to make clear that failure is still a real possibility after they leave because of pride and not being truly submitted to Christ with the power of the Holy Spirit. Merely spending time under sober conditions does not spell success for life. The value of humility needs stronger promotion with the men. We are at the same time saints and sinners, not merely a sinner or a saint. The dependence upon the drug of choice has to be replaced with a stronger dependence upon God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We cannot go it alone on our journey. Every day the choice has to be made to follow God or follow the empty promises of the world.