“A Christ-centered approach to recovery and coordinating small group meetings”
Step Eleven
“Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with the Lord, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
This is a program of daily surrender. We take one day at a time. We can’t live in the past for it is gone and the future is not here yet. We only have this present day to live. The Lord gives us a daily reprieve from a life of self-propelled destruction as we yield to Him.
The first part of this is prayer and meditation to establish and improve our connection with the Lord. Jesus taught His disciples to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It was meant to be a daily provision and a daily prayer. Clearly here the Lord wants us to approach Him on a daily basis to request Him to supply our need for the day.
God wants us to meet with Him in the morning and walk with Him during the whole day. Can we imagine going on a trip and not gathering the needed food and other supplies in advance? That’s what we do when we start our day without getting plugged into God, who is our supply. We don’t get very far before we run out of energy and get in trouble.
Prayer is speaking our needs and praises to God. Meditation is listening to Him in the event that He might have a specific word of direction for us this day. He may want to impress a thought on our mind that we will miss if we don’t set aside a moment to listen to Him.
Another part of the Lord’s prayer that powerfully speaks to this step is, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.” This step doesn’t let us get around the fact that God has a plan for our lives. We know that our own plans didn’t get us anything but trouble.
The Lord suggests that we pray that His will be done. This is a big hint that if we know what is best for us, we will give Him permission to carry out His program for our lives this day. This is not to say that God is waiting for us to step out of line a little so He can drop a brick on our heads. It is more of a plea for us not to harm ourselves by doing things on our own.
“Then He said to them all; “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)
Dying to self means that we come to the end of our selves and to the end of carrying out our own plan and in our own power. This says that if we are going to be a follower of Jesus and live the spiritual life, we have to surrender on a daily basis. We have to give up self being in control and allow Jesus total control, if we expect the Lord to manifest His plan for our lives.
Taking up our cross is to carry out God’s plan for our lives. What an encouragement to know that God has an individual plan for us. It is evidence of His love toward us that he cared enough to provide a plan. Because God is not confused, His plan matches us perfectly. Because God loves us, his plan will not harm us. His plan is meaningful and for our best welfare.
“For I know the plans I have for you.” declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11)
God wants us to be in fellowship with Him on a daily basis and all day long. He wants to be with us in all that we do. We need only to be willing to receive this precious gift.