I am my own higher power (and that’s a problem)

Step 2: We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

We live in a society that is very certain about Jesus. 

We know all kinds of things about him. We know who he would vote for. We know what kinds of things he would care about if he lived and walked among us today. We know what he would be willing to go to battle over. We know what he would condemn. We know what he would support. 

And, miraculously, they’re the exact same things as me!

Isn’t that how it works? The Jesus I envision cares about what I care about. He’s angry about what I’m angry about. He shows compassion where I show compassion (or where I’d like to). He would “hang out” with the kind of people I hang out with. 

To borrow a phrase from the British, what a bloody coincidence that we’ve all gotten all these things exactly right!

But- well- hang on a minute here. I know some people whose vision of Jesus is quite a bit different than my own. So, who is right?

Me, of course!

Alright, alright, enough horsing around. You know I’m being cheeky. But I’m being cheeky about a very real problem: How do we decide what kind of Jesus to follow? The very stodgy religious Christians among us will say: How dare you ask that question!? There is only one Jesus, you hippie!

Of course there is only one- but there is a lot of disagreement among us about what that Jesus looks like, what he values, and what kinds of things he’d have to say to us if he were to come down and join us tomorrow. 

I don’t think this is an easy problem to solve because I personally don’t believe the answer is even remotely close to, “Everyone gets it a little bit right.” They most certainly do not- some people get Jesus very, very wrong. John Piper believes that God destroyed New Orleans because some gay people happen to live there. In my opinion, Piper is just blinded by his own prejudice and then ascribing his prejudice to God. Pretty convenient! And wrong. And not even close. (Scary thought for the John Pipers of the world here, but, gay people live all over the place and there are plenty of places that haven’t been destroyed by hurricanes. So…I’m going to need someone to do the math for me on that one.)

Regardless of my own personal bias against John Piper- this example tells us all something important about ourselves. We see the Jesus we go looking for. We assume God has the same biases we do and- if we’re really not careful- we assume that our biases exist because we’re being faithful people. What I mean is- John Piper believes that his views on the LGBT+ community came from God and that by having those views, he is practicing godliness. 

Alright- I have a different set of biases and so his bother me. Guilty as charged. But my point is: we all do this in some form or fashion. We follow a Jesus or God that makes us feel comfortable with who we are and with our choices and with our stances and so on and so on. 

We have beliefs, for whatever reason, and then we find reasons why God agrees with those beliefs and why those beliefs are the correct ones to have. When we do this- we make God a puppet. God exists to take on our cares and concerns, not the other way around. We are not shaped by God into his image, we are shaping God into our image. 

If you’re wondering what this has to do with step 2 here goes: people are not particularly good at living as if God truly is a power greater than ourselves. God, all too often, is a mere reflection of ourselves rather than the creator of all that is- the very being that has the capacity to transform us into someone new and different (I’m looking ahead to step 3 here a little bit). 

When God has our views and our values and nothing but our views and our values then God is not a power greater than ourselves. God is a power lesser than ourselves because He is merely taking on our image. He has no image of His own to give us even if we were interested in receiving it (and all too often we are not). 

In the context of recovery, Step 2 is about hope. It’s about the process of coming to believe that there is something out there that can transform our problems and ourselves. For us at Northstar, that is the God of the Bible. 

In order for this to be hopeful though, God has to truly be a power greater than ourselves. 

None of these problems are new for us humans. 

35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Mark 5:35-41, CEB

Even the disciples didn’t quite recognize Jesus for who he was and they didn’t quite know what they were dealing with. Now, we always laugh when we rehash these stories about the disciples…but they had a legitimate excuse! There hadn’t been a Jesus before. They couldn’t read the New Testament in order to compare their teacher to Jesus. They were figuring out who he was as they went. 

This story is often told as if it’s about fear. Don’t be afraid like the disciples were! God is going to calm the winds of the storms of your life and solve all your problems!

That isn’t what this story is about, thank God. Because we know that that isn’t true. Our lives always have problems. And, of course, we believe God works in and through them and even resolves some of them. But to say that we should just never have fear because God can calm the wind…no…that’s not really what we’re dealing with here.

What we are dealing with is the disciples’ process of coming to believe in a power greater than themselves. They couldn’t see it at first. And that’s fair enough. They had to witness Jesus up close and personal for a while to come to grips with who he was, what he was capable of, and what this all meant both for themselves but also, ultimately, for all people who have ever walked this planet. 

The reason I bring this up in this conversation is this: Even the disciples didn’t always recognize God’s power and they didn’t always do things just like he asked. 

And so, here’s my point, if you can call it that. It is okay that we do not always see Jesus accurately. It is okay to make mistakes in terms of how we talk about him and how we view him. It is even okay to get a little confused about whether we have God’s biases or if God has ours. 

This is all okay because coming to believe is a process that unfolds over time. As we learn we grow and we adapt and we allow ourselves to change and we allow our views to change. 

That is, so long as we recognize that there is a power greater than ourselves.