Hmmmm . . . it appears that Bruce and I need to start thinking about setting aside a Saturday to clean out the garage, again! At least once a year we look at each other and say “it’s time” — time to tackle the wall-to-wall chaos of the garage. Without fail, we look around and wonder how it ever got so bad. It was spotless after we cleaned it out last year. But here we are facing endless piles of “stuff,” once again.
The mess usually develops slowly, one little piece at a time. We acquire a couple of cardboard of boxes we don’t know what to do with, so we put them in the garage. Then, we repaint the porch and never quite get the painting supplies put away. A building project leaves a pile of wood scraps and sawdust behind. We’re too tired to run to Goodwill after we clean out the bedroom closet, so a couple of boxes of rummage are added to the growing mess. Bit by bit a lot of little things begin to accumulate.
It’s the same thing that happens in recovery. It’s rare when it’s just one big event that takes us from “doing good” to relapsing. More often that not, it is a decline by degrees—a series of small things that move us farther and farther from where we want to be. It begins when we start forgetting our priorities.
The scenario generally goes something like this (does it sound familiar?):
- It’s been an extra busy week, so we decide we don’t have time to call our accountability partner. We promise ourselves we’ll do it tomorrow.
- But . . . the next day we’re even busier, so there’s no time for a call then either.
- By the weekend we’ve been burning the candle at both ends for days, and we’re just too tired to get up for church. We feel a twinge of guilt, but rationalize that we deserve to sleep in after a week like the one we’ve had.
- We start skipping meals and drinking more coffee, trying to find more time to get caught up, but instead of catching up, things start feeling more and more like they’re spinning out of control.
- We convince ourselves that we can handle our growing stress level without telling anyone and in doing so, start keep secrets from those who care about us.
The next thing we know, voila!, we’re surprised to find ourselves back acting out again. How disappointing. We’d been doing so good. How in the world did we get back here again? It’s that dangerous decline by degrees. It’s so important that we learn to pay attention to those tiny baby steps that, left unchallenged, will lead us straight back to old thinking and behaviors.
“But they did not listen or pay attention; instead they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward.” — Jeremiah 7:24 (NIV)
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