Recovery Journal 20120625 - Forgetting what makes us successful.

Be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great” (D&C 64:33).


I have been reading Step 12:


I visited with my Bishop as I have been asked to become a facilitator in the ARP program.  I have been one before and served for nearly three years before my travel schedule became incompatible.  I also felt a certain amount of pride among facilitators including myself and did not want to part of that. During my relapse periods I fell away from doing the small things.  I began to set aside my scripture reading and my prayers for other things. My prioritization put these lower on the list till they were forgotten. It has made me rethink pride and what it really is. It may not be just a matter of open opposition to God, it may be a view that he is less important than the things I am doing now.


In visiting with the Bishop, and relating many things about the challenges of the previous year and my failings in maintaining my sobriety, he decided to approve me as a facilitator with an added commission, "Tell them what you have told me. That the little things mean something. Those who struggle with addictions often find a pathway out of their traps and then, after a while, stop doing what makes them successful.  This has been an error on my part that has made me question just how much do I truly believe?


If I believe, as King Benjamin preaches, in the Greatness of God and the nothingness of man, if I truly understood the desperate state of man without the Savior, I would not have to feel obligated to pray. I would feel desperate to pray. I wouldn't dare start my day without it or without reading the scriptures. Anything less would be like dumping out a barrel of water in the midst of a drought.  It is by these small things that great things come to pass.