Most Americans have either never heard of him or know all about him.  He sort of designed it that way.

Bill was a up-and-coming stock trader in the 1920′s and was doing pretty well for himself.  He was a risk taker and the life of the party.  Over the years however he found that it took more and more alcohol to really enjoy himself, and before long, he was drinking just to “feel normal” again.  As the 1929 stock market crashed, he took to drinking heavily, and soon his entire life revolved around the bottle.  He scared his wife Lois and regularly promised sobriety only to let her down time and again.

He was ‘powerless’ in the face of his own addiction.

He was brought to the very bottom when his wife finally came to her senses and checked him into a ‘sanitarium’ – a kind of hospital and mental institution for substance abusers and the insane.  He was tied to his bed as he wallowed in his own shame.  This, from a man who was topping the charts on Wall Street only a few years earlier.  He better than any of knew the vicious poison…and luring potion of alcohol.

He found God in that sanitarium.  From that moment on he began to give himself over to a “Higher Power” – the same way he formerly gave himself over to alcohol.  His wife and friends were at first skeptical, then overjoyed!  But he was not out of the woods yet.  His temptations were still there.  He believed that part of his life now was to share the path to sobriety with other drunks – that somehow he needed to keep telling the story of his own redemption in order to hold on to the sobriety he sought out every day – one day at a time.

Bill’s returned to work – and on one occasion he was sent to Cincinnati, OH.  Far from his routines in New York City, he found himself tempted more than ever to finding the nearest lounge and no doubt falling off the wagon once again. In a last ditch effort he went out in search of a drunk who might listen to his tale.  He comes across Bob S., drunk and depressed as Bill had been in that sanitarium.

One movie script of their encounter has Bill sitting down with a skeptical Bob, Bob going on and on about how Bill was wasting his time trying to convince Bob to stop drinking.  ”Doctors, shrinks…they’ve all gave me their best, but nothing stuck,” Bob grunted to Bill, “What makes you think you can do anything for me?”  Bill leaned forward with a drunk’s desperation in his eyes and responded,

“I’m not here to do anything for you, I’m here for me.”

Thus began Alcoholics Anonymous.

Sharing the story of salvation from alcohol is the key to keeping your own sobriety.  “To keep it, you have to share it.”  It’s like breathing – if you want to keep your breath, you have to share it – breathing in and keeping it will only kill you!  You have to let it go to get it again.

 This is how it works on Wikipedia as well, if you want to set the record straight on the wingspan of a flying squirrel, you add your tidbit of knowledge to the flying squirrel Wiki page.  But simultaneously, you share it with the rest of the world.

It’s like our own salvation.  It’s like the mission of the church.  We are simultaneously “re-presenting” the Gospel to ourselves when we share it with others.  And when a church or a Christian fails to share the Gospel with others, they fail to experience it themselves, and they become more of a problem to the world than a beautiful response to the problems of the world!

So keep the sobriety of your salvation.  Follow the advice of Bill W., who understood more than most how desperately he needed to give it away, day after day…

To keep it, SHARE IT!

What goes into your mouth is important, but Jesus says that what comes out of your mouth is even more important.  In fact, the words you speak, not your diet, are what make you healthy.  Just look:

“What goes into a man’s mouth does not make him ‘unclean,’ but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him ‘unclean.’” — (Mt. 15:11)

What is the FIRST thing OUT of your mouth each morning?  Can you even remember?

Think about it for just a minute.  Each and every night you close your mouth, and you live in silence for many hours.  In all the rush and noise of this world, you make it a daily habit to spend close to a 1/3 of each day in utter darkness and silence.  Kinda beautiful, eh?

But what breaks that “fasting” from words?  How do you greet the new day?  Is it with blessing or cursing?

Why not start this new year with a resolution to have a “Breakfast of Words” – give yourself a simple phrase or sentence to greet each new day.

I had noticed that my days were starting off on the wrong foot – and I came to believe it was the mindset in which I was approaching my days – if the first things that roll through my mind or off my tongue are, “Shoot – I’ve forgot to call that guy yesterday,” or “I feel groggy and awful,” imagine how the rest of my days went!  I had enough - I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.

Since then, I’ve been doing a little “holy experiment” trying it out, and I’ve lived to tell the tale.  And I’ve got to say – its GREAT!

Each morning, I’ll say this as my eggs are cooking:

“Glory to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit – as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, AMEN.”

I don’t know about you but if you say that, even if you begin without “feeling like it” – by the end, you just might have a slight smile on your face.  You remember that no matter how you might feel, or what might be going on in your life, a regular diet of these words (or something like them) will change your day.  And if you can change your day, you can change your week, month, year…even your life.

Its the simple things like this that make the biggest difference.  New Years Resolutions don’t have to be BIG – they just have to be consistent.  

Take a daily “Breakfast of Words” – start your day’s dialogue in a place of joy, centering, and purpose.  And see what happens!

This is a great time of year to take the “slow-cuts” over the “short-cuts” on our ways to work, errands, etc — the leaves are changing, the final climax of 2011′s symphony is upon us!

In our day, there’s little respect given to the longer, sometimes meandering, but always intentional paths that lead us to our destination.  We’ve devised GPS systems and shot things into space in hopes of finding the quickest, most fuel-efficient way from A to B.  The least amount of time and energy from where I am to where I want to be.  That’s the generally accepted path.  But Jesus had another route he took…

Matthew 12:1-21 is an amazing fulfillment of the entire Old Testament – it reminds me of a mountain climber after several days of hard work, finally reaching the summit.  Or an engaged couple after months of waiting, finally hearing wedding bells.  In Jesus’ day, Jews and Gentiles alike were awaiting a traditional form of kingship – uprising, rebellion, and more – but Jesus instead quotes Isaiah 42; and remind us that the King Isaiah anticipated was different – “he will not fight or shout” –

The route to power through force and might has been tried, time and time again.  Its the quickest and easiest route to power in our world.  It works too!  Revenge, abuse, murder, cheating… they are all names for the same boulivard in the human heart – the highway that leads to “what I want.”  Trouble is, we end up in the ditch.

The way Jesus points to through his life (and specifically in Matthew 12) describes a new way.  Not another short-cut or get rich-quick-scheme; his is the only way not to trample over the weak and the outcast in your establishment of power.  Some people think that power is inherently bad - I disagree.  Power is like currency – it is amoral, it is the wielder of that power that invests himself into that power and through that power he becomes more of who he already is.  If you are a jerk, then with power, you will be an even BIGGER JERK!

But Jesus saw that his power was displayed through weakness, through healing the poor on the Sabbath, through dying on the Cross, and being raised by the Power of God.

— Jesus, I believe that you will eventually see the final victory – “Finally his cause for justice will be victorious.” I wait for that day – when we don’t have to take the compromised shortcuts in life, but all of us will be on the pathway you showed us – to the relational Kingdom of God.

I choose today to participate in that “slow-cut” toward freedom.

I want to find a way to cut out all my power grabs, personally, and in society. Help me Father to learn what areas of my life need a “lower-archy” introduced, so that I do not “crush the weakest reed, or put out a flickering candle…” You spoke out of a confidence of who you are as a Messiah. Let me be just as confident in my practices.