Slips. Backsliding. Falling off the wagon. Whatever you call them, it happens to all of us.
So what do we do when we find we’ve ebbed away from full recovery?
We prayerfully acknowledge that we’ve slipped. It’s hard to do, but do it we must.
And prayerfully is the operative and absolutely essential word here.
We must acknowledge our weakness to the Lord and ask for His help as we seek to understand our times of slipping and ebbing. Why? So that we may be delivered from the immediate efforts of the Liar to convince us that our slip occurred because we are a bad person. You can be absolutely certain that he will do just that.
If we will take our slip to Heavenly Father and to the Savior in prayerful counsel, we will come to know the truth of what happened. We may learn why we slipped and we will be guided to further spiritual fortification against future slips.
But most importantly, we will be reassured once again that we are beloved by our Father and Savior. Despite our weaknesses, we are not so bad or so inherently evil that we are unlovable. Being mortal, we are at a very immature stage of eternal growth. Maybe we could think of it as being toddlers or, at best, adolescents compared to their full maturity in Godliness. By prayerfully confessing our shortcomings and asking for help, we will be reminded once again that Christ is the one who our Father in Heaven has endowed with all power to help us establish maintain a state of deliverance (abstinence from acting out.)
~Colleen H.
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