CheshireDragon said:
I was told by my baptist in-laws that god will one day harden my heart(if I keep rejecting him) and I will not be able to get saved after that....IF this is true, I have been forcefully rejecting him for about a year and a half by: being a jerk to every religous person I know, slamming my door in the faces of any one who asks, "have you found Jesus?" or whatever god they are pitching and even going to the church with my in-laws and causing problems between other members. I have already suceeded in making one of the deacons leave. YET, I still think about the whole "god and jesus" bit from time to time and everytime I do it makes me angry. I just want to stop thinking about it and I can't. Its like that math whiz thinking about that unsolvable problem. I am sure I will know the day that my heart is hardened, but how can I speed up that day? Then I can simply get on with my life. Of course, the troubling thing is, that if I don't believe in any of it anyway, I will never stop thinking about it because its all in my head...or is it?
Either way any help is appreciated.
No human can speak for God, but here is an old post on "Justified Anger" when you feel like hardening your own heart.
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On page 90 of the AA's 12 and 12 the writers mention how the addict cannot afford 'justifiable anger' and it should be left to those better qualified to handle it. With reference to this statement -- it is gospel - there is no argument here. We can always settle such disputes by looking deeply into the person, place, thing or emotion in question and ask if it helps or hurts our recovery program? Does having anger and hatred in our hearts ever increase our peace or does it diminish it? Even if we are justified, so called, in having this emotion does it magically become a peace generator in our life with this newfound license to hate? Or is it still a peace buster whether we have an excuse to be angry or not? The path is clear about which direction to take and all that remains is the release of the anger through compassion of others, inventory work and a conscious contact with God / HP instead of the conscious effort at harboring anger and hatred. Developing insight into the other persons suffering as my Buddhist practice recommends also helps me with releasing anger as well as praying for the individual as the 12 step programs tells us to do.
Tired of being angry? Just relinquish control and anger will be diminished. Anger and control go hand in hand. Some people get confused with this anger question and beat themselves for still experiencing this emotion thinking they should be a 'perfectly recovered individual' and above such lowly emotions as getting angry. Such people are ego based on not recovery based. (If you missed my earlier post on "Ego vs Truth Based Recovery" and want a copy write me.) Such ego based practitioners think they can perfect their lives and wipe out natural law with one blow called the 12 steps. Due to the diversity of thought humans are capable of, we have all sorts of thoughts and emotions that pop up in our heads. Without this ability, we could not think as we do. But, just because thoughts or emotions pop up in our heads, the choice is ours alone whether we foster and build on any particular thought or emotion. Do not feel guilty over the thought. Triggers are all around us - it takes US to pull the trigger. We pull the trigger by chewing on such emotions and they acidify us and then comes the inevitable blow up. If you wish to feel guilty over anything, then feel guilty over your nurturing of the anger, then next time you might try to let it die a natural and peaceful death.
Recovery does not eliminate such thoughts, it just helps us decide what we do with them. Anger is also part of our natural make up. Anger is an emotions that can serve us when we need to summon it up in a life or death situation such as self defense or when our species had to hunt big game for a living - hunt with spears, clubs and rocks. Even if we are dealing with life or death self defense and must generate anger, the byproducts is still a disruption of our peace as we recover from the circumstance as a shaking and rattled mess. Anger is also an important emotion for self preservation in less dangerous circumstances than big game hunts. For without feeling anger or discontent we wound not seek out change - as in changing our environment that might be an unhealthy one for us. So, we should never regret feeling anger, but just as anger and excretion are two naturally occurring parts of being a human, we should let them serve us instead of we being enslaved to them.
But, I am here to remind you that besides justified anger, there are HUNDREDS of other things that the addict cannot afford in their life. (If you missed my earlier post "How I apply a life of Voluntary Simplicity to my 12 Step Work" and want a copy write me.) Sure, we can all white knuckle it and just scrape by with recovery, ready to slip off at a moments notice if we want to put our excesses of desires before the program. But, learning 'what fits and what does not fit' comfortably in our life is the ongoing battle we all have to undertake if we ever want peace. In short, we have to ask if our recovery program can 'afford' the many things we come into daily contact with and the measure of our success will be determined by how well we live within our comfortable means. The 12 and 12 also raises another important question in this paragraph-that of justification or excuses when it discusses anger. The balance of this post will discuss both of these topics of affordability and justification or excuses as they relate to all areas recovery and not just anger.
Before I could find lasting and peaceful recovery I had to learn to refuse many areas of my old life that did not serve me any longer. This is how I coined the phrase, "You are not recovering until your start refusing...refusing the old sick ways that got you here." The 3 paths that addiction can take are these: the addiction can be increased, it can be decreased or can be frozen. These 3 paths shows us which direction we are headed in with our recovery at any given moment. Clarity about affordability comes from a continual orientation of putting our programs wants first and our personal wants or desires second and by asking the question of how any person, place, thing or activity will affect my recovery program? Once the addict has this affordability mindset in place they can direct their thoughts towards the cultivation of recovery, so that whatever action they are engaged in - it is always evaluated from this perspective and they can find great success from applying this single minded dedication to change. Suddenly they find their recovery practice and life can become as one and asking such questions becomes second nature for them.
But again, this is the textbook or idealistic way of looking at this affordability question, we need practical application in the real world. Many of us have families and jobs and to be a total renunciate of all things disruptive to our peace and our recovery program is not always possible or desirable when looking at the big picture. I often hear excuses from other addicts saying they can't stop this or that because of their family, jobs or other obligations, so we need to balance these two extremes of being a total renunciate with the other extreme of being paralyzed and not changing a thing because of excuses and justification. We have to work towards a balance if we want peace and just like exercise, we always seem to find reasons for not doing what we know is right.
The way I work it is to be aware of what is disruptive to my peace and to change it if possible as a first choice or work on accepting it as the serenity prayer says as a second choice. I try to stay away from justification or looking for excuses to continue on the wrong path. I either change things or work on accepting them. If we base our decisions of proven principles of recovery it helps takes us out of the decision making process and rests our recovery on solid foundation instead of excuses. I don't beat myself for not being able to perform well in every given circumstance under the sun. I know that I do not mesh well with everything and everybody in life and I have certain limits and abilities. To do otherwise would say that we have the right to be perfect and violate our make up and that we have no limits or boundaries to govern us and are godlike. The 12 step programs reminds us to work within our limits by 'staying right size' on pages 122-125, so it tells me right there I am not immune to all things destructive just because I work the 12 steps.
In SCA they have a tool called abstention. They abstain the best way they can from people places or things they have found to be detrimental to their recovery program efforts from past experience with them. My recovery success is based a lot on abstaining from people, places and things that do not mesh well with me and if I cannot avoid them, then I work to make the unavoidable fit better by changing things on my end. Yes, we cannot change others, but we do usually have control of ourselves and how we participate in dealing with others. Even though we cannot completely change or wipe our many problem areas in our life we can usually change 'some' aspects of most problems to make them more bearable. If no change can come about from my footwork, then acceptance is the answer to finding peace. So, I am always looking for any small changes to make in the right direction and this recovery orientation towards the direction of change helps by giving hope of possible larger future change as well. After I have exhausted any change that I can do, acceptance will take care of the loose ends I am powerless over.
Take Care,
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V (Male)
For access to my earlier posts on voluntary simplicity, compulsive spending, debting, compulsive overeating and clutter write: vfr44@aol.com.
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