Recovery Christian Center Daily Meditation - 4/4/12 - Step 6 - Identifying Our Defects

"The Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry about this?” Then Jonah went out to the east side of the city and made a shelter to sit under as he waited to see what would happen to the city. And the Lord God arranged for a leafy plant to grow there, and soon it spread its broad leaves over Jonah’s head, shading him from the sun. This eased his discomfort, and Jonah was very grateful for the plant. But God also arranged for a worm! The next morning at dawn the worm ate through the stem of the plant so that it withered away. And as the sun grew hot, God arranged for a scorching east wind to blow on Jonah. The sun beat down on his head until he grew faint and wished to die. “Death is certainly better than living like this!” he exclaimed. Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?” “Yes,” Jonah retorted, “even angry enough to die!” Then the Lord said, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. It came quickly and died quickly. But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?" Jonah 4:4-11

Step 6: We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

The purpose of this step is to use the information in the previous step to identify our defects of character and then humbly take them before God. Even as saved folk progressing in our recovery we will still find defects. None of us are perfect and unless we open up and let God in our defects will eventually prevent us from deepening our relationship with Christ. The shame and guilt from acting our on a defect that we know isn't pleasing to God may interfere with our prayer life or have us in denial about the behavior in the first place.

We see from the text that Jonah had two glaring defects: a lack of compassion and a spirit of unforgiveness. It is interesting how even though God forgave Jonah for his disobedience, Jonah was so quick to want to see the city of Nineveh punished. Sometimes this same spirit happens to us in recovery as well. We forget where we came from and when we see someone else struggling we treat them with a total lack of compassion forgetting how God was compassionate with us. This spirit happens when we stop going to God with our defects and struggles and try to live as if we are somehow perfect and no longer sin. We now are caught up in a new defect called self righteousness.

Rather than be caught up it is easier to approach God honestly and humbly acknowledging our defects and asking Him to remove them. Until He does we need to remain in that humble and honest state because with all our flaws we can not afford to condemn others. Even after God removes all the defects we're aware of we still can't afford to judge because if we are honest with ourselves we will see that underneath all the ones God removed are some new ones we are unaware of. This is a never ending step, we must constantly seek God to make us better servants of Him by removing everything that will impede us from serving Him.