Little by Little, Step by Step

By Richard Cobb

“The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you.”

Deuteronomy 7:22 (NIV)

For those of us in need of sustained recovery, we come to Celebrate Recovery because we have been participating in unhealthy habits or hang-ups or because we are dealing with hurts in unhealthy ways. Through the benefits of Celebrate Recovery, we discover that recovery comes as we walk a step-by-step process. Our healing and sustained recovery does not come as an all-at-once experience. Celebrate Recovery is specifically designed to guide us through the 12 Steps and the 8 Principles. The recovery process requires an investment over a substantial period of time. We receive the help necessary to retrain our hearts and readjust our lives at a safe, reliable, and sustainable pace through our investment and participation in the step-by-step method.

This method mirrors how God assisted the Israelites in Deuteronomy 7:22, shown above. While God most definitely had the power to defeat all obstacles from their path at once, he purposefully instructed them to advance their victory little-by-little. Why? Because the spaces conquered needed to be filled with new things so that the old could not creep back in. The same can be said about our recovery journeys. There will be open spaces created as we eliminate or distance ourselves from hurts, hang-ups, and habits. Therefore, we need to make the best use of those newly cleared spaces by filling them with God’s grace, healing, wisdom, retraining, and hope.

If we try to do too much too soon, we may miss the key lessons that God desires to teach us. Or, we may think that we got this and move on too quickly. This process works best when we take it little by little and step by step. We need to wait on necessary healing and walk at a pace where God’s pivotal work can fill those newly opened spaces. Celebrate Recovery helps us reposition our hearts within the care, control, and guidance of God’s mercy, grace, and healing.

If we seek to step out of each space too quickly, we may miss vital lessons, or we may move before God is ready for us to advance further. Little by little, step by step, we need to bring our hurts, hang-ups, and habits to him so that he can fill the empty spaces with healthier habits, mended hurts, and distances from unsafe hang-ups. This pace gives us our best chance at keeping the wild animals at bay and allowing the now-open spaces to be used as God intends for them to be used… as the foundation for our new level of living in sustained recovery.

Prayer:

Lord, please help us take each step at a pace that gives us our best chance at recovery. Let us do little by little, step by step, so that we may experience your healing more fully. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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If you would like to learn how to start your own Celebrate Recovery ministry, to contact your Celebrate Recovery Rep, please visit: https://crgroups.info/. To get involved in an already existing Celebrate Recovery ministry near you, please visit: https://locator.crgroups.info/.