Crayons For Jesus


A Room Full of Alcoholics Print E-mail
By Rebeckah Reader   
The room smelled of freshly brewed coffee. There were four large tables set in rows with chairs surrounding each. At first only an older gentleman sat in the corner. Above him hung the infamous 12 steps. It was my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

Though I myself am not an alcoholic, I agreed to accompany a friend of mine.  I never expected to be able to identify with an alcoholic, nor did I expect to learn anything from a room full of alcoholics, but that is exactly what happened that night.

The room began to fill with individuals of various sexes, ages, social and economic backgrounds. Within a few moments the discussion on the common weakness these people shared began.

As I preoccupied myself by making a mental to-do list, a middle-aged man began to speak. Something about his composure and tone of voice compelled me to abandon my to-do list and to truly listen to what he was saying.

“Why do you give up everything for this one thing? Why not give up this one thing so that you can have everything?”

I realized after he said that, that the common ground among this people while it was indeed alcohol was more than that, it was sin. It was a common ground I shared with this man and with this room full of alcoholics. It is a common ground that all of us as humans share.

Isn’t it true that the one thing we cannot seem to give up- despite everything offered us by God – is sin. We have a compulsion, an addiction to sin. Regardless form or type, regardless name of vice, the fact still remains that we are all sinners.

Several other alcoholics repeated the sentiment. They have a sin that has had a hold of them. It has compelled them to give up everything: family, home, career, and self. It has had such a hold of their lives that their thoughts have become surrounded around and their actions are driven by this one thing.

What is the specific thing that has a similar hold on your life?

Regardless of what the specifics of that one sin, the truth remains that sin itself is that one thing. It grabs a hold of us, many times by invitation, until it consumes our every thought, our every desire, and our every action. It is a cycle that alienates us from our friends, our family, ourselves, and more alarming, it alienates us from our God.

If it were not for this one thing, we would have everything. We would still be in the garden and we would have everything.

Instead of paradise being our common ground, sin is. But Christ came so that we might share a newer, freer common ground. That common ground is grace.

We reach that common ground through Christ’s love. And through Christ’s love we share everything: freedom, joy, love, peace, abundant, and more importantly, eternal life.

Each week because of those meetings, alcoholics are able to step away from that old life. Though they will always be alcoholics, they are able to add the adjective “recovering”.

By Christ’s grace and salvation we are able to step away each day from each meeting we have at the cross. By him, we are able to truly declare ourselves “recovering” sinners.  We are then able to live by his spirit as he transforms us from sinners to saints.

Alcoholics receive coins for each milestone they reach. Saints receive a crown of glory and an eternity of everything for a spending a lifetime allowing Christ to direct them into recovery.

Won’t you join me in recovery today so that you might join me in eternity? More importantly, won’t you allow Christ today to lead you to recovery so that he might lead you into eternity?

…Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 6:2