Keeping the Faith: The path to spiritual freedom can be learned in jail, through addicts

I sat observing in the 12-step circle of Recovery Church on the Hilltop, surrounded by men and women who were transparent about their past addictions and their new freedom from them in Christ.

Person after person shared stories of how they were caught in the stronghold of addiction for years, how hopeless it was and how there was no way out using their own strength.

And as the sharing came to a friend of mine, I wondered: What would he say? He’s not been addicted to drugs or alcohol, he grew up in the church and he had a good background, all of which I heard him share at his turn in the group.

Then he said, "But we all must admit that our lives are unmanageable without God and that he alone can restore us. Even those of us who haven’t been addicted to drugs."

In the 12-step program, the first step is to admit that we are powerless over our addiction and that our lives have become unmanageable. For those who have been addicted to drugs or alcohol, the effects are clearly seen in the relationships around them. The effects aren’t always present in their work; the functional addicts I have met can carry a job, but I find their family at home still suffers while they are in addiction. Addiction always destroys; somewhere, if you follow the thread, you’ll find the damage it's causing.

It’s obvious when talking to recovering addicts that they recognize that something was missing in their lives. This missing piece also stuck out so boldly to me when I started jail ministry. There I found men who were hungry for God and who in jail experienced the presence of God in return. They were men who at one time you would not want to meet on a dark street, but they have been changed.

Why? They not only admitted that their lives were unmanageable and that they believed God could restore them to sanity, but these men took the third step and were willing to make the decision to turn their will and lives over to the care of God in Jesus Christ.

In return they have joy. They are growing in their relationship with God.

It was so unexpected for me to find this power of God’s presence in the jail, in these men. To see the change and the fire in their souls is an encouragement to me.

Is my friend right? For those who are not in active addiction and not in jail, are our lives unmanageable without God?

I’ve met many religious and nonreligious people who are functional in society without God’s management of their lives. They can have good jobs, they can have success financially, they can have good marriages, raise kids, they can even achieve great status.

In fact, these people are a part of our churches. For some, going to church is a duty or a ritual they keep even as they maintain the management of their own lives. God may get them out of a bind here and there and answer their prayers — or disappoint them when he doesn’t answer them the way that they want him to — but they are in the driver’s seat.

Jesus once said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Without the recognition of our spiritual poverty, of our spiritual and moral insufficiency without God, we are like the functional addicts: We can check the major boxes, keeping a job and obeying the laws, but we are missing something. Something intangible - the most important thing – a living relationship with God.

That is why God came down to us, why he came to rescue us, because our lives are spiritually poor and unmanageable without him. And when we turn our will and lives over to the care of God in Jesus Christ, we, too, can find freedom.

This is the freedom I see in the lives of men and women who once were addicts but now are finding recovery in God. A freedom I see in the lives of men who once were prisoners, not only physically but spiritually, but now have been set spiritually free.

I find it ironic as a pastor to watch those who think they need no physician stay sick, while those who admit their sickness find more spiritual healing than those who deny their need for The Great Physician. Truly Jesus is right, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Pastor Ben Douglass is the lead pastor at Faith Community Church on the Hilltop.

Keeping the Faith is a column featuring the perspectives of a variety of faith leaders from the Columbus area.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: The path to spiritual freedom can be learned in jail, through addicts