Recovery Thought of the Day - May 28th

Good Morning CR Family,

Please see the Recovery Thought of the Day below from Perry C!

Closed versus an Open System

The Dead Sea is a landlocked Salt Lake between Israel and Jordan. It is the lowest elevation and the lowest body of water on the surface of earth. It is named the Dead Sea because the high content of salt prevents fish and plant forms from living in it.  The Jordan river flows into the Dead Sea but there is no outlet, making it a closed system.  In order for any system to be alive and healthy it must be an open system where there is room for things to come in and things to leave. There is a flow and rhythm of activity in all open systems.

This is true in our recovery as well. In fact the Scriptures reveal a bias towards action not stagnation.  James, the brother of Jesus said 1:22-25, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.  Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.  But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.”

This is what makes Celebrate Recovery work.  CR is an open system and teaches us how to become open systems as well.  We receive from others further along on the journey and learn how to participate in our recovery but that isn’t enough.  We become active in our recovery, making amends, offering forgiveness and once we experience freedom from our hurts, hang-ups and habits we must get involved in helping others and giving back.  If we don’t we become like the Dead Sea, a closed system and the changes made will not last and our recovery will not survive.  Because nothing lives for long in a closed system.

Step 12 requires that once we have had a spiritual experience as a result of taking the 12 steps, “we are to carry that message to others and practice those principles in all our affairs.”  We do this by giving our time and energy to others as we are able.  It is through serving that we demonstrate our gratitude and true recovery.  And it is by giving back that we remain a life giving and open sustaining system.

Announcements:

1. If you are in need of prayer, please send your prayer requests to CelebrateRecoveryatCrossroads@gmail.com and we will forward those on to our celebrate recovery prayer team. The Crossroads Church Prayer team would also love to pray for you, so when you send your E-mail, please note if you are okay with us forwarding your prayer request to the church.
2. Fridays at 6:30pm, We are hosting "CR Friday Night Live."   To subscribe to our youtube channel  please click on the following link and select the subscribe button.  CR Youtube Channel Link .  There will be a song or two of worship and then a short recovery based dialog between a couple of CR members.  This will be streamed on youtube. 
3. Fridays we will be hosting on-line open share group meetings at 7:30pm.  There will be one mixed issues group for men and one mixed issues group for women. Men's Open Share Group Sign-Up Link / Women's Open Share Group Sign-Up Link.  These meetings will take place using the Zoom App.  In order to participate you will need a tablet, smart-phone or computer with camera.  In order to ensure confidentiality of these meetings everyone who participates will need to find a private room to set up, have their camera on, so others can see that there is no one else in the room and they will also need to wear a pair of headphones so that they are the only ones that can hear.  This is a free app and you can download it on google play, apple app store or through your web-browser on your computer. For help on how to join a Zoom meeting please click on the the following link, which will take you to their support web-site Zoom Set-Up Help

Blessings,
James U.