Causes and Conditions

Our decision to turn our will in our lives over to Christ is a vital and crucial step. However, sometimes it can have little permanent effect unless it is at once followed by a strenuous effort to face and be rid of the things within us that have been blocking us from the sunlight of the spirit. Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.

It was apparent to us that the world and its people were often quite wrong. To conclude that others are wrong was about as far as most of us ever got. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed angry.

We had to realize that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. We did not like their symptoms and the way they disturbed us. However, they like ourselves were sick too. We ask God to help us show them tolerance, pity, and patience.

We resolutely look for our own mistakes. Where have we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, or frightened? Though the situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other person’s.