So I got a little less than four hours of sleep. I can function on that. I'm tired, and will likely remain so, but I can function. I know myself well enough to know that being able to function is a far cry from being at my best. I was a functioning alcoholic and addict for years, pretty much right up to the point they put the cuffs on my wrists. I can function fine, maybe even hide the severity of the lack of sleep from most, but I also know that the more tired I am, the grumpier I am, the more easily irritated, the quicker to anger. It is also a state when I more easily slip into self, blowing off what I need to do in exchange for the easy, comfortable and pleasurable allure of laziness. When I'm exhausted it's far more easy to sit and read, watch TV shows or the game(s) than to look at the list of what needs to be done and get to work. It's easy to slip into morbid and bitter reflection and what might have beens and wish it were sos.
I could go on, but I think I made the point that I am a little more vulnerable in this state. Most people are, which is why you hear things like HALT; avoid being hungry, angry, lonely and tired, especially during early recovery. Today I am not worried about drinking and drugging. I just realize that if I do not watch my spiritual compass, I can easily get off course, take my will back and fail to do what God desires for me today, or simply fail to love God and others like Jesus. When I am tired and run into people, they are far more likely to see a jerk than Jesus, if I get focused on myself rather than on God.
Now, I am not a big proponent of HALT as a means to stay clean and sober. In fact, I have ranted about it on more than one occasion. I have been very hungry, extremely angry, lost in loneliness and exhausted beyond ability to think straight, all at the same time, and stayed sober. And I have had a full belly, been happy as can be, in whatever state you would call not being lonely (told you I can function but not at peak performance levels, and that includes ability to write, unfortunately), and rested and relapsed during the early days on the road to recovery. Avoiding the states in HALT will not get you sober, nor keep you that way. That takes relationship with and surrender to God. And finding yourself in them doesn't necessarily mean you should be on red alert, or that you are seconds away from relapse, or that the obsession that has been lifted is about to return.
But that said, each of these states has one thing in common, they make it far easy to get lost in self and take our focus off of conscious awareness of the presence of Daddy and our relationship with Him. They make us vulnerable to self pity and selfishness. They make it easier to put what we are feeling and our instinctual reactions above our submission and obedience to the will of God. And that is a dangerous place to be. I'm not talking about relapse. If the obsession has already been removed, then it's unlikely that getting a little selfish for a day or a lot selfish for an hour or two will lead to relapse. The thought of a drink or a drug, or engaging in whatever your addiction or bondage is, at that point might actually help you realize where you're at, kind of like rumble strips on the side of the highway to alert drivers who begin to drift from the road. But we are called to love God and love others, to die to or get out of self and be of maximum service, to stay free of the bondage of self in order to demonstrate the love, power and way of life of the God we love and serve. We can't do that while slipping into self, not even for a short while. We get off course.
I'm not necessarily even talking about anything big. It's a lot like the difference between a good sense of direction or general idea of where things, including you, are, a magnetic compass and a gyrocompass. There are places in South Nacogdoches County that I can't get lost in. Not because I know every back road in the area, but because I know if I keep taking roads and turns that head west, I will eventually hit Hwy 59. I may twist, turn and take a long time, but I can find my way out. I may have little to no idea of where on 59 I'll turn up and have to take new bearings when I hit the highway, but I can get there, eventually.
If I am hiking in the woods and trying to get back to where I parked or camped, a magnetic compass is far more efficient and safe than my general sense of I need to go that way. Even being a few degrees off course, over a distance can lead us far from where we need to be, especially when trying to reach a spot rather than a line that runs for hundreds of miles. But if you need to be precise, and or are going to be going a long way without landmarks, like for instance an ocean voyage, a gyrocompass is the safest and best bet.
The problem with a magnetic compass is it is effected by things around it. If there is something nearby that has a magnetic charge, the needle can be effected and the compass will read wrong. If you are not aware of the problem, your trusty compass will lead you astray. But a gyrocompass is not effected by outward forces other than the one thing it uses for direction. It is sensitive only to the earth's rotation on its axis and deducts true north from that. You can go thousands of miles and stay on course.
Running on our own strength is like using our sense of direction. We might can go in the general direction of kind and helpful, getting twisted around and sidetracked, and eventually exit the day having been half way decent or more good than not. Or we could get lost in self and waste a day being a jerk who has wreckage to clean up and amends to make upon review of the evening. Remembering what we've learned and the spiritual principles that led to life, is like using a magnetic compass. Most days that'll get you where you need to go, but beware those things that will pull the needle of your soul off Him and towards self. The spiritual lessons of yesterday can be effected by the stresses, externals and pull of self today. Being hungry, angry, lonely, tired, or maybe even something else, like sick or in pain or...your magnet may vary can effect our compass if we're running on the compass of spiritual knowledge, what we know and have learned. Not that knowledge is bad. Like I said before, most days that will get you where you need to go, but when you can't think straight, mental understanding is compromised and unreliable.
But when we use our spiritual gyrocompass, concentrating on our spiritual relationship today, letting a heart that loves God and surrenders to Him now, at this moment, no matter how we feel or what's going on, keep us under the direction of the Spirit that guides us in life and in truth, instead of a mind-based spirituality, we can stay on course no matter how crazy our thoughts may get, no matter how unable to think straight we may become, and no matter how hard the day gets because of our circumstances. Our hearts are fixed on Him and our place in the rotation of everything with Him as the center, and our course stays true. We should be using that spiritual gyrocompass every day, but we can be honest about times of smooth sailing when we just kind of glance up at the North Star and go. That's OK. But when storms come or our minds become effected by whatever our magnets are, then we need to get serious about the source of our direction and reactions for the day, for the minute. Being off a degree or two may not lead us to the bar or the dope house or wherever your area of bondage is, right away, but it will make us miss that small spot of loving like Jesus pretty quickly. And, if we don't get our course corrected, as time and distance from where we began to get off course increases, even a half degree will take us far from the true north of relationship with Him, and we will end up in old or new dungeons of darkness.
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