Blog for November 6th, 2023
If not now, when?
I have come across this question, or maybe- statement, a couple of times this week. When Mary asked her twelve-year-old son, Jesus why he was preaching in the synagogue, because He was so young. He replied, “if not now, when?”
Fast forward about twenty years: when Mary asked her son, Jesus, to help her friends with the wine at a wedding feast. Because it was a total embarrassment for them to run out of wine about halfway through the event, she asked her son to help.
His reply to her was that it was not yet His time. But she looks Him in the eye and says, “If not now, when?” Just like He said to her when was twelve. So, He helped her friends out and turned water to wine.
That is part of the premise of my topic today. I have also talked to a few people this week who say that they are not quite ready for recovery or to go to “those meetings”. I say, “If not now, when?” I’ve also talked to some people who are thinking about starting back to school, or who want to move, marry, divorce, change jobs but are not quite ready, I understand that. But the bottom line is, “if not now, when?”
One of my big things is diet, eating healthier, cleaning out that dreaded closet and finishing my book. I also have a project I’ve been working on for years, I call it the “picture project”. I say, well, once I finish this thing, I’ll do that thing. Uh huh, sure. So, I must ask myself, “if not now, when?”
Then there’s the whole bucket list thing, I only have one more hard, long, expensive trip to save up for, to brace for, Scottland. I’ve done a lot of things on my bucket list, I’m proud and happy about that. Then there’s other little things, the aforementioned book, the house, and things I need and want to do around my house. And of course the time I want to spend with my family and friends.
We all have a list, a wish list that is probably just in our heads. Stuff we’ll do when we get around to it. One time someone gave me a wooden type coin, about the size of a fifty cent piece and written on it in a circular fashion was “A Round To It”. Lol, it’s probably around here somewhere! So, there it is, I don’t have any excuses, I do indeed have a “Round to it”.
Besides that wooden coin, I’ve also found that Willingness was huge in the getting around to it problem. I pray for willingness pretty much every single day. It works most of the time when I pray for it. I also ask for focus, energy and guidance.
Thinking back to the days before I got clean, I remember often saying to myself, “I’m going to stop doing drugs”, as I was snorting up a big ol line, then, once I had done the line I finished my sentence with “one of these days”. It’s always “one of these days, isn’t it?”
Finally, I guess I was hurting so bad that I heard the inner voice, God or someone telling me the time was now. If not now, when? When I’m in a mental institution and they throw away the key? When I wreck my car and hurt or kill innocent people, maybe my own children? When the man that God had sent to me and has been loving me unconditionally is gone? When I O.D. and die? If not now, when?
I guess I finally “HEARD” that voice, that call, that pull to recovery. I was so afraid to quit the one thing that I thought was holding me together. My best friend and constant companion, the drug. But a little tiny bit of sanity seeped in, or what we call it, “a moment of clarity”, “a spiritual awakening”. At that moment I thought, “maybe it’s drugs”? OK, like duh! I wasn’t too swift in my addiction, but I finally picked up on, “if not now, when?”
And so I did, I surrendered, threw in the towel, gave it up, and became a quitter, turned to my Higher Power and people who were staying clean and could tell me how. And they did. I’m still hanging with those people to this day, over thirty-eight and a half years now.
I am so grateful that I finally listened and responded to the call. If not now, when?
Question of the When? What are you putting off?
