Why do we fear it so?
Fear is 2 things - something to lose, or something we will not get
Jesus HAS NO FEAR, because he had nothing to lose
But his human life - in my moments of fear, I try to remember even Jesus wanted
to be important, or he would not have been preaching down at the temple.
Poor Mary had to hike up her long robe, scurry down there and pull him home
by the ear "Now Jesus, what did I tell you about going 'round telling the elders
what to do?? What kind of home will they think you came from? You get home
now and clean up that room of yours, you have bits of wood and adzes all over
the place. Then come have some dinner, honey; you must be terribly hungry
after all that preaching..... Did they listen to you, Jesus, did they think it was
good stuff, my son??"
In his moments of doubt and loss, he cried out "OH Father, why have you
forsaken me?"
Thus is it, this being a human We fear so much.... Loss of stature, lost of love,
death, starvation, punishment
Our every appetite turns into a fear it will not be satisfied
Now Step 4 seems to me to have this as a goal:
we identify our resentments, angers and fears
we find what part of ourselves is threatened
we search for what are we getting as a pay off
this shows us our core beliefs about ourselves
this shows us the expectations we need and want satisfied
we see the patterns of behavior we have developed in reaction to them
we see the character defects we have developed in support of those
we ask to have them removed
we become goal-directed humans
our experiences and then our expectations change
recovery becomes real
healthy self-protecting service-oriented behavior becomes second
nature