Day 9
Here are the next 3 verses to pray over for 20 minutes:
Daniel 1:8 ESV But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself.
Ecclesiastes 10:17 ESV Happy are you, O land, when your king is the son of the nobility, and your princes feast at the proper time, for strength, and not for drunkenness!
Proverbs 23:31-32 ESV Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.
Why do all of these daily steps? When we are quitting with a short-term goal like, “30 days,” we may be able to motivate ourselves with simple goals like avoiding destruction as well as other things. But, if we want to quit for good we need to have goals that really have teeth. Goals like having joy and purpose. I linked these two goals together because they go together. Biblical Paul had fullness of joy (10 out of 10) in large part because he had fullness of purpose.
This is challenging because finding purpose is sometimes tough. But the good news is that step one to finding purpose is making a commitment to finding purpose. Step two to finding purpose is to go to war with sins that are keeping us from finding our purpose. Therefore, when we go to war with drinking/drugs along with a commitment to purpose we will start to see glimpses of this joy as we start to progress.
Then we focus on these glimpses of joy and ask ourselves: Would fullness of joy be even greater?
Years ago I would read about Biblical joy and I rarely experienced any of it. Now that I am going to war against sin and seeking purpose, I have a lot of joy. My life is way better now.
Consider setting (and praying about) a goal of joy and purpose. It is a huge key to quitting.
Finally, complete all the daily steps listed on day one.
