I was talking with a friend the other day who is deeply engaged with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) – a good thing if you’re a recovering alcoholic! My friend said he couldn’t understand fellow alcoholics taking issue with AA policies and the Big Book.

Why would you mess with something that saved your life? – A recovering alcoholic

I’m in the process of memorizing Psalm 119. It may take a while since it’s 176 verses! (It’s not quite as daunting as it sounds. It’s divided into 22 stanzas of 8 verses each, and each half (four verses) is about the length of average verses that I have memorized.) Anyway, I’m through the first six stanzas, moving into the seventh where we find this declaration:

This is my comfort in my affliction, For Your word has given me life. (Psalm 119.50, NKJV)

“Your word has given me life.” Just as AA and the Big Book saved my friend’s life, so God’s Word, and, more importantly, the God of the Word, is saving my life.

Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because

All flesh is as grass,

And all the glory of man as the flower of the grass.

The grass withers,

And its flower falls away,

But the word of the LORD endures forever.”

Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you. (1 Peter 1.22 – 25, NKJV)