Who Do You Want To Become?

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” — Proverbs 29:18 KJV

I’ve heard that verse quoted most of my life. While the context of the verse is bigger than simply having a vision for our lives, I think there is something here that applies powerfully to recovery.

I have talked with many people in recovery whose entire vision is to stop.

Stop drinking. Stop using drugs. Stop looking at pornography. Stop acting out sexually. Stop gambling.

And certainly, stopping matters. Abstinence matters. You cannot continue engaging in the behavior that is destroying your life and call that recovery.

But then what?

Sometimes I ask people what they want their life to look like if their addiction is no longer controlling them. Who do they want to become?

Often, they don’t know.

They know what they are trying to get away from, but they have never really thought about where they are trying to go.

Others have a vision, but their vision is tied almost entirely to circumstances.

I want to save my marriage.

I want to keep my job.

I want to stay out of jail.

I understand every one of those desires. I genuinely pray that marriages are restored. I hope people don’t lose their jobs. I certainly hope no one has to experience incarceration.

But consequences are real.

Sometimes the marriage doesn’t survive.

Sometimes the job is lost.

Sometimes jail or prison becomes part of the consequences of our choices.

If those things are our entire vision for recovery, what happens when we lose them?

If my reason for recovery is saving my marriage and my spouse decides to leave anyway, do I still have a reason to recover?

If I’m doing the work to keep my job and I get fired anyway, what happens next?

If I believe recovery or faith should keep me out of prison and the judge sends me there, does that mean recovery failed? Does it mean God failed?

I think our vision has to be bigger than our circumstances.

Years ago, prison became part of my story.

I didn’t want to go to prison. I didn’t enjoy prison. I never want to go back.

I also continue to live with consequences from my crime all these years later. Financially, I have never gotten back to where I was before my arrest. There are consequences that will probably remain with me for the rest of my life.

And yet, my life today is so much better.

That may sound contradictory, but it isn’t.

Recovery didn’t give me my old life back.

It gave me the opportunity to build a different life.

There is an old expression in recovery called “the gift of desperation.” For me, prison became part of that gift.

I want to be careful saying that. I’m not calling prison good. I’m not suggesting everyone needs to lose everything before they will change. I hope you don’t.

But looking back from all these years on the other side, I can honestly say prison was probably exactly what I needed to finally turn my life around.

Sometimes desperation finally brings us to the place where we realize, “I cannot keep living this way.”

But eventually even that needs to grow.

“I can’t keep doing this” needs to become, “Who do I want to become?”

That’s where vision comes in.

There’s something interesting about people who become lost in the wilderness. Without a reliable point of reference, people can believe they are walking in a straight line while they actually wander in circles.

I think we can do the same thing in recovery.

We can be incredibly busy. We can attend meetings, read books, listen to podcasts, work with coaches or therapists and count days of abstinence. All of those things can be valuable.

But where are we going?

If my entire vision is “don’t use,” I know what I’m walking away from, but I still don’t necessarily know what I’m walking toward.

Vision gives us direction.

And I think the most important vision isn’t simply, “What do I want my life to look like?”

It’s:

Who do I want to become, regardless of what my life looks like?

I want to become honest.

I want to become trustworthy.

I want to become compassionate.

I want to become someone who can experience difficult feelings without needing to escape them.

I want to become someone who takes responsibility when I hurt others.

I want to become someone who can receive love and give love.

I want to become more like the person God created me to be.

That vision can survive changing circumstances.

I can become a better man if my marriage survives, and I can continue becoming a better man if it doesn’t.

I can grow while employed, and I can grow after losing a job.

I can grow while experiencing freedom, and I can grow behind prison walls.

My circumstances matter, but they do not get to determine who I become.

Unfortunately, I think we sometimes communicate something different in the church.

Come to Jesus and everything will work out.

Your marriage will be restored. Your problems will disappear. God will protect you from the consequences.

But that isn’t the gospel.

God’s forgiveness does not necessarily eliminate earthly consequences.

Grace doesn’t mean consequences disappear.

Grace means our consequences don’t have to be wasted.

Some of the greatest growth in our lives can happen in circumstances we would never have chosen.

Loss can teach us.

Grief can deepen us.

Consequences can humble us.

Failure can expose things in us that success allowed us to hide.

But none of those things automatically make us better. Prison doesn’t automatically make someone a better person. Divorce doesn’t automatically create wisdom. Losing a job doesn’t automatically produce humility.

We still have to decide what we are going to do with what has happened.

Will I become bitter?

Will I blame everyone else?

Will I retreat into shame?

Will I return to the addiction that helped create so much destruction in the first place?

Or will I ask:

What is this revealing about me?

What do I need to grieve?

What responsibility belongs to me?

What can I learn?

And most importantly:

Who do I want to become from here?

I hope your marriage survives.

I hope you keep your job.

I hope you never spend a night behind bars.

I hope restoration happens in places you thought were beyond repair.

But your vision for recovery has to be bigger than any of those things.

Because we don’t always get to choose the consequences.

We don’t always get to choose what other people decide.

We don’t always get to choose what we lose.

But even in circumstances we never wanted, we can continue moving toward the person we want to become.

Maybe that’s one of the greatest gifts of vision in recovery.

You may not get to choose what you lose, but you still have a choice about who you become.