Journey to Your Heart: Seeds of Wisdom to Companion Recovering Addicts Back to the Christian Faith

By Richard Harrison Cutrer

This book of biblical meditations will help former addicts rediscover the Christian church and all it provides.

As you read, you’ll discover how the Bible can help you accept your past and find a better future. Learn how to:

• develop an enhanced awareness of what it means to be a Christian;
• recognize and avoid false solutions to problems;
• absorb Scriptures more meaningfully through a maturing faith.

Shaking that nagging feeling that you don’t belong can seem like an insurmountable hurdle for those wanting to find their way back to the church or join it for the first time. But it does not have to be that way. One of the keys to moving forward is to embrace the fact that Jesus Christ extends His mercy to all the Christian church provides.

Filled with insights from the author’s forty-six years of continuous sobriety, let this book serve as your companion on a journey that leads to God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664257030

Richard Harrison Cutrer

Richard Harrison Cutrer teaches college English in Texas.  He holds a Bachelor of Arts in journalism, a Master of Arts in English literature, both from the University of Houston, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from Goddard College in Vermont.

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Copyright © 2022 Richard Harrison Cutrer.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author

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people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised

edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine,

Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All

Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced

in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5702-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5704-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-5703-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022902587

WestBow Press rev. date: 03/03/2022

CONTENTS

Preface: Look for Me

Coming Home: Finding the Light

Our Place in Time: The House of David

Chapter 1     The Gift of Mary Magdalene

Chapter 2     The Legacy of Saint Peter

Chapter 3     The Fishermen

Chapter 4     Heavenly Fire!

Chapter 5     The Hard Heart

Chapter 6     Cleaning the Cup

Chapter 7     Our Spirit of Truth

Chapter 8     God’s Indwelling

Chapter 9     Living Water

Chapter 10   Purity of Heart

Chapter 11   Testing the Seed

Chapter 12   Where Was God ?

Chapter 13   Gratitude and Peace

Chapter 14   Merciful Mary

Chapter 15   Charity

Chapter 16   Children of Light

Chapter 17   Faith, Hope, and Trust

Chapter 18   The Suffering Heart

Chapter 19   The Paradox of Plenty

Chapter 20   Let There Be … Salt?

Chapter 21   The Active Heart

Chapter 22   Fear as Killer

Chapter 23   The Contemplative Heart

Chapter 24   Bartimaeus, the Beggar

Chapter 25   The Good Shepherd Seeks Everyone

Chapter 26   The Eternal Banquet

Chapter 27   God Incarnate

Chapter 28   Friends of God

Chapter 29   The Nuptial God

Chapter 30   The Importance of Choice

Chapter 31   The Wisdom of God

Chapter 32   All Called to the Eternal Kingdom

Chapter 33   Joseph: Man of Action—and Trust

Chapter 34   The Parable of the Withered Fig Tree

Chapter 35   Can Anything Good Come from Nazareth?

Chapter 36   The Savior’s Other Sheep

Chapter 37   Jesus Is Passing By—Don’t Miss Him

Chapter 38   The Danger of Temporal Faith

Chapter 39   That Other World

Chapter 40   The Heart’s Long Journey

Chapter 41   The Word Became Flesh

Chapter 42   The Cornerstone: Ultimate Rejection

Chapter 43   The Kiss of Betrayal

Chapter 44   The Spirit, the Remnant, the Chosen Ones

Chapter 45   Family Life

Chapter 46   The Prodigal Parents

Chapter 47   I Am

Chapter 48   The Narrow Gate

Chapter 49   Wealth of Poverty

Chapter 50   The Cross

Chapter 51   Invisible Kingdom

Chapter 52   The Tragedy of Herod Antipas

Chapter 53   The Alien God(s)

Chapter 54   Jesus and the Tax Collectors

Chapter 55   Courage

Chapter 56   The Sheep Gate

Chapter 57   The Desert

Chapter 58   Stop Holding on to Me

Chapter 59   The Ark

Chapter 60   Afterword: Prayer and Patience

About the Author

DEDICATION: JOURNEY TO

YOUR HEART

Journey to Your Heart is dedicated with gratitude to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier; in cooperation with God the Father, Creator; and the Son, Word of God, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer. It is also dedicated to my worldwide brothers and sisters of any culture or race, who are walking a similar path as mine--in person, in memory, and in spirit--to dispel the darkness and to live in the light of Truth.

PREFACE

If You Look for Me,

You Will Find Me

In my heart I treasure your promise,

that I may not sin against you.

—Psalm 119:11

Greetings, fellow traveler. Your journey continues. You’ve spent quality time in a twelve-step program (or some other venue), but you sense a gap in your recovery, wondering whether there’s more to the higher power than you had thought. Such puzzlement impels you to search for what you might have overlooked years ago in the Christian faith. So, you’re thinking of returning home—or you already have. Yet, your spiritual dearth stonewalls you: Shaking that nagging shame that you don’t belong has proved to be an insurmountable hurdle—or almost. If so, you’re like thousands of recovering addicts who are wrestling with the same issue. I used to be one of them. Let me assure you. You do belong! Your place in the Church and God’s kingdom awaits your claim. That’s what Journey to Your Heart is about.

We’re hung with the label recovering addicts. That’s an apt epithet. But even more so, the truth is that we’re uncovering what we rejected years ago because we hadn’t the slightest notion of its reality. We were unable (or maybe unwilling) to let the Word transform our spirit into a true child of Abraham. Be not hard on yourself, fellow companion. We just picked up the book with the wrong cover. What we chose as a solution was no resolution to our darkness, humankind’s perennial stumbling block: Light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light (John 3:19). The experience of living taught us the value of right choice. As children of the Light, we embrace truth and reject false values.

What happened years ago that tricked you to reach for false solutions? Who’s to say? For whatever reasons, maybe your dry spirit wasn’t finding the answers for life’s difficulties you needed. Maybe your angst erupted during a church social about a derogatory comment someone made to you. Or maybe it was about a remark you heard in a sermon that went over your head; you declared you’d never go back. And you didn’t—until now. Or at least you’re thinking about it.

Time heals. A brightened heart and mind today have erased that renegade personality you packed around for so many years doing things your way. It didn’t work, did it? Why? Again, who’s to say? But maybe, just maybe, your return to church is from something you recall Jesus saying years ago about His flock: I came so that they may have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). And today you’re coming to claim that legacy of life you now realize has eluded you all these years. True life, not fakery.

Welcome back. You’ve come to the right place.

First, trust in God’s mercy, for God believes in you. Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t be thumbing through this book. Everything you long for will be found in your life in Christ and Christ’s life in you. Be assured! No matter what you have done—or haven’t but should have—God will nurture your soul with the seeds of salvation. These are God’s only terms: Give God your whole heart as best you can. Perfection isn’t required; honest effort is.

John, the apostle, instructs us in his First Letter, If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made us: eternal life (2:24–25). You have come to find the treasure you perhaps forfeited years ago in an unguarded and ill-advised moment. If you’re willing to stick around for a while, you can expect to come across the church’s harbor of pearls in search of your true self. I promise you, with faithful living, you will find it. What a gift! If you stay true to Jesus Christ by living in accord with His commandments, He will lift your veil of darkness and lead you into the happiness you always wanted, but didn’t know how to find. You will also find a bittersweet treasure—Jesus Christ, the real friend you rejected probably years ago. He’s the real deal.

Dissolving my veil has been my road of recovery—and still is. Each new peek seems to take a unique turn. Journey to Your Heart stockpiles passels of truth the Holy Spirit has opened to me since I returned to the church in 1981 after a five-year hiatus of working the AA program as perfectly as I could. Concurrent with this composition, I am celebrating forty-six years of continuous sobriety, and on most days, I thank God for it. As your traveling companion along life’s mysterious road, I wanted to share with you—all of you—some of what I’ve been fortunate enough to (can I say?) uncover. I hope such gifts—and some of your own as well—will not only embolden your heart, but also occasionally even sweeten your path in searching for the truth stored in your heart.

Thus far, a twelve-step program, along with the grace of God, has restored your sanity and your motivation to search for something more in life than what you’ve known. Blessings to you! And thanks to those who went before you to beat down the path of bitterness with a plan to revive your physical, emotional, and spiritual strength and to help redefine your identity. Blessings to them, too! History emerges from today’s reality and continues to live on in the face of our own silence, if nowhere else. We’d do well to pause occasionally and to reflect anew on the meaning of our reality. Each moment of reflection gives birth to enlightenment of self-truth, though we take unique roads to get there.

Today, the trove of our reality, our spiritual heart, and the wheelhouse of our being searches for wisdom deeper into the Way, into eternal life in Jesus Christ, treasurer of ultimate truth and custodian of our personal journey. Only here can we be transformed into children of light by the Light itself who says to us when we would rather stray because of despair and doubt, This is the way; walk in it (Isa. 30:21). Yes, back to reality. This time we can’t run from it.

As it was, addicts’ errant choices for seeds of joy lead only to seas of sorrow. Conversely, Journey to Your Heart offers seeds of hope. Despite ill-advised choices we all occasionally made, hope and perseverance, supervised by God’s all-powerful grace, can overcome them. A letter to the Corinthians by first-century martyr Saint Clement I is relevant even today, offering seeds of rebirth amid trial. The sower goes out and casts each [seed] onto the ground. Dry and bare, they fall into the earth and decay. Then the greatness of the Lord’s providence raises them up again from decay, and out of one many are produced and yield fruit. In this hope, then, let our hearts be bound fast to him who is faithful in his promises and just in his judgments.

It is of little concern how you got to a twelve-step program—only that you did. It also matters little how you walked back into a church of your choice, why you picked up this book, or what piqued your interest in Christianity again (or at all). But that you did does matter. Despite our current progress in Christian understanding, paramount now is the advent of a life nourished by seeds of faith that continue to unfold through praying, reflecting, reading, and trusting—and most of all, being guided by the Holy Spirit. Saint Charles Borromeo explains in one of his pastoral letters, In [God’s] infinite love for us, though we were sinners, he sent his only Son to free us from the tyranny of Satan, to summon us to heaven, to welcome us into its innermost recesses, to show us truth itself, to train us in right conduct, to plant within us the seeds of virtue, to enrich us with the treasures of his grace, and to make us children of God and heirs of eternal life.

You have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God (Heb. 12:22).

Christians believe the greatest commandment or key purpose in life is to love the lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind (Matt. 22:37). Addicts, blinding themselves to this ultimate commandment, discovered when sober that a relationship with God was what they had wanted all along, that living only by God’s commandments would they find peace and security that a chemically dependent life never provided. However, before that awareness of total self-submission came calling, it somehow got misplaced, if ever present. Eventually addicts’ lucidity of this edict in mind and heart grew to see the truth—that a life not lived in and for Jesus is worth little. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matt. 10:39). We learned to sacrifice our way to follow God’s way.

Let’s face it. We never knew Jesus Christ—that is, really knew Him—because we didn’t fully believe in the one whom [the Father] … sent (John 5:38). Our idol was the golden calf, but trial and error taught us it had no saving power. Its best offer was misery. That errant life is history now. We have someone—the One—who is true and perfect and forever: Though my flesh and my heart fail, God is the rock of my heart, my portion forever (Ps. 73:26).

Instead, our chosen portion now is the bronze serpent. We have embraced Saint Paul’s admonishment to the Colossians: If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth (3:1–2).

Journey to Your Heart is not set up to proselytize anyone, but to share Christian values with those who embrace its tenets. Life’s brothers and sisters have one common Father, who calls us to embrace the same destiny to salvation through His gifts of love and mercy.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you (John 14:27). Genuine peace and love, we have discovered, come only from God. Christian values are tangible to us if we stay God centered, not self-centered.

I am with you all days, until the end of the age (Matt. 28:20).

In Journey’s pages, I hope you find what you are looking for. As twelve-steppers, we have shared similar experiences, pain, insult, discouragement—in short, putting up with a life we never asked for, but one we had to get honest about if we were to survive and repair our broken relationships. Now, as we enrich the twelve steps with the Ten Commandments, as children of the heavenly Father, we hold and share similar insights. It matters not how many bottles we put away, how much we shot up, how many pills we guzzled, or whatever other addictions made a twelve-step program necessary for our survival. What matters is that the mercy of the Holy Spirit led us unconditionally into a new life that we hadn’t the slightest notion existed: I have called you by name … though you knew me not (Isa. 45:4). Maybe that call is the wondrous miracle of all. One thing is certain: God always wants what’s best for us. That’s what we’ll get—nothing more, nothing less.

Our addiction, at best, eventually carved out for us an empty shell; we were gone for a long time and didn’t know it: You had gone astray like sheep, but you have now returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls (1 Peter 2.25). The AA Big Book tells us we were alienated from God and mankind. Yet Truth stood quietly beside us until we were ready to accept it. When a heart is open to truth, the truth will claim it. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians reminds us that in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have become near by the blood of Christ (2:13). Who among us can forget those futile days? Conversely, who among us wants to remember them? Chemicals abused us more than we abused them.

You might wonder why I titled this book Journey to Your Heart. Our hearts are the seedbed of God’s truth, the bedrock of our being, the launching pad of our moral conscience, the soul of the self. Our spiritual hearts, our souls, are the platform of our eternal maturation and the center of our being. Getting our heart in order, gets our life in order.

Set me as a seal on your heart (Song. 8:6).

In the book of Psalms alone, heart occurs 893 times; the word’s pervasive presence beckons us to heed its importance like a foundation upholds an eighty-story skyscraper. Recall Moses’s words in Deuteronomy 6:5–6. You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today.

Since Jesus gave His whole being on the cross, He is appealing for our complete commitment and trust to His cause for our salvation—both heart and mind. Commitment that keeps nothing back for itself nourishes our souls with perpetuating grace. The one who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness (2 Cor. 9:10). Our nourished hearts feed our souls with the seeds of faith.

Oh, that day you would hear his voice: harden not your hearts (Ps. 95:8).

I am a writer, not a Scripture scholar. Yet, while on my journey of recovery, Providence called me to enroll in numerous graduate courses in theology and sacred Scripture. I discovered that in the Gospel of John (and elsewhere) Jesus’s words challenge our values. You search the scriptures [Old Testament] because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf. But you do not want to come to me to have life (5:39). These words challenge our sincerity to live by his will, not ours. Reading and doing differ. Now in Jesus, we seek life’s fullness by acting on the Word of God. Truly, we have come to Him because He sought us first: It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain (John 15:16). Jesus’s words seek who was lost.

Historically, Jesus was crucified amid a Judaic-Christian culture; hence, Journey deals with issues and events of that environment and time. Moreover, as the New Testament reveals, Jesus broadened His disciples’ understanding of the law and the new covenant, which hastened conflict between the Pharisees and Sadducees. However, this writer doesn’t see the Crucifixion as the Jews’ fault as a people, only that the horrific event occurred on Israelite soil. A self-righteous select few, known as the Sanhedrin, should accept the blame if they were living. Nevertheless, Christ’s temporal death was effectively universal. He died for every human for all time since all are created in God’s image and in need of salvation through the forgiveness of sins. Even today, the world family often behaves poorly as much as at any other time in human history, maybe even more. The twenty-first century’s respect for life is dismal, as was the twentieth.

As noted, the vision of this text is of a single human family—all people. In his Letter to the Ephesians, Saint Paul reminds us that we are called to one hope … one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all (4:4–6). As the Big Book says, addiction is a cunning, baffling, powerful disease; our trail of addictive personalities is littered with bouts of ungod-like behavior. Nevertheless, our common Father bestows His mercy on everyone who asks for it; the Father wants every one of His children to be saved. That, of course, is why He sent His only begotten Son to redeem us.

There will be rejoicing among the angels of over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10).

Journey’s biblical citations fit into more than one chapter, despite each one developed around an original premise. The Bible often uses the image of the human heart, the nexus of spiritual transformation, to illustrate that repentance is mainly about renewing the intentions of the inner self. In one example, Jesus challenges the Pharisees’ self-centered motives: On the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evil doing (Matt. 23:28). Such phrasing, or notions thereof, appear throughout Journey’s text.

Like almost any text, Journey contains several assumptions. One assumption about some aspects of Christian theology in Journey is that its readers draw from their education and reflection to arrive at intuitive enlightenment. Another assumption is that most readers are familiar with many, if not most, of the Bible’s citations or know where to locate them. And finally, this writer assumes that most readers who have picked up or bought this book are motivated to use their ingenuity in searching for alternative sources and opinions to bring their understanding of a biblical quotation and narrative to a more heightened plateau of understanding. Moreover, Journey invites its readers to plunge deeper into its various narratives and parables, as led by the Holy Spirit, and to absorb more of what the Bible teaches; therefore, not every detail of a certain narrative’s story line is included in this text, but only the salient details that support the meaning of the chapter. Overall, Journey points toward a bountiful Christian life to be lived, usually not back to twelve-step wisdom, despite its splendid values, which recovering readers have practiced assiduously.

Moreover, the Journey text is based on orthodox Christian tenets: that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, whom the Father sent to redeem us through the forgiveness of sins by shedding His blood on the cross; and that Christians believe original sin (of Adam and Eve) is forgiven through one baptism. Mainstream Christians also believe in one triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We know it as the Trinity. Moreover, believers look forward to the Second Coming of Christ, at which time all human beings—living and deceased—will learn their eternal fate. Jesus has told us that the Father doesn’t judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to his Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father (John 5:22-23). Jesus will be our Advocate and Judge: We don’t fear His judgment, however, because we trust the Lord has more than enough mercy to forgive the most hard-hearted but contrite sinner; we believe repentant sinners—the children of light—will one day be awarded a ticket of mercy and thereby will be entitled to claim their chair at the table of the eternal banquet since the world’s Redeemer will be our merciful advocate before God the Father. The First Letter of Peter instructs us, You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God (1:22–23). Finally, we believe the Bible’s teachings to be the inerrant Word of God. Jesus Himself ratifies that the scriptures are the Word of God and that they are the guide to all truth. He recommends their frequent perusal. In fact, Jesus says those who don’t take them to heart will be misled (Matt. 22:29) by the world’s false beliefs. Responding to the Sadducees’ claim that there is no resurrection (v. 23), Jesus says, Have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living (vv. 31–32).

Aside from faith, what is required of Christians to grasp the scriptures with some degree of faith and accuracy?

• Christians should understand that the Bible is God’s book and gift.

• Christians must have an intense desire to explore its pages.

• Christians must read them regularly, daily if possible.

• Christians must—to the best of their ability—live moral lives.

• Christians should be willing to accept different phases of spiritual development than what they might have always believed.

• Christians must understand that the human will isn’t always the same as God’s will.

• Christians should believe that God can—and occasionally does—alter the accepted human perception of reality by use of unconventional images. For example, God caused the flow of water from the side of a rock, as dramatized in the book of Exodus (1:1–6). Another example is the symbolic meaning of apocalyptic (or cosmic) writing as in the books of Revelation, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Daniel.

• Finally, it’s important Christians trust that God can do anything—and often does.

Further, since the Bible is the living Word of God, and therefore, an official source of Truth, Journey primarily uses biblical citations for its viewpoints and story lines. It excludes no child of God since everyone is created in the DNA of His Holy Spirit, that is, in His image (Gen. 1:27). All Christians are brothers and sisters of one family despite some differences in interpreting the Scriptures’ meanings. A final sweeping truth is that all human beings are God’s children, since we have one common Father. Addiction is universally communal and demographic.

In addition, this text often draws from other Christian sources (or apologists), the value of which earned them a place in it, not necessarily their origin. Readers may not be familiar with some of the included sources, since they are often quite old, but their meaning is still current and dynamic. We should pay careful attention to their opinions, presumably guided by the Holy Spirit. Moreover, many of these sources, often coming from the now-dry pen of saints (previously unknown to some readers), emphasize the breadth, depth, longevity, and sustaining truth of the Christian church, which should, among other things, account for Christianity’s stability. The supporting sources largely urge us to grow our faith by cooperating with God’s grace and by reflecting on their application in our lives. Therefore, the fertile observations included in this volume are valuable from multiple viewpoints.

This writer doesn’t attempt to rearrange and place truth’s key elements in a different context, but to offer Journey readers a unique viewpoint of familiar narratives and admonishments. In addition, this volume invites its readers to weave new meaning into their lives by absorbing the scriptures more perfectly through a maturing faith. When significant lines are pulled out of a massive work, they somehow take on a life of their own and come off as more intense to the reader and exude more clarity, power, and persuasive value.

This writer doesn’t assume that the citations herein are the only ones that could and should have been included, but they were the best available at the time of composition. My plaudits to readers who through their spiritual industry encounter other sources that speak better to their spiritual needs. Despite the time and source, truth is truth, regardless of its wrapping. We would be neglectful to ignore the wisdom of devoted disciples, who through their passion for truth were impelled to grow closer to God with prayer and spiritual reading. Though they presumably passed into heaven perhaps many centuries ago, the fruit of their spiritual labor is their legacy we can learn much from. Its truth remains untarnished despite its age. Truth is eternal.

Comments on the Book’s Style

Writing Journey in the proper verb tense proved to be a problem. Pre-risen Jesus ministered in time and space; hence His actions are measurable in time, and therefore, verb tense. Moreover, His acts can be considered as having been performed in the past. Past tense is best for that environment. Yet, the risen Jesus is eternal, so His past acts always were, but what He said is forever universally true; hence, it seemed present tense would be best. A good example is the Crucifixion. In time, Jesus was crucified some two thousand years ago; therefore, it is a past-tense event. But the theological effect of the crucifixion—salvation of our souls—is universally eternal and perpetually in action. In addition, what He said on that day is still universally true. Past-tense verb forms usually show up