Becoming Board Certified in Addiction Medicine

. . . As the LORD commanded Moses. So he listed them in the wilderness of Sinai. Numbers 1:19

When I was in treatment ten years ago, I began plotting my comeback. My life had fallen apart, and I wanted to put it back together. I planned to get out of treatment and immediately become board certified in addiction medicine. Then, I was going write a book and change the world. I wasn’t simply going to find recovery. That was so mundane. Rather, I was going to become Captain Recovery. I dreamed big, looking past just staying sober, and planned to do spectacular things for God.

Then, I got home from treatment and was struck in the face by reality. Becoming an addiction medicine physician meant that I had to get 3,000 hours of addiction medicine experience and take the board test. Writing a book meant I had to actually write – a lot – and then find a publisher. Those things were going to take years and my impulsive, impatient personality lost interest. Additionally, my life was still an utter disaster. I didn’t have a job, and I wasn’t sure if I was even going to be able to practice medicine again. If I had any chance of putting my life back together, I realized it was going to be a lot of work just to stay sober. That became my number one job – to daily seek faith and recovery. In treatment, I planned grand exploits. At home, I quickly recognized that I needed to do the daily work of seeking God and recovery.

In today’s passage, we read how Moses simply obeyed God. God told him to take a census of all his people and Moses obeyed. It doesn’t seem like a grand feat. God could have told Moses how many Israelites there were. God said do it though, and Moses obeyed. Moses wasn’t perfect, but he followed and obeyed God even in the mundane.

I often look past daily obedience, skipping to the grand. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming big. I did eventually write a book, and I am now board certified in addiction medicine. Those things took years though – years of daily seeking faith recovery. To get there, I had to do the daily, mundane work of simply trying to live every day as God desired. I had to work to stay sober, abandon selfishness, love my wife, and be kind to those around me. Transformation isn’t achieved in one great act, but rather it’s found in a thousand daily, small acts of obedience. How does God want me to live today? He may eventually ask me to do something grand, but usually, he just asks me to daily abandon myself, follow him, and love those he’s put in my path.