Filling the God-Holes
by Fr. Bill Wigmore

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life;
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

The images we humans have of God take many forms. He is sometimes thought of as being our Father or Mother, sometimes our Friend or Counselor, and among his closest saints he’s even been known as their Lover. God is referred to as Spirit, Creator,Savior, Redeemer, and Lord. In our 12-Step programs we’re given the liberty to imagine God in whatever way we like, so long as the image opens the door of our hearts to a new and more personal relationship with him. I believe God’s image takes all these different forms because, as human beings, the holes we carry in our souls are many – and each hole requires a different image of God to find its proper healing.

We need God to be our Counselor because at times we all find ourselves feeling hopelessly lost and confused – desperately in need of his wisdom and guidance. And we need God to be our Friend and our Comforter because there come times in our lives when even those who are closest to us will walk out on us or let us down and we’ll find ourselves feeling hopelessly alone. And, of course, as alcoholics and addicts, we need God to be our Savior and Redeemer because as the Big Book says, we’ll all come to know a time when we find ourselves completely defenseless against that first drink or drug.

Those holes in our souls are really our God holes. They’re the holes inside each one of us that only he can ever fill – and so our images of God have to change as we turn to him in our need and as we let him heal more and more of what’s wrong and what’s missing inside us. The process takes a lifetime and the images change as we go. We humans are creatures who were made for God – we were made in his image – and we won’t find our rest until our hearts reflect him in all of his ways.

There’s yet another image of God that we’re given in the 23rd Psalm. There the psalmist says, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” Now most of us may not be very familiar with the 150 or so Psalms that appear in the Bible, but Psalm 23 is one that I’ll bet most of us know quite well. We’ve probably heard it read at every funeral we’ve ever attended. Its familiar words are comforting when a loved one is taken from us – when a huge hole of grief is opened up inside. Those words assure us that even as our loved ones walk through the valley of the shadow of death – God is with them. He’s holding them in his arms and gently guiding them home.

Now the image of God as a Shepherd always sounded very peaceful and pastoral to me, but having grown up in the big city, I really had little idea of what the author of that image meant to convey. The closest I had ever come to a sheep was eating a lamb chop in an English pub along with a glass of Guiness! But a few years ago, after I showed my “sheep ignorance” in delivering a sermon, someone bought me a book about sheep that was written by a rancher from Montana. I learned a thing or two about sheep – and as I did – the God-image of the 23rd Psalm started to come alive for me in a whole new way. I pass that knowledge on here in the hope that some other recovering city slickers might benefit from having a new image of God to ponder as they go to work on Step Two.

For starters, I learned that sheep are nearly blind - and so they have to be led. They need a shepherd to guide them - to lead them in and out to pasture each day. Without their shepherd’s constant care and protection, sheep would die from all of their many wants. So the psalm says: The Lord is my shepherd – and because he is, I shall not want.

Next, I learned that sheep are easily terrified – and they’re especially terrified whenever they come close to running water. If they ever fell into a river and their wool got wet they’d drown in a New York minute. So when sheep see fast running water, they’d just as soon die of thirst before they’d ever go near it. So each day, their shepherd has to carve out a quiet, little pool alongside the riverbank and then lead his sheep there to drink. The psalm says: He leads them beside the still water.

And if you’ll let them, sheep will eat and eat and keep right on eating. Sheep just don’t know when to quit. So after they’ve eaten, their shepherd lays them down in the grass where they’ll take enough time to digest their food properly. He lays them down in green pastures.

And every day sheep will cut and bruise themselves on all the thorns and on all of the rocks out there in the rough countryside where they graze. And their wounds, especially the ones close to their eyes and their mouths can easily fester, and if they do, they can die. So, at the close of each day, when the shepherd brings his flock home, he does a sort of 10th Step with each one of his sheep. He inspects the head of every sheep and he anoints each wound with oil. The shepherd heals and soothes the cuts and bruises of their day.

Now if you’re an alcoholic or an addict like me, I hope you’re starting to identify with these poor, dumb, frightened, compulsively-over-eating and badly, beat-up sheep. But if not – then maybe this last one will help make that connection for you. And that’s the fact that sheep are totally defenseless - they have no fangs or claws and they can’t run away from predators very fast. So, just as the alcoholic/addict doesn’t have a defense against that first drink or that first drug, sheep don’t have any defense against that first wolf. Without their shepherd – that first wolf is too much for them!

“I am the good shepherd,” Jesus says. “ I know my sheep and my sheep know me. I call my sheep and my sheep know the sound of my Voice.

I call them by name and they follow me.”

Get with the program and stay close to the flock! Let God fill all of your God-holes and try not to wind up a lamb chop in some pub!

Fr. Bill Wigmore is CEO of Austin Recovery. A complete copy of this series is available at
http://www.austinrecovery.org/articles/thefaithcorner.asp. Send comments, questions and treatment scholarship donations to: Fr. Bill Wigmore, CEO / Austin Recovery / 8402 Cross Park Dr. / Austin, Texas 78754 or email: billw@austinrecovery.org