Dear Reader,
Today I found myself thinking about Book of Exodus 20—but not as something written on stone long ago.
Instead, I asked a simple question:
What if Moses were speaking today… and what if, somehow, he was speaking directly to me?
Not from a mountain—but in the quiet places of my life…
including the rooms of recovery where I first began to listen.
In truth it was a time when I did not see my life clearly.
Like Israel in Egypt, I was living in a kind of bondage—though at the time I would not have called it that. My thinking, my habits, and my attempts to control life had quietly taken over.
Then I encountered the first step: I admitted I was powerless.
That moment felt less like failure and more like standing at the edge of the Red Sea with nowhere to go.
As I began to recover, something changed in how I heard the commandments.
They were no longer rules imposed from the outside.
They became reflections—mirrors showing me where I was out of alignment.
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me”
I began to see the things I had placed ahead of God—myself, my using, my fears, my need to control outcomes.
Steps 2 and 3 slowly taught me to let go and trust something greater than myself.
“For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles.”
— Book of Mormon, Mormon 9:11
I had to learn that the miracle wasn’t out there somewhere…
it was happening within me.
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image”
When I took a fearless moral inventory (Step 4), I began to see the false images I had created—about myself, about others, even about God.
“For the natural man is an enemy to God…”
— Book of Mormon, Mosiah 3:19
That verse became personal.
It wasn’t describing someone else—it was describing me before I became willing to change.
“Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”
I realized this was not just about words—it was about how I lived.
Step 5 brought me to a place of honesty I had avoided for years.
For the first time, I stood before God without excuses.
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy”
In Step 11, I began to practice something new for me—stillness.
Not perfection.
Not long prayers.
Just moments of quiet willingness.
And in those moments, I began to feel something I had been missing—peace.
“Honor thy father and thy mother”
Steps 8 and 9 led me into one of the hardest parts of recovery—making amends.
Some were received with grace.
Others were not.
But the healing came in the willingness to try.
“Thou shalt not kill… steal… bear false witness…”
Step 10 became a daily practice.
Not because I had become perfect—
but because I had finally become aware.
Over time, I began to understand something I had missed before.
The commandments were not there to condemn me.
They were there to guide me back.
And I began to see glimpses of what the Pearl of Great Price describes:
“They were of one heart and one mind…” — Moses 7:18
That kind of unity doesn’t begin in a group.
It begins quietly… within a single heart that is learning to change.
Today if the modern Moses spoke, I would be something like this:
“You are not being asked to be perfect.
You are being invited to be willing.”
And perhaps even more simply:
“Walk with God… one step at a time.”
I no longer see Moses as a distant figure in history.
I see him in the moments when truth breaks through my old thinking.
I hear him in the quiet guidance that leads me back when I wander.
And I have come to believe this:
The commandments are not a burden. they are a path.
And in recovery, I have been learning—slowly, imperfectly—to walk it.
