Biography
Keith Miller is perhaps best known as the author of the book The Taste of New Wine. Over a million copies of this book are in print. His other works include Habitat of Dragons, The Becomers and Sin: the Ultimate Deadly Addiction. He is deeply committed to communicating with people about spiritual life, and is in great demand as a speaker and seminar leader. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Hope in the Fast Lane" 
I am reading from Matthew 6, verses 31-33: "Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well."

Something has really gone wrong in this country. I'm not sure what it is, but I feel it inside myself. Everything is speeded up. It is as though we are playing a 33-1/3 speed record on a 45-player. I make lists every day. The lists are always about a third too long. I get very grandiose about what I can do in a hour or a day and I'm always over-committed. It seems I am trying to control time and think that I ought to be able to do more with my time than other people.

The other day I saw a man walking dawn the street. He was jogging and it was kind of erratic because he had something in his ear. I found out that he was listening to music to calm him down. He was also reading a New Testament and doing his quiet time while he was jogging. I looked at this man and thought, "This guy is really sick." Then I remembered that many times I do my own devotional reading on a treadmill in my bedroom. When I realized that I thought, "There is something wrong with this. There is supposed to be enough time to do these things."

Several years ago I realized that I was trying to control my vocation in the same way. Somebody came up and told me a story about this and said, "Keith, you remind me of this guy." He was a young businessman, had a family — little kids — his little boy was about five. One night he brought in one of those spongy, rubber footballs and said, "Son, I will play with you." After supper the little boy said, "Daddy, will you play with my football?" The dad said, "I'm sorry not tonight, son. I have this work to do." He had a briefcase in either hand and went into his study. The little boy threw the football down. The next night after supper he said, "Daddy, will you play with me tonight?" The daddy said, "Son, I'm really sorry. This is the last night. I have this work to do." He went into the study with his briefcases. The little boy went to his mom and said, "Mama, what's the matter with daddy?" His mother said, "Well, son, he can't get his work done at the office, so he has to work home at night." The little boy said, "Why don't they put him in a slower group?"

In a sense, all my life I've been afraid they were going to put me in a slower group. I made A's to avoid F's. I would shoot mice with a 12-gauge shotgun! I have always overdone everything because of this awful fear that I would not be enough. Inside where no one could see, this fear that I've always had and denied to everybody else has grown and festered. This has happened to a lot of us because we are not only attempting to control the outside world, but we're trying desperately to control our feelings and not to show what is going on with our relationships as it relates to us inside.

Although it is not something we like to talk about, many of us are plagued with strong feelings we don't know what to do with. The normal feelings of loneliness, shame, guilt, fear, anger and jealousy get so magnified in some of us that we are constantly in an emotional state of some sort. It is a sign of a vague anxiety. I talked to somebody the other day and he said, "I only know two songs — one is Yankee Doodle Dandy and the other is not." I was that way with my feelings. I only knew two feelings — one was a kind of an anxiety, but I didn't know whether I was afraid. People would say to me, "You're angry at me." I would say, "I'm not angry at you." I didn't feel anger; I just felt this one emotional song that I knew. I didn't know at that time that our feelings are good.

How many of you have been trained to think that anger is bad? Anger is very good. God was angry all through the Bible. Jesus was so angry He threw over the tables of the money changers. No social change ever took place without an angry person at its heart. Our anger is our strength. In this country — in the fast lane — we're trying to get rid of pain. We tranquilize it; we drink it to death; we do religious behaviors to get rid of our pain. But, pain is our friend; pain is our healing. Let's say that the fire alarm went off in this building and I said, "David, would you turn that thing off? It is interrupting the program." That is what we do when we tranquilize pain. God is trying to tell us that there is something wrong.

If you have an inordinate number of feelings and they are threatening to overwhelm you, which is the case with a lot of us in the fast lane, these feelings are not your own. God never gave us more feelings than we could cope with. The problem is that we have carried feelings from other people. If your parents didn't handle their feelings well; if you had a fine Christian father who was never angry or anxious; you wake up with a lot of fear and anger in your life. You don't know where it is coming from because he dumps it on you.

Did you know you can shovel feelings like coal? A lot of people don't know that. Let me tell you how it works. Let's say I have a son — this is not true, I don't have a son — who is a senior in college and taking his final examination. He has one class he has to complete to get his degree. He calls me at seven o'clock the night before the final. He says, "Dad, I think I am going to fail. I haven't studied for two days and I have been out partying. I'm really sorry, but I think I am going to fail." Suddenly I think, "Twenty thousand dollars, I have got to send this kid for another year." I begin to panic and pick up this fear. I say, "Could you get a tutor? Hire somebody; stay up all night. One night won't hurt you." He says, "No, dad, I think I'll do as I did when I was a kid. You told me to pray, turn it over to Jesus and go to sleep." I say, "Not tonight!" We're talking big time here. I was really frightened. He says, "I'm sorry, dad, I have got to go." He starts to hang up the telephone. I say, "Call me when you get your grade tomorrow." He hangs up.

I'm just hanging all night. All night long I'm seeing this poor kid as an old man. He doesn't have anything. His sleeves are all out in his sweater. He is sitting rocking on a porch in a little clapboard shack. He is in bad shape. My imagination is terrible in the fast lane. That's part of the deal — we "awfulize" everything. The next day he doesn't call. At seven o'clock that night I am sweating and I call him. I ask, "How did it go?" He says, "What?" I say, "What do you mean, what? I have been worrying all day about you. The examination — how did you do?" He says, "I made a 96." I say, "How did you make it?" He interrupts me and says, "Daddy, you really are a fine counselor. You know, last night after I talked to you, I went to sleep and slept like a baby." What he had done was to take his fears, dump them in the telephone and I had carried them for him all day.

Some of us have been carrying fear from our parents since we were children. It accounts for these
exaggerated fears, anger and jealousy. Sometimes we think we should be able to make the people around us
happy. We try to control our relationships. If we can't make them happy — our mates, our children,
people at church — then we feel guilty. We feel like we are less than other people, as if we had failed.
When we do that, we get compulsive. When the pain of this disease that I am talking about — the spiritual disease of control — hits us, we try to cover it up. We do this by drinking too much or eating too much, which spiritually is just exactly like drinking too much. It is just a different chemical. When we are afraid and lonely, a lot of people eat cake and drink a glass of milk. Other people take a drink of scotch. People use religious work addictively as a way to overcome this pain.

We are frantically trying to get life under control by whatever means we have. These feelings are addictive in nature. An addiction is something that happens to you — you keep doing it even though it's not in your best interests. Even resentment can be addictive. You resent people all the time. I was a Christian and I resented a lot of people. I resented Aunt Minnie. (It's not her real name; she is dead now.) I resented her because she picked at my kids and criticized everything when she came. I became a Christian, asked for the filling of the Holy Spirit and said, "Thank you, God, that I don't have to resent Aunt Minnie anymore. I don't have to resent anybody. Thank you, Lord." She was coming on Thanksgiving. All week long I prayed, "Thank you, I don't have to resent Aunt Minnie. I am not going to resent her! I am not going to resent her!" She walked in the door and I was full of resentment, just like that. This is exactly the way an alcoholic behaves. "I am not going to drink. Thank you, Lord, that I don't have to drink any more because I have the Holy Spirit. I am not going to drink! I am not going to drink!" Pow, the alcoholic takes a drink.

I am saying that these fears and resentments are addictive. These things constitute a spiritual disease. We are trying to get control and it makes us move into other people's lives and control them. I have spent the last four and a half years researching, living and trying to get in recovery from this disease. I wrote a book called, Sin: Overcoming The Ultimate Deadly Addiction in which I wrestled with these issues in my own life. This compulsion to control is the face of sin in the fast lane. This is sin with a capital "S".

The late William Temple said, "There is only one sin and it is characteristic of the whole world. It is putting myself in the center where only God should be in place." Sin is putting myself in the center and controlling everybody around me. Then you say, "Gosh, it looks like no sane person would do that." The primary characteristic of this control, or sin disease, is the fact that we cannot see its symptoms in ourselves. If you think about it, it is incredible. Jesus spoke about this clearly when He said that the pharisees were such good psychologists. They could see the tiniest speck in somebody's eye but couldn't see the beam in their own.

I can see my wife or one of my children controlling me, but I can't see it when I control her. When I control her, I am just trying to help her have a better quality of life. That is the way it feels to me. This denial is the primary characteristic of the disease I am talking about.

How do we get into recovery from this disease? This is a serious problem. If you do not think it's a serious problem, then check around your own house. Who is controlling and doesn't know he or she is doing it? It is so bad that when we are going home for Christmas, we will all get together out in front before we go into mom's or dad's house. We say, "For gosh sakes, don't confront dad, let's have a decent Christmas for once." Because if we confront daddy, he'll pick us apart the entire time.

The church is supposed to help us recover from sin. Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God gave us a way to recover from sin. But we don't know how to deal with our sin anymore. Sin is about people "out there" — people who are not in the church. We can't deal with our own sin. We control each other in vestry meetings, elders meetings. The minister controls the people; the people try to control the minister. What has happened is that we have lost our ability to heal the deepest problem of human nature which is tearing us apart in the fast lane.

In our time God has raised up a group of people who are helping people to recovery from this disease. They are using biblical principles that seem to be the only hope on the horizon that I see for a cure from the fast lane problem of sin — the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. This may shock you because many people aren't aware that this is the fastest-growing spiritual movement in America today at a time when the church is declining everywhere.

The characteristics of this movement are very similar to the early church. They have no money. They can't even receive a large gift; they will send it back. No paid workers; no paid clergy; no buildings. They are not allowed to own property. There is no evangelism program. You are not supposed to tell you are in one. No one wants to join. Yet, it is the fastest-growing spiritual movement in America today. How could that be true, with all the things we think are necessary missing from the program? Because they are leading people to a close relationship with God and with each other and are healing them from their controlling, compulsive and addictive life style.

The program of Alcoholics Anonymous says our problem was not alcohol, it was control. We were trying to be the producer and director of the show when we were only actors. Did you know that? Most people don't. The purpose of the Twelve Steps is — when people get in recovery from whatever their addiction — to do the will of God. That was our purpose as Christians and we seem to have lost that in some way.

I want to talk to you a little about these steps because they are right out of the Bible. Step 1 says, "We admitted that we are powerless over sin and, that our lives had become unmanageable." (I've gotten permission to say sin instead of alcohol because we have Sinners Anonymous groups in our church which we are helping people start.) People say, "I'm a Christian; I'm not powerless." Do you keep criticizing your family, straightening them out, or telling them how to live when you don't want to? They say, "Don't do that any more, Daddy." Do you keep doing things that are self-defeating to you, and you wish you didn't? What happens in this fast lane, in this control thing, is people start leaving. People go away. It causes divorces, separations, anger.

All kinds of relationship problems stem from trying to control each other. It comes in two forms. One form is the macho control. Somebody walks in the house, usually a man, and says, "My gosh, this house is a pit and besides your check book was fifteen cents off for the second month in a row. Don't say that to your boy friend, honey, it will never wash. I'll tell you what to say after supper." We know about that kind of controller, except he doesn't. He thinks he is trying to help his family.

There is the Christian version of control. This person controls by helping people, by picking up their clothes, doing kind things for them and controlling them with guilt and a thousand gentle hints and suggestions about how they ought to run every aspect of their life. This sort of controlling is more dangerous psychologically than the macho controller, unless he is using violence, because it is "crazy making." The kid confronts his mother and says, "Mother, you are controlling me." What does she do? She begins to cry and says, "I've worked my fingers to the bone for you. What do you want from me?" What is the answer to that? The kid goes out and gets drunk. There is nothing else to do.

Have any of you been controlled by a loving Christian mother? Have any of you been a loving, controlling Christian parent? I've had it both ways. When I realized I was powerless to stop giving all this advice, that was when I could take the first step. I realized I needed God because I simply couldn't change by myself.

Step 2 says, "Came to believe that a Higher Power could restore me to sanity." I said, "I may be powerless but I'm not insane." It really bothered me when they said I'm insane. But they said to me, "Let's look at this." I realized that if you keep doing the same thing and expect different results, that is insane, which was what I was doing. I kept doing the same things and asking God to change my life. I would wake up in the morning — those lonely mornings when I would feel terrible — and I would want a hug from my wife. I pick a fight with her. Is that sane? I knew we would get over the fight and I would get a hug. Now that I am in recovery from this disease, what I do is say, "Honey, I'm lonely. May I have a hug?" I haven't been turned down yet. A lot of things we do are insane. The way that we keep defeating ourselves and trying to control what is not ours to control is insane. We tell God this.

We move to Step 3 which says, "Made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God as we understood Him." The alcoholics who figured out this program knew that you can't even do that by yourself. It doesn't say, "I committed my life." It says, "I made a decision to."

The other nine steps are how you build your life one piece at a time. These people have realized that after you get connected with God, that is where the Christian thing usually ends. We go out and get some more people to get connected to God. They said, "No, you've got to go down inside and pull this stuff out that you kept in — all the hurts, the pain and the things you have done." As you pull all this out and tell it to another human being and to God, all of a sudden there is a clarity inside that takes place. You feel free; you don't feel so anxious and driven. A lot of the reasons we are driven is to cover the pain of what we have buried in our lives.

The steps move you out into a broader area of your life. Steps 8 and 9 ask you to straighten out your relationships. You have gone inside and straightened out the past with God and offered it to Him. Then, you go and straighten out your relationships in the past by going and making amends to people. This may sound like an incredibly difficult thing to do and it is. When I said, "I'm a Protestant; I don't have to do that," I was told, "Do you want to get well?" I said, "I am not sure." They said, "Think it over because that is what it takes."

This is the way it was in the early Christian church. The meetings were made up of confession, making amends and koinonia, or fellowship. We left out the confession and making amends some time back. We try to have fellowship and joy without it and it doesn't work very well.

The 12th Step, the final step, teaches you how to get in touch with God. The 12th Step says that we have to give it away in order to keep it. That is true of Christianity. A church that doesn't give itself away will soon die. It may be standing on its feet but it will be dead. What this has done for me — this awareness of the Twelve Steps and working them as a Christian — is let me realize that I have changed my whole view of what spiritual growth is. Spiritual growth for me now is not an adding up of knowledge.

There is a story about Michelangelo that I want to close with. You may have heard it but in this context it means something to me. When he sculpted the great statue of David in Florence and brought it into the square, people were just awed. It is one of the most marvelous pieces of sculpture in the world's history — fourteen feet of white marble. Someone walked up to Michelangelo and said, "How in the world did you do it?" He said, "Oh, it really wasn't that much. I was in the quarry and I saw David in this marble block. I took it home and I very carefully chipped away everything that wasn't David."

I think that is what God is doing for us — He has made us in His image and very carefully, through these steps, He is chipping away the things that aren't Keith or that aren't you. What this is doing is freeing me to want to do His will and to be His person. For somebody who has been terribly afraid, this is Good News.

Will you join me in a prayer, please. Lord, thank you that we don't have to live in a speeded up, frantic way simply because the world does. Help us to learn how to live in this world but to live for You. Help us to be willing to be powerless so that we can use your power.

Interview with Keith Miller
Interviewed by David Hardin

David Hardin: Keith, you talk about life in the fast lane and the pace of life. The people I know who are really moving too fast and doing too many things say, "I can't help it. My boss demands more time; my church takes a lot of time; I can't get out of this trap." What is the answer to that?

Keith Miller: Jesus seemed to be walking everywhere and everybody else was running after Him, but He had boundaries. He had a way to not let all this input come in, affect Him and make Him have strong feelings.

When somebody says something to you, you say "They made me mad." They don't make you mad. We know that when somebody says something, we have an unconscious thought about what they said. It is the thought that makes us mad. Let me give you an example. Let's say that after this talk you say, "Good talk, Keith." And after this talk John says, "Good talk." You both mean the same thing, but I look at you and I have a thought — that thought is, "He's sincere." Then I have a reaction of joy to the thought. John says the same thing you did, "Good talk," but when I look at him — say he reminds me of an uncle of mine who made fun of me — I have a thought that says, "He's being sarcastic." He means the same thing you did but my reaction is anger. The same things can give you totally different reactions because of the thoughts you have.

Jesus had a way to check that. He had a boundary so that when something came at Him, He could check it and make a different decision. He wasn't at the mercy of other people's conversations.

Hardin: If we sense that someone we are close to is into an addictive pattern of some kind, what is our role as a friend or a family member?

Miller: I was trained as a Christian that we are supposed to fix them. That is not right. It doesn't work. The thing I have had to do is to begin to deal with my own disease which is the "fixing disease." We are supposed to help people, but we are not supposed to "fix" them. Christians think, "I have to help this person" — meaning I have got to fix them and change them. You have to let people have enough pain. If you are the wife of an alcoholic, you don't lie to the boss about why he is not at work. If you lie for him, that gets him out of his pain. You let him go ahead and take his licks.

Hardin: You talked about sin. It appeared that you are saying sin is controlling people in an unhealthy way. What about things like murder, thievery, assault and violence?

Miller: Sin with a capital "S" is this controlling thing where we put ourselves in the center and we can't see it. Sin with a small "s" are things we do because we are in the center. For example, I cheat people; I commit adultery; I steal because I am in the center. I want what I want and I want to get it now. Sin with a capital "S", which is this controlling, causes all the things we call sin.

Hardin: How about this control disease? How does it work in families?

Miller: When a father is controlling his children, he is trying to make them in his image and have them do what he wants. This twists the child because the child is afraid and wants to get the father's love. The child twists his personality and he adopts behaviors that will please the parent. What happens is that the child becomes a phony and unreal in order to please people. Those behaviors are co-dependent behaviors.

Hardin: We are forced to be unreal. We are forced into molds that don't fit us so we get angry.

Miller: For example, fine Christian parents who have this control disease are the parents of a son who is an artist. They try to make him a football player. He plays football but the artist gets lost and is not accepted. He becomes a phony.