Beyond the Fire: Trading Survival for Service

Why Recovery is More Than Just Making It Through the Day

I found myself thinking about the show Survivor.

Dropped into the wilderness with nothing but their wits and instincts, contestants have to outwit, outplay, and outlast. Every day becomes about survival: finding food, building shelter, forming alliances. Protecting themselves at all costs.

At first, recovery can feel the same way. Some days, it's a desperate scramble to make it through without caving in — without reaching for old comforts, old patterns, old ways of being. We guard ourselves. We play defense against temptation. We manage impulses like a constant, exhausting chess game.

Survival becomes the goal.

And survival is important.

But it’s not the endgame.

A line from a prayer I once wrote kept surfacing today:

"Show us how to serve, not just survive."

Because real recovery — true recovery — asks more from us than just scraping through the day intact. It invites us to live instead of merely last. To serve instead of just save ourselves.

Survival mode is small. It's about protecting what we have left.

Service mode is expansive. It's about giving, growing, connecting, healing.

Service stretches the heart, even when the heart feels tired.

It builds bridges outward when self-preservation tells us to build walls.

In survival mode, fear is the main driver:

Fear of relapse.

Fear of failure.

Fear of vulnerability.

In service mode, faith begins to take the wheel:

Faith that healing is real.

Faith that love is stronger than fear.

Faith that what we offer, however small, matters.

Survival gets us to the island.

Service turns the island into a home.

Today, may I not just survive.

May I serve.

May I find someone to encourage, to lift up, to share my light with — even if it feels like a flicker.

Because the real victory isn’t being the last one standing.

It’s standing together.

It’s choosing connection over protection.

It’s finding freedom not in lasting longer, but in loving deeper.

Prayer:

God, show me how to serve, not just survive.

Teach me to live with open hands instead of clenched fists.

Help me to see that true s

trength is found not in what I hold onto,

but in what I give away.