Hope For Today "Powerless"

We’re reflecting on the 12 Steps of AA and how they open a window for us to recognize and receive the goodness of God.  Today we look at Step Two: We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. The harsh reality is that we need God’s help to even come to know and believe what’s true.  One man who needed help said to Jesus, “Lord I believe, help my unbelief.”  He was speaking what so many of us find in our hearts.

Why do we continue to do things our own way when it obviously isn’t working?  Doing life on our own without God has led us to empty, lonely, and shame-filled places. That’s what Step 1 of the 12 Steps reminds us: Step One – We admitted that we were powerless over our dependencies and that our lives had become unmanageable.

It is a profound moment when we come to our senses and realize we are powerless and that our lives have become unmanageable.  It’s not meant to be one of hopelessness but rather a moment of letting go and turning our focus somewhere new for solutions to our life’s problems.

To be “poor in spirit” means that we come to an honest understanding of who we are without God in our life.  We recognize that we are powerless to do life on our own. We no longer deny what we have done in the past, but humbly admit the exact nature of our wrongs to God and ask for His forgiveness.

I’m so grateful that Jesus Christ gave His life as the seed that died so that you and I could find life with God. The harder part for us is the time when it’s up to us to be the seed that is planted into the soil and dies so that new life can be multiplied.

We all have seasons where the routine of life seems to become dull and we feel less enthusiastic about what we are involved with than we previously did.  It is a fair question to ask why we are bored and impatient with where life is at today.  The real question is, what will we do about it?

We live well when we live as the people God says we are even when we stumble and do and say things we wish we had not. 

When we get rid of something bad in our lives, we need to fill the vacancy with something good.