Hope For Today "Surrender"

Many of us lost our true identity because we grew up in dysfunctional families and were forced to assume survival roles. God invites us to the truth that we are loved and that living now in the embrace of His love, we can become the complete person He created us to be.  Our life with God in recovery is about finding both character strengths to build on and character defects that hinder us from becoming loving fulfilled individuals. 

We’re looking at Step 3 of the 12 Steps:  We made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understood Him. What does that look like in practical way?

The experience of life outside the will and care of God is helplessness and frustration when trials and temptations come our way.  The good news is that when we respond to God’s gracious offer of new life in relationship with Him, we become His beloved children and all God’s resources are made available to us.  That’s what Step 3 of the 12 Steps is all about.

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.

As we move through Jesus’ list of the kind of attitudes we should have and act on we come to the one that says: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6

Whenever we become conscious of our failures and the harms we have caused others, whether that’s through an inventory of our character defects or just the to and fro of daily life, then a well of deep sorrow may overwhelm us. The only question to ask ourselves that really matters in that moment is, “Am I saddened enough by the painful mess I am in to be willing to come before God and admit that I am powerlessness over my self-willed ways?”

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.

God tells the truth and helps us to get ready for what we will face. Doing the right thing often isn’t convenient.  Sometimes we put a vision in our minds of hardship and overwhelming pain and decide we did not want to deal with it, at any cost. But God has a good way forward for us.

We're one week on from our celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, demonstrating His power over sin and death and verifying His claimes to be bringing in a new kingdom, the kingdom of God. How are we meant to live in that kingdom today?

It’s just a week since Good Friday and our remembering the great sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf.  Our world is full of many troubles and the death and resurrection of Jesus is meant to reassure us, particularly during troubled times, that God has a good way forward for us.

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.

That Jesus took our sins and sicknesses on Himself and hung on the cross until He died, even though He could have called thousands of angels to release Him and deal with His murderers, this is love, as the old song says, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”