Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 34
No matter how much one wishes to try, exactly how can one turn his own will and his own life over to the care of whatever God he thinks there is? In my search for the answer to this question, I became aware of the wisdom with which it was written: that this is a two-part Step. I could see many times where I should have died, or at least been injured, during my previous style of living, and it never happened. Someone, or something, was looking after me. I choose to believe my life has always been in God’s care. He alone controls the number of days I will be granted until physical death. The matter of will (self-will or God’s will) is the more difficult part of the Step for me. It is only when I have experienced enough emotional pain, through failed attempts to fix myself, that I become willing to surrender to God’s will for my life. Surrender is like the calm after the storm. When my will is in line with God’s will for me, there is peace within.
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I used to think of surrender as giving up or quitting. This was completely foreign to me and felt contradictory to my idea of solving a problem. One day I realized that the difficult part of surrendering my will to God’s will is changing direction. Invariably I had to exert myself to stop and change directions. This required effort and I had to fight against my old ideas that resisted change. Fighting was something I could understand, I just had to redirect my fight against my old beliefs. I had to use my will power to join the spiritual battle against my self-defeating behaviors.
I can relate to this, I like thinking I’m in charge and control of everything I do, but oviously Im not doing such a great job of that on my own, or my mind and body would not be tormenting me. I must now give my life and will over God, to surrender all to him. I’m not gonna lie, this is scarry to forfit our will and trust that God will carry us threw, but what do I have to loose that I wasent distroying already.
This is what I’ve been struggling with. I’ve been working the steps, but keep coming back to the question from my sponsor and other concerned friends, “When are you going to stop playing ‘director’ and let God have control?” It’s so difficult to reach that point, because I feel like, as long as I’m in control, I know where my life is going. Obviously, I’m not doing a good job of directing my own life, or I wouldn’t have made the mistakes that led me to seek treatment in the first place. So, I’ve come to the realization that this is “the next right thing”. Now, I just need to do it!