God on His terms

Pastor Pat Duffin

A decision requires action or it is useless. Without follow- through no real decision was actually made. It was only fantasy thinking. Nothing changed. For those working at overcoming life- controlling issues such as addiction or other self-destructive behaviour, the Third Step in the Twelve Steps of Recovery is absolutely indispensable. This is where the ‘powerless to change’ makes the connection with real power. This crucial Third Step states, “make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understand Him.” All the remaining recovery steps are action steps that follow through on the decision to live life on God’s terms. Let’s take a short but sharp look at the significance of the Third Step. In the first and second steps of recovery, one comes to recognize and accept that their lives are unmanageable and that they are powerless in themselves to make the necessary changes. By definition, that’s the very nature of addiction. Loss of choice is loss of control. Loss of control or choice is powerlessness to change either yourself or your situation. But, then comes hope that a power greater than ourselves can restore us from the insane futility that has become our way of living. Hope leads us to begin looking in a new direction. We look for help outside of ourselves. We look for a “power greater than ourselves.” This brings us to the Third Step, the place where we begin to get power into our lives. This step must be taken carefully. If we do not take it properly, it will not work for us. We will remain powerless. How, then, does one properly take that Third Step? The answer is hidden in the statement about turning over our will and our life. When you turn over your will and your life, it is no longer your will and your life. There is an exchange of ownership. And that is the price of full recovery. Your life now belongs to someone else. Since we turn our will and our lives over to God, it becomes God on His terms, not our own. If we truly take that Third Step it is no longer what we want, but what God wants. That especially includes our definition of God. We may no longer conjure up our own ideas about who God is and what He means to us. We must now accept Him as He says He is. We must now live our lives in agreement with how He says we should live. If we are unwilling to do this, then we have not completed the Third Step. There is yet more work to do. Supposing we really want to take that step of surrender, how can we know who God is and how can we know what His terms of acceptance are? We do this by reading the Bible. The Bible is the Manufacturer’s Handbook on all matters of faith and living. In it God reveals both Himself, and His will. He lays out for us His principles for living and His terms for relationship with Him. It is, therefore, no longer our opinion but His opinion that settles an issue. Otherwise, we have not surrendered our will and our lives. We are, in reality, still attempting to retain control despite the fact that we have proven time and again that we have no control of our own and that when we run the show our lives are a mess. Someone may ask, “What about that last phrase, ‘God as we understand Him’? Doesn’t that negate what you just said? Doesn’t that release us from the obligation you describe?" Not really. It simply means we all have our limitations of understanding and we are not all at the same place spiritually. Each of us is at various stages of growth and insight. If you try to use that as a ‘loophole’ in order to avoid God on His terms, you are not really surrendering your will and your life. You are doing a con-job on yourself. That resentful self-deception will actually keep us separated from God. As long as I continue to choose who God is, I am defining God. But that God that I just defined is merely a figment of my imagination. He is not real. Since I presumed to define who God is, I have therefore invented my own God. If I can invent my God, I have created Him and He has not created me. If I can create my own God, He is less powerful than me because I was the one who created Him. Since I am powerless to run my own life, what power can this God I created offer me? None! I am right back where I started ... all messed up, self-focused, and powerless. I will never find that power from within. It is not there. God objectively exists whether I acknowledge Him or not. The Bible tells me who He is, His character, His ways, and His principles for living life. It gives me many assurances of His goodwill towards me and, most importantly, it tells me how to get in contact with Him. It also offers me truth and clarity in lieu of my own sick-headed, ‘stinking-thinking.’ When I finally surrendered my will and my life to God, on His terms, everything changed. Recovery not only became possible, it came rapidly. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.” (John 14:6). If you are looking for a way out of your mess, if you are looking for truth and clarity that you can live by, if you are looking for new life ... Jesus Christ is the answer. He is the One to whom we must come if we want God. Those are God’s terms. He said, “No man comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus Christ is God’s terms. Won’t you make a decision to turn your will and your life over to His care? Jesus said, “I will never turn away anyone who comes to Me.” (John 6:37) Take action on that decision by going to church this Sunday and continuing to follow the rest of the recovery steps. After all, they originally came from the Bible and apply to everyone no matter what our circumstances of life.