If you have been reading the last couple of entries in this blog, you will read that I taught our Celebrate Recovery lesson–POWERLESS last night. The lesson emphasizes the fact that we are powerless to address our hurts, hang-ups and/or habits on our own strength. We may be able to address them for a period of time, but they will return. Only in surrendering our inability to God can we find the healing strength He offers us.

I have taught this lesson in previous years and heard it many more. We have been operating our CR for 16 years so this lesson is certainly not new to me. What is new to me this morning is the reality of me being powerless. The hurts of my past have been largely healed through great help from God and His human servants called christian counselors. But I have a great hang-up called pride. I’ve never wanted to be powerless thinking if I were I’d be powerless to control my behavior and I’d end up being like my dad and/or brother. As I was journaling all of this earlier God pointed out very clearly that no one any longer in my life even knows dad or my brother. They only know me. God wants Earnie to reflect Him through His Holy Spirit living in me. Take my eyes off of dad and my brother and transfix them onto His Son Jesus.

I’ve always wanted to live only for Jesus. I’ve stayed in denial to the reality that my “want/efforts” looked much more like me than like Jesus. So today I’m very much awake to my powerlessness. I’ve surrendered it all. I also know that this reality is something I will need to do daily. Just as God is with me today, only in today can I surrender my pride. Tomorrow I’ll be of the flesh until I surrender it as the day begins. The great beauty in all of this is that in surrendering I am provided a strength never known until it’s done. Wow!