It has been a long, hard road on the way to Celebrate Recovery, and after being a part of CR for 5 years, I am privileged to give back to CR as part of the MRCC CR TEAM member because of what God -- through CR -- has done for me.
Today, I would like to talk about Principle 3: Letter C Consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control.Based upon my life experience, this is one of the hardest things to do. How do I do that when my relationship with God is strained and trust is almost non-existent? How does one develop a relationship with someone that they have never seen or heard? Why should I commit every aspect of my life to Christ and submit to His will when everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong in my life? (I was a walking example of Murphy’s Laws in action) Where was God when I needed him at various points in my life?
Looking back over my life, I see that God was there all along. He worked in ways that I could not see at the time; but, now when I look back beyond the emotions, the anger and the fears of the time, I can clearly see God working quietly behind the scenes. He was gently guiding and nudging me along toward the future with an abundance of patience and love.
Every time I tried to fix something, I made an even bigger mess of my life. Every time I gave up and resigned myself to the inevitable, God made a way for me. God’s plan and my plans for my life didn’t match up, but God’s plan for my life became so much better than mine. God has an advantage that I do not when it comes to my life…He sees the big picture while I only see a small, tiny portion of it. He knows what He is doing.
After I became a part of CR and joined a step study group, I came to see that I was NOT the only one whose life was messed up and out of sorts, and whose life plan didn’t turn out the way it should have turned out. I began to see how selfish and self-centered I was and how destructive that attitude could be for my life and my relationship with others. I saw that my relationship with God was almost non-existent and that had to change.
Since I began to change and submit to God’s will and control through Christ, my life has been healthier in all aspects: spiritually, emotionally, and physically. When things don’t go my way, I take a deep breath and say “God will find a way for me, and He will take care of me.” Sometimes immediately, I see how God has prevented unpleasant things from happening just by making sure that things don’t go the way I want it to go. Often times, I see this much later in life. I am at peace now compared to when I was in a constant state of turmoil, fear, anger and frustration.
It is not normal for humans to give up control over their lives to someone else. Even followers of Father God and Jesus Christ that we read about in the Bible struggled from time to time with principle three. However, Jesus gave up control to the Father. We read about Paul doing this – among many others. It is interesting to note that in the Bible when someone tried to take back control of their life, they usually ended up in a pretty big mess that God had to clean up?
Turning over my life and my will over to Christ’s care and control was and is the best decision I have and will ever make in my life.
God has indeed been good to me!
Grateful Believer,
Stephen
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