Let Go And Let GOD Be God

“O our God, will You not exercise judgement upon them? For we have no might to stand against this great company that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.” ~~2 Chronicles 20:12

Here Jehoshaphat admits to God openly his total inability to deal with the problem. For years I tried very hard to change myself without success. I tried so hard and so long to break bad habits only to fail time and time again. I tried to alter different things in my life, to get prosperity, to make my ministry grow, and to be healed. I remember wanting to give up because I was so exhausted from trying to fight my own battles. I went through all that on a regular basis until I was being really kind of melodramatic about it, trying to impress God with how miserable I was. I said something like, “God, I’ve had it. This is it. I’m through. Nothing I’m doing is working. I give up. I’m not going to do this anymore.

Just then, deep inside me, I heard the Holy Spirit say, “Really?” There was real excitement in His voice. That happens because the only time He gets to work in us is when we become so exhausted that we finally decide, “Instead of trying to do this myself, I’m going to let go and let God be God.” Trying to be God will wear you out fast. Why not give up your own effort and do what Jehoshaphat did in verse 12? Admit to God that you have no might to stand against your enemies and that you don’t know what to do, but you’re looking to Him for direction and deliverance. source: New Day, NEW YOU, Joyce Meyers, 2007

I always have had problems with setting, and keeping boundaries. As a child, I had only two choices: comply or get a beating. In school we had NO choices, it was their way or the highway. I was NOT allowed to define my own boundaries or to be myself. I was NOT allowed to defend myself, because in those days, the teachers and doctors were god and were never wrong. And…whatever they said was the law.

I believe my addictions began about the age of twelve. I used to escape a critical, confining, and controlling environment. I did not believe there was a god, or else if there was, then I must be a horrible child and that I deserved to treated the way that I was, so I wanted no part of him or established religion.

In my recovery, I found God, because I had tried living my life my way, and I had hit bottom in order to be desperate enough to give into something that I thought was make-believe and not real. I was allowed choices. I could go on to the bitter end, or try this god-thing.

I was allowed to choose the “higher power” that I needed for me. I chose one that was not a hateful, abusive, critical, condemning, controlling God. I chose a loving and forgiving God instead of a mean and spiteful God. At first my “higher power” was my group and my sponsor, but as I grew in my recovery, I started using God as my “higher power”.

Through the years, I have learned to let go a lot sooner, and ask God for help, instead of suffering alone. I was taught that all I have to do is to do my best and that God did not require me to be perfect, and leave the results up to God. We have to do the “footwork” or the next “right thing”. I make a lot better decisions today and I have a lot more serenity as a by product of “right living”. No, I am not perfect because I am human. I am a Human Being, not a Human Doing. I almost died trying to be perfect, and still today I have “defects of character” that I am working with God on.

Originally published at sallytudor.wordpress.com on November 10, 2014.