Not all of us were fortunate enough to grow up with Christian parents who modeled a personal faith in Christ right before our eyes. I didn’t. Therefore, getting to know the real God and learning to trust him and surrender to him was a struggle for me. If this is true for you as well, I suggest you work a 12 Step program. It was through working the 12 Steps with Jesus Christ as my Higher Power that I learned how to trust God, how to surrender to him, how to obey him, and how to wait on him. I also developed clarity regarding what I can control and what I cannot control.

Though the 12 Steps were developed by Bill W. and Dr. Bob as a roadmap or path to recovery when they founded Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1930s, the 12 Steps are not only applicable to drug and/or alcohol problems. They are applicable to any struggle in life, including difficulty trusting God. Interestingly enough, many people believe that the 12 Steps were divinely inspired, and indeed, Bill W. founded Alcoholics Anonymous following a spiritual experience he had in which his desire to drink alcohol was removed. For me, the 12 Steps have proven to be a roadmap to God and guidelines for living a Christian life.

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable is an invitation to face reality and admit that our life isn’t working with us in control. We stop pretending that it is working, we admit our powerlessness and stop trying to manage our life our way. Step 1, if worked properly, leaves us feeling empty and ready for Step 2: We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. When we begin to see that help is available to us, and as we reach out and accept what our Higher Power has to offer, we start to feel hopeful that our life will improve and we’ll feel better. To take this step, we need not understand what lies ahead. We need to trust that God knows what lies ahead and that He loves us and will take care of us. Taking Step 2 positions us to take Step 3: We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God. In the first two steps, we became aware of our condition and accepted the idea of a power greater than ourselves. Step 3 is decision time. When we take Step 3, God becomes the manager of our life and we learn to accept life on His terms.

We may have been taught to believe that we only have to accept Christ as our Lord and Savior for our lives to be complete and satisfying. Our proclamation that “I am a born-again Christian; my past is washed clean; I am a new creature; Christ has totally changed me” is true. Our Spirits are born again. Our flesh, however, is not. Our flesh has lived in the world and is bearing consequences of that. We are most probably carrying around buried unhealed hurts, engaging in some maladaptive habits, and holding onto some destructive hang-ups. In order to truly live the life Jesus died to give us, we need more than salvation. We need transformation. Working the additional nine steps with Jesus Christ as our Higher Power (doing and sharing an inventory of our lives, making amends to people we have hurt, forgiving people who have hurt us, praying and taking an inventory daily, helping others) can and will lead to transformation. I can tell you from personal experience that it will enrich your personal relationship with God and enable you to wait on him if you choose to do so.

Link: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781634188159