When I first got sober, I felt that surrender was “giving up” when, in fact, it was the first step in gaining power back. Yes, I had to “give up” the alcohol to begin my recovery. I wasn’t “giving up” on me—I was admitting I was powerless over my addiction. I had to stop fighting, to stop resisting everything in life, including the illusive power I thought I had over my addiction. I had none.
Addiction is tricky. We think we are managing our drinking just fine, when in reality, it is managing us. I had to completely surrender–
The dictionary definition of Paradox:
“Apparently self-contradictory statement whose underlying meaning is revealed only by careful scrutiny. In poetry, PARADOX functions as a device encompassing the tensions of error and truth simultaneously, When a paradox is compressed into two words, as in “living death,” it is called an oxymoron.”
I had become an oxymoron. I was alive, but spiritually dead—unable to respond. This is how alcohol was for me. It made it easier for me to be me. But the truth was that it took me further from the real me and from God. When I surrendered my will, it all changed.
The paradox is that I became more powerful when I surrendered to God. Prayer is the door we open to access that power that is available to us all of the time.
All we have to do is surrender to gain power.
Then give it away to keep it :)))
Thy will, not mine, be done.
"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Ephesians 4:22-24
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