We admitted that we were powerless over our dependencies and that our lives had become unmanageable.
A key to recovery is breaking through our denial and admitting our powerlessness. We may want to pretend that all of our struggles are in the past, especially after we begin to “understand the problem.” If we are going to maintain our sobriety, however, we need to continually work the first step, remembering that powerlessness is a part of the human condition.
The apostle Paul expressed some thoughts that probably sound like something we might have written ourselves. He says, “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it” (Romans 7:15-20).
The apostle Paul spoke in the present tense about his own condition. And he spoke for all of us. We will never escape the struggle of being human and susceptible to the pull of our lower nature. Admitting this is the first step toward wholeness.
Powerlessness is part of what it means to be human.
Taken from The Life Recovery Devotional copyright © 1991 by Stephen Arterburn and David Stoop. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
