Powerless 12 - It is okay to quit sometimes

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I have the power - not!

When considering what I was going to use as a picture for this article, I thought about using a picture of "He-man" raising an empty arm shouting "I have the power!" while "She-ra" stands by with his sword and a smirk on her face. But my powers of graphic manipulation are not good enough to pull off that cartoon.

One of the biggest problems I've had during this past week was staying on task and writing about every topic in the powerless lesson. Some of the topics were really hard and revealing, others were things I had overcome or really never had to deal with. Those hard topics kept me focussed on my own thoughts, feelings, and experiences to ready myself for healing.

The more "simple" ones were the ones that led to trouble. My articles had more teaching than I wanted and a striving to say an issue was in my life when it wasn't. It was those "going through the motions" and "trying to be good" that caused me to slip a bit this week.

To quit or not to quit

Over the past few weeks while writing this, there have been some habits that I've wanted to quit that were bad for me. There have also been some habits that I've wanted to quit that were good for me. Between my job, smoking, church, "surfing the internet", and even Celebrate Recovery - there have been plenty of things I've just wanted to walk away from, but sticking with the lessons, I realize I am powerless over my tendencies and the thoughts of giving up.

Setting eyes on what is good 

However dark and scary this walk has been, there have been some great achievement that I have had nothing to do with besides walking out in faith.  Making attendance to Celebrate Recovery a priority has been a huge benefit of something to look forward to. Returning to church has been a welcoming experience.  Even the environment at work has changed dramatically! And recently a friend of mine has decided to move in with me - helping with the struggle of bills and loneliness.

I did absolutely nothing to make these happen besides giving my will over to God.  I didn't take out an ad for a better life, I didn't fake it until I made it, I didn't even try to coerce others into changing. It was like it was all part of God's plan after all! All I had to do was get back to His Easy Plan, instead of striving to make it on my own.

Now, Jesus did say (in Matthew 19:26), "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." There are other things that Jesus said to explain how simple this is, and when I teach on this, I'll bring up all the verses that are repeated in my heart these past weeks - reminding me that, not only is giving up my egocentric belief in my own power easier than I had made it, but the One who controls the Universe is willing and able to walk me through it!

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