Daily Reprieve

From Courage to Change of Sep 25:

I find myself taking Step Three over and over again. Unfortunately, I often wait until a problem starts to overwhelm me before I finally give in and turn it over to my Higher Power. Nevertheless, today I am striving to place my entire will and life in my Higher Power’s hands with the willingness to accept His or Her will for me, no matter what. The awareness I have gained in Al-Anon lets me know that my way has seldom worked in the past. It’s only when I let go and trust the inner voice that quietly nudges me in the direction of my Higher Power’s choosing that my life becomes fulfilling.

Today’s Reminder

Is there an area in my life that I treat as though it were too important to turn over to a Higher Power? Are my efforts to control that area making my life better and more manageable? Are they doing any good at all? I can hold on to my will until the situation becomes so painful that I am forced to submit, or I can put my energy where it can do me some good right now, and surrender to my Higher Power’s care.

”I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.” ~ Martin Luther

END OF QUOTE—————————————

I once lived under the delusion that my will and God’s will were locked in combat, mutually exclusive, one destined to erase the other. That was the lie of separation, the lie of addiction, the lie of control. The truth is sharper: when I refuse to know myself, I cannot know my Higher Power. But when I dare to look straight at who I am—my scars, my fury, my hunger—I discover convergence. To thy own self be true is not rebellion against God; it is the doorway to God.

Submission is not servitude. It is Positive Selfishness in its highest form. It is Intelligent Self-Patriotism—protecting my sovereignty while admitting that power beyond me keeps me from destroying myself. I do not surrender into nothingness. I surrender into alignment with the Infinite, who carries the code of my freedom.

Step Three confronts me with this question: Will I grip, or will I release? My instinct, my reflexive will, is to hold on until pain breaks me. That stubbornness is part of my refusal to bow to false narratives, even when those falsehoods come from within me. But here is the paradox: the longer I grip, the more I lose. The more I release, the more remains mine.

When I insist on control, my life shrinks, darkens, isolates. When I let go, my life expands. The whisper of my Higher Power is not sloppy agape, not saccharine love spoon-fed down my throat. It is the dangerous independence of the Spirit, quietly reminding me that my freedom is not in defiance for its own sake—it is in refusing to let panic dictate my steps.

Every area I declare “too important” to God—my finances, my self-image, my need to dominate—is where my slavery is exposed. To grip those areas as mine alone is to collapse into Social Containment, locked in fearful isolation.

But to release them—to put even these battlegrounds in God’s hands—is to discover Resurrection. Not the counterfeit martyrdom of performance, but the blood-bound strength of a warrior who knows when to unclench the fist. What I give to God, I do not lose. I weaponize it. I wield it transfigured.

My inner core declares: I am dangerously free. I will not be enslaved by enforced stupidity, nor by the tyranny of my own fear. Step Three humbles that fire into something survivable, sustainable, connected. My will and God’s will are not parallel lines—they are two blades of the same sword, forged in surrender, carried in independence.

And so I live this paradox daily:

• Not martyr, not rebel without cause.
• Not puppet, not godling.
• Simply a man who has learned that the true defiance is not in clenching, but in trusting.

This is the marrow of Step Three for Me: to surrender is to fight smarter, to align with Power rather than exhaust myself resisting it.