(The following is a personal post from one our our group members.)
I was attending a conference of another Step program recently. Since I had been hosting the keynote speaker in my home, I had a lot of time to talk with him about the freedom we experience as we connect to the Power that frees us from the bondage of our past. It was truly exciting to see how each of us had come to the same place in our journeys even though we had started from two very different perspectives.
He shared a statement in one of his talks that I fully agree with because it has been my experience as well. He said, "The steps have never freed anyone from their bondage; only God can do that." That happened for me as I began to truly experience my own surrender to God and as I continue to grow in that surrender.
When I first started to attend SA meetings a very long time ago, I was not truly ready to surrender to God. What I wanted to do was run my own life my own way and have God boost me up just enough to get over this obsession and compulsion in which I felt so completely bound. I wanted freedom without having to actually surrender anything. But apparently for this addict, and many others I know, this is not possible. I had to surrender to God, and I had to have his power in order to find real freedom.
I had seen this happening in the lives of some of the members of the SA groups I attended, so I figured they had figured out how to control lust themselves. But when I tried that, it didn't work. The truth is it doesn't work. That's not what they did. What they did was to truly surrender their lust and their will and their life to God. It wasn't the Steps that gave them power, it was God. The Steps showed them a path to connect rightly with God in order to have his power at work in their lives.
And now I can say that I have had that experience as well. God can and will continue to do for me what I can not do for myself as I surrender to and connect with the Power that frees me.
