(This is a personal post by one of our members.)
Some other people's sharing got me thinking about my own weakness. I certainly am weak. All I have to do is look at the power that lust has over me, and I know I'm weak. That's the obvious one.
I'm glad it became obvious. That's why I finally "got" Step One. It was like being hit over the head by a big stick until the pain brought about enough realization that I was not only weak, but completely powerless. And I'm very OK with that today.
I think that the natural and spiritual consequences that exist in this world eventually catch up with at least some of us, and we finally "get it". That's been true of me. My own experience with God leads me to believe that it is gracious of him to withhold any special protection for me when I'm rebelling against him and harming others. I don't experience it as God particularly causing the specific painful consequence, but as him allowing what naturally follows to happen without intervening to protect me from it. How else am I ever going to know that something has gone terribly wrong, that I'm not living as I should? Pain is good.
In the same way as it doesn't do children any good to have their parents spoil them by making sure they never experience any pain (physical or otherwise) and always get what they want, it wouldn't do me any good to have a God who made sure I never experienced the consequences of my attitudes and actions.
But the amazing thing about God is that he's capable of redeeming anything that has happened in my life. Not that the consequences are gone and everything is completely fixed, but that he can use those things to bring about growth in me and even to help others as I surrender all of that to him and let him direct my life for me.
