Midweek: Step Two

What would it mean if you were unable to help yourself? Luke 13:10-13 tells of a woman who could "in no way raise herself up." Step One in recovery requires us to admit we are powerless over our addiction. To come to terms with our own inability to do for ourselves --to stop ourselves from using, to control our urge to spend excessively, to resist temptation and keep ourselves from falling into sin --to be powerless against the same thing day after day or trial after trial is necessary; but to stay in that place is deadly. When Jesus says, Apart from Me you can do nothing (John 15:5), He is telling us of the human condition, our condition: as mortal beings, we are fallible, finite, and fragile. We are subject to the curse placed on all of creation, and the sin that separates us from our Creator God leaves us unable to do anything --including help ourselves. But Jesus doesn't tell us this that we have no hope but to stay there; He makes us aware, diagnoses our infirmity and offers Himself as the only panacea. But we must choose Him. To remain in fallibility, finitude, and fragility, in a place where we can in no way raise ourselves up, where we fail to seek or refuse to seek His only cure, is to choose death over Life. His revelation to us is the awakening required, the verdict rendered that justice may be applied. Step Two moves us toward that justice: I came to believe that a power greater than myself, Jesus Christ, could restore me to sanity. 

We are triune beings: body, soul, and spirit. In Step One, we came to recognize the brokenness of our spirit. Acknowledgment of spiritual sickness was just the beginning of the process involved in healing our spirit; the cure appears in Step Two. Notice, however, this power, the power greater than ourselves (because we ourselves have come to admit powerlessness), this power is Spirit; the Holy Spirit of God ministering to our spirit. No reasonable person would go to a divorce lawyer for a toothache or take cold medicine for a flat tire. The treatment needs to be appropriate for the illness or problem. Spiritual sickness --though its symptoms can be mitigated --cannot be cured by behavioral or bodily routines. Chances are, if you "fix" the problem of smoking through behavioral changes, you'll develop another habit --say, nail biting. The spirit must be made whole by Spirit. (Romans 8:1-17 is a wonderful passage illustrating this point.) I can delete the number of every bookie I've ever known; I can avoid casinos and racetracks; I can burn even the UNO cards, but if I don't submit to the King of kings and Lord of lords, if I don't humble myself in obedience to Him, I will still want to do those things I am powerless against. My behavior might change, but my heart will not.

Step Two offers us the relief for our spirit's heaviest woes, the sustenance for our spirit's greatest need, the cure for our spirit's most lethal infirmities --Jesus, the Power greater than ourselves, the Way, the Truth, the Life.