God, I offer myself to Thee—to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!
- Third Step prayer
Our lives had become unmanageable and we found ourselves powerless. Powerless over our addictions. Powerless over our fears. Powerless to stop doing the things that made life worse. Powerless to do the things that made life better. Powerless over the bondage of self. Powerless to walk with God. But there is One who has all power, and we, believing that He could give freedom and a life worth living, surrendered our lives and will to His care and relying on relationship with Him to provide the power to live well and free and follow the Spirit's guidance and direction.
Lack of power was our dilemma, and we found that power through relationship with God, by grace because of the work of Jesus on the cross and the work of the Spirit in our lives. But let us never forget that our freedom isn't really about us. We must not rely on the Spirit for the miracles and the big stuff and insist on handling the rest of our lives ourselves. We don't deny enough self to stay free of our addictions but hang onto our own will in other areas. We can not serve two masters. Refusal to submit to God in the little things, the seemingly unimportant things, will eventually lead to rebellion in the big things as well. Jesus was as submitted to the Spirit and empowered for the mundane as He was for the miraculous. It's why He was never caught off guard by temptation, the enemy or even a bad day. How we live our day to day, the non-crisis moments, is the sermon many will see. It speaks as loudly, if not more so, than how we handle the hard times.
Let us not forget that the Third Step pray reminds us that we ask for victory that our lives may be a demonstration of Daddy's love, power and way of life. Jesus said in Acts 1:8, "...you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." We do receive power from the Spirit of God. If we walk by that power we can walk differently, we can say no to sin, we can overcome the bondage of self and the desires of our old ways. And that freedom is a blessing and benefit for us, but the ultimate purpose is so that our lives under the control of the Spirit become a witness for Jesus.
So much of our culture is a struggle to be seen and heard. We don't want to be invisible. But we would do well to be transparent, so that when people see us, they don't see us as much as see the life of Jesus in us and what the Spirit can do to restore and transform lives. Robin Williams once said that when he got sober he realized he was still the same [expletive]. He just had fewer dents in his car. Let us not be like that. Let us be so submitted to the Spirit that our mundane moments show the glory of God as much as the miracles.
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