Step 3 - Decision Time

Step #3 - "Made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."


Question:  Three frogs sit on a log.  One of them decides to jump off.  How many frogs remain on the log?
Answer:  Three.  Just because one frog decides to jump, doesn't mean he actually takes the leap.


Step 3 requires us to relinquish control of our lives to God...?  YIKES!   We've spent our entire existence learning the art of self preservation, building a protective shell, looking out for #1, and relying on ourselves because nobody else was willing to step up and take responsibility for our wellbeing.   The prospect of releasing control over to God - an entity that cannot be seen, touched, or heard - defies every every survival instinct we possess.   Trust me when I say, this step took some thought on my part.


When the opportunity to work Step #3 presented itself to me, two things popped to mind... 


1.  Years earlier I made a conscious decision to walk away from God.  I had dug my hole, deep into darkness and addiction.  This may sound strange, but I distinctly remember having a conversation with God about it.  Now, understand, it was not an audible exchange, rather, a very real spiritual back-and-forth of ideas between the Creator and myself.   During this conversation, God said to me, "You are walking in darkness.  I cannot dwell in darkness.  If you choose to continue on this path, you will have to walk alone."
     "Walk alone?" I thought. "Billions of people walk alone every day all over the world.  How hard could it be?"  A question soon to be answered.
     I made a hasty discovery... yes, billions of people walk alone, without the light of God, every day.  This is true.  It also happens to be true that billions of people lead lonely, pain-filled, miserable lives without hope of reprieve.  For the first time in my life I felt totally alone and vulnerable.  The only difference between those billions of people and me was I knew there was a solution.  I had once known the safety of God's companionship and willing gave it up.  My eventual return to the comfort of His care was inevitable.


2.  My life was falling apart in direct proportion to the decisions I had made.  I was miserable and it was my best thinking that got me there.  Left to my own devices, I had managed to entirely dismantle any hope of a joyous and productive life.  The time had come for me to relinquish control of my destiny to someone with a better grip on reality than I.


In short, my very survival was at stake.  The time had come for me to admit that something had to CHANGE.


Change is a scary thing.  Nobody likes change.  Human nature dictates patterns of behavior that form the comfortable inseam of our day-to-day lives.  These patterns are commonly known as "habits."  We spend our entire lives developing a complex web of habits grounded in the hypothesis that our lives will follow easy and predictable patterns, so long as we stay the course and do not deviate.  We inherently understand that disruption of said patterns will assuredly result in the need for decision making and complex thought process.  In other words, CHANGE = WORK (yuck!).  However, if our life isn't working, we must consider instituting change.  Or, CHANGE > WORK (change is greater than work).  But don't sweat it.  We're just deciding to do the work at this point, not actually doing it (yet). Making that "decision" is what Step #3 is all about.  


Step #3 is an "decision" step, not an "action" step.  We're not jumping off the log, just making the decision (Step 3) to jump.   The actual plunge will follow in short order (Steps 4-12).