Admitting I’m Powerless

For we are powerless against this great horde that is coming against us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. 2 Chronicles 20:12

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable. Alcoholics Anonymous Step One

Step one of the twelve steps insists that we admit our powerlessness over alcohol (or drugs). I’ve met those who object to the twelve steps because of this one word – powerless. If you’re powerless, then you’re a victim and you can do nothing except sit back and let alcohol run and ruin your life. This, however, is not what powerless means. If we believed that we were literally powerless to do anything, there wouldn’t be 11 more steps. Powerless doesn’t mean that we can do nothing. It just means that we’ve lost the ability to control alcohol and our behavior around it. We simply don’t have the willpower to cut back like normal people.

Powerless doesn’t mean we sit back and do nothing. In fact, once we admit powerlessness, we’ll find that we have a great deal of work to do. There are 11 more steps, with some of them requiring a tremendous amount of effort. We may be powerless over alcohol, but recovery is hard labor and admitting step one is just the beginning of that labor.

Faith is a similar phenomenon, as illustrated in today’s passage. In the passage, God’s people found themselves surrounded by an overwhelming enemy horde. To practice authentic faith in God required them to admit their need. We are powerless. Being powerless though, didn’t mean they were to simply sit back and do nothing. Rather, relying on God was actually quite a lot of work. To truly rely on God, to truly practice faith, God’s people had to abandon their foreign gods and turn their face towards the one true God. This required radical action.

It’s the same for us. We may not be surrounded by hostile Moabites and Ammonites, but life is a battle that threatens, at times, to overwhelm us. Apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5). To practice authentic faith, we must admit that we need God. Admitting our powerlessness doesn’t mean we sit back and do nothing. Admitting our need, rather, means that we have a lot of work to do. Faith means abandoning our old life to turn our face towards God, following him daily.

This is a lot of work. For me, it means setting my alarm to get up early every day to read, pray, and meditate, pointing my face towards God. It means developing the discipline to keep my eyes focused in the right direction all day, every day. Faith requires that I admit my powerlessness, but powerlessness does not mean I sit back and do nothing.