From Celebrate Recovery, by Rick Warren, based on the Beatitudes:

Realize I’m not God; I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable.

“Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor“

Jesus made all kinds of  paradoxical statements in his teachings. Why would someone be happy if they are spiritually poor?

This is the first step because you can’t really be a Christian without believing this. The entire premise of Jesus’ life was that he came and died for our sins, taking the punishment for us. Why? Because we wouldn’t make it otherwise. If I still believe I’m on top, and free from the stain of sin, then I am living a lie.

Fortunately, most people are much closer to believing this than they think – even if they’re not a Christian.

Realize I’m not God;

Most people don’t think they’re God… unless you’re a scientologist.   However, I do have the uncanny ability to think that I can control everything and everyone. That would require some God-like power, huh? When that doesn’t happen, I either hurt others or myself. Sounds like some Old Testament “God” there… It was tough to admit all those parts of Principle 1 for the very first time, but it was freeing. It’s weird how it works like that, but it’s true.

I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and my life is unmanageable.

Check out the self-help section of a bookstore. Amazon has over 90,000 titles on the subject. People know they need help. There is a void. And we (and I mean “we”, because I’m right in there) tend to think we can fill it. I read tons of self-help books as a young man and found it was the same rehashed principles (many of which were lifted from the Bible).  The difference was that I couldn’t do what the books said for any extended period of time.

What took me from knowing I needed help to knowing that only God could do it? I’m not sure, really. There was no “hitting a brick wall.” Really, I just ran out of gas in a little gray cubicle. One day I said to God, “What if I really submit – as scared as I am that you’ll do something horrible to me like send me to Africa, make me poor, or have to be nice to people I don’t like?”

And I started right there that day. I didn’t clean my life up first, or wait until I did “X” or “Y”.  This wasn’t an overnight process either. It’s still going on, actually and will continue to do so as long as I’m alive. It hasn’t always been a rosy process either.

However, it has been one filled with great joy and hope. Things I never thought I would shake were reduced to smoldering ashes on the side of my road of life, and the Bible was right. The yoke is surprisingly light. And all because I admitted defeat.

Categories: Step 1
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