Turn My Will Over to God – The Third Step in Recovery
Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
You know, I thought Step 3 would be easy for me because I know God. However, when it came to eating, I took my will back over and over again. The food cravings and the obsession were just too much for me to handle. As a result, the only way I could control my food intake was to diet. But, another diet was not what I needed.
What I so desperately needed was a structured way of living that not only included eating healthy, but accountability, self-care, and a deeper connection with God and others.
Step 3 not only encompasses turning my will over to God regarding my food, it includes all areas of my life. Food was the catalyst, for me, to surrender to God because I definitely didn’t have the answer to my problem with eating addictively. When God saw that I gave up on diets and felt depressed and defeated, that’s when He stepped in and showed me that there was a solution. However, it required giving up my will and turning it over to Him.
Daily Decision
Turning my will over is a daily decision, and sometimes a moment by moment decision. It’s certainly not a one-time event. From the time I wake up in the morning, until the time my head hits my pillow at night, is when I’m actively making the choice to either surrender or not. Admittedly, there are times when I don’t want to surrender because I want to be able to eat anything I want. Been there, done that! No more!
When I’ve taken back my will, and started back eating flour and sugar, it gave me a sugar high that actually scared me. My body reacted in a way that let me know that I can’t handle these substances. The addictiveness of it will send me back into eating out of control.
As I look back at my diet history, I see that dieting was a form of control. If I just stick to this diet, I can lose weight and be in a slim body. This was a way to control both my food and my weight. Of course, I didn’t think about when the diet ended, and the weight crept back on.
Step 3 pointed me back to God and required me to surrender everything to Him. One of the tools in my 12-Step program is to have quiet time with God. My prayer and meditation time with God became a priority. This connection time with God starts my day and helps me to surrender to His will for me each day.
Since I’ve eliminated flour, sugar, and processed foods from my food plan, I’ve had to deal with my feelings instead of turning to food to cope with them. By the grace of God, I no longer use food as a drug to fix my pain, frustration, boredom, and loneliness.
To continue to abstain from flour, sugar, and processed foods, I must decide, daily, to surrender my will to God. I have surrendered to the fact that this is what God has allowed in my life. This is my thorn in the flesh. Like the apostle Paul, he was afflicted with some type of condition which the bible doesn’t specify. He prayed three times, asking God to remove the affliction. However, God, in His wisdom, essentially told Paul that His grace was sufficient. God was not going to take away his affliction.
“But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2 Cor. 12:9)
I’ve prayed for years that God would take away my helplessness over food. But frankly, I’ve concluded that it is His business if He chooses to take away my food addiction. However, I know this for sure, that my food addiction always leads me back to Him.
Cynthia
