Surrender to Win

Everyday upon awakening, I open my eyes and declare, your will today Lord not mine. I put might feet on my bedroom floor and declare your will Lord not mine. I say, "Lord I can't do it today I need your power, your strength and your ways to guide me."

There is a lot of freedom in humility to put your life into the hands of God. To acknowledge that without him my life is unmanageable. I cannot run the show. I cannot fight my way out of a wet paper bag in my own strength.

They are calling this age "The Age of Entitlement", each person doing what he thinks is best for themselves in his or her own estimate. Deferring any instruction in life. The thought is, I don't need anyone to tell me what to do, I know what is best for me, I can manage my life and develop my own way, I want to follow my own desires and that there is no God. In short they say, people don't know what is best for me and God doesn't know what is best for me, but I know what is best for me and I am going to do what I want, I deserve it.

To be vulnerable, in this year 2008, I had a great awakening. I found out that I have a problem with "anger", and by trying to control it by myself and manage it in my own strength was tearing our home apart. I would get angry, flip out and then the excuses would start: I only got a little angry, I will try and do better next time, If you wouldn't have done "blank" then I wouldn't have gotten angry and did "blank", you're being too sensitive, If she thinks this is angry I might as well get really angry, it's your fault. Then the next day I would be so embarrassed for the things I had said and done. I was acting like an adult three year old and I didn't want people to find out. I would be OK and my wife would be in shambles, and I would get angry again if she would bring it up. I knew it was a problem, and it reminded me a lot of the excuses I used to make when I was drinking. You see this is the way my life is when I try to manage it.

I surrendered, I don't know how to manage my own anger and I need help. I knew things were bad but crying out to God was not enough, because I would cry out to him and then go and do things that I had always been doing. I needed a "renewal of the mind" which came by the way of opening up to a trusted christian married couple/elders for counsel, and we shared with them. At this point I knew I had a problem, but wasn't seeing it entirely. They asked me if I thought what I was doing was wrong and I said yes, not fully knowing what I was saying yes to. I was downloading stuff on anger management from the internet (search: anger, desert fathers, orthodox). I went to seek some one-on-one counseling, still trying a little to justify my anger, but at one of these sessions I received a book on anger by Gary Chapman. This book has helped to change my life and I believe I can now see the exact nature of my wrongs. It has enlightened me.

This book taught me about surrendering to win. I now say, "I am angry (pause). Now what am I going to do about it?" And the first three steps of the AA program are like it admitting that I am powerless, that I have a problem, in my own strength I cannot manage my life on my own and that trying to do so is insane. Admitting I have a problem with "blank" and that I need help and turning my life over to God is the first answer and then seeking the solution as the second, which may involve others. I also learned from this book that it is not a sin to be angry. That anger is a natural response to indicate to me that something is wrong pushing me to take a positive solution. Be angry, yet sin not.

I find joy putting my life into the hands of God, and though it is hard, I find relief in putting my life into the hands of others. I find it better, that I don't have to know everything and that it is good to be instructed. It's to heavy to push the load by myself. That we are made to be codependent in the purest sense of the word.

I guess I just wanted to encourage you that there is freedom and joy, and that looking for help for being broken is courageous.

James 4:6 (New International Version)
6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble."

Good article:
The Beast of Anger by Fr. George Morelli
http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/MorelliAnger.php

Definition of Sobriety from the Desert Father Hesychius of Jerusalem

Sobriety is the steadfast setting up of the thought of the mind and posting it at the door of the heart, so that it sees alien thoughts as they come, those thieves and robbers, and hears what these destroyers say and do; and sees what is the image inscribed and figured in them by the demons, who are trying thus to seduce the mind by fantasy. For this work, when it is done with loving effort, reveals to us very fundamentally and clearly, by experience, the art of mental war and brings skill in it.

Why "True Sobriety"?

Truthfully I named my blog site and url only after finding out that the other names I wanted to use were already taken. Wanting to choose something that would encapsulate in a word or 2 my ideals, philosophy and burden without being too cliché. My first choices were: One Thing, One Thing I Ask, The Living Flame, Sober Living, Ceaseless Prayer and Transformation.

I chose the word "sobriety", which literally means the state of being sober. A term that, as with many, has lost it's true meaning over the days. Today it is mainly associated with abstinence from drugs and alcohol. Although I do believe the abuse of drugs and alcohol is contrary to sobriety and I will touch on this subject, I don't feel that merely abstaining from a substance is its full definition. This blog will be an attempt to rediscover what "True Sobriety" is.

The goal for this site is that it would be an encouragement for others as well as myself, into having a more accurate view of who we are in the eyes of God, which I believe is the cornerstone of sobriety, and what it means to be sober.

I now believe that this was the best pick of site names for my blog.