What's Your Struggle

We all have struggles.  There are issues in our lives that we battle with continuously. And even if we are doing well right now, that doesn't mean that the battle is over.  It's just in a lull, sort of a cease fire or a temporary truce.

Of course there are the problems, such as addictions, that derail life completely and beg for some action.  But what I'm thinking of are those nagging issues that interfere with our quality of life.  We feel like we can handle this through force of will or maybe a little bit of good luck.  But in a lot of ways we are no more able to conquer these problems than we are able to control the weather.

We think that our particular problem is not one worthy of bothering God over.  We can take care of this one on our own.  A workaholic thinks that soon things will settle down at work, and then more time with the family.  Compulsive eaters will correct their diets right after the holidays, the compulsive gambler thinks after the one big score.  We think that the solution is in our power and right around the corner, but we've been thinking that for a long time.

What ever is in our lives that separates us from our relationships with family and more importantly God, is a problem.  We have been around a lot of corners and all we seem to find is another corner up ahead.  And let's face it, some of these problems are hard because our society celebrates much of it.  Working hard is a good thing.  We celebrate with excess rich food, put extra brown sugar on the sweet potatoes please.  We like new things and advertisers pummel us regularly.

Some problems upset life so dramatically that something has to be done, but for others, the fall is so gradual that we don't even know that we're falling.

The 12 step programs have it right.  Step 3 is turn our lives and will over to the care of God.  The solution is there.  It's not that we're that strong, He is.