March 1: Choose Today
You’ve admitted the problem. You’ve come to believe God can help. Now what?
“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
Joshua was old. He’d led Israel into the promised land, and now he gathered the people one last time. He reminded them of everything God had done. Then he put a choice in front of them. Choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
He didn’t let them drift. He asked for a decision.
Step Three, as printed in 1939, reads: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” It’s the one real decision in the steps. Everything that comes after is how that decision gets carried out.
January was about seeing the problem honestly. February was about coming to believe there’s an answer. March is about choosing that answer. Not just agreeing with it in principle, but deciding to live by it.
That can feel huge. Turning your whole life over to God sounds like more than you can manage. But look at Joshua’s words again. Choose this day. Not forever, all at once. Today. Recovery has always worked one day at a time, and Step Three does too. You make the decision, and then you make it again tomorrow.
It also helps to know what’s being turned over. Your will is your thinking: your plans, your schemes, your ideas about how things should go. Your life is your actions: what you actually do each day. Step Three is deciding to let God guide both.
You don’t have to feel ready. Many people make this decision with shaking hands. What matters is that you make it honestly, and then follow it with action. A decision that never leads to doing anything isn’t much of a decision.
Jimmy and Sarah in the Steps & Scripture app can walk you through Step Three, and through the steps that follow it.
One thing today
Read Step Three out loud, slowly. Then tell one person in your program that you’re starting it this month.
A prayer
God, I’ve been running my own life, and it hasn’t gone well. I’m choosing today to turn my thinking and my actions over to You. Help me mean it, and help me do it again tomorrow.
This month: Step Three.
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