"Letting God" testifies to the release of tension, the surrender to trust, and being at ease instead of in "dis-ease." What is offered in each day's meditation is relaxation and peace in Christ. You will be called to turn over control of your steering wheel. You will be urged to relax your power and control and open your door to the priceless gift of serenity in our Lord and Savior. You will be presented with scripture, stories, short essays, and even humor as ways to let God take over.

I have learned in forty years of experience with alcoholics and other addicts, that living the Gospel truth AND Twelve-step recovery creates a hallowed and holy life. This holiness is not sainthood but a serene state of being, achieved as cease our striving, halt our stressful efforts, and fall into the arms of our Higher Power, Jesus Christ.

"Letting God" is the key to most all experiences of sacredness and spirituality. The surrender to the divine within and without, the acknowledgment of the humanity of the Holy and the holiness of the human ls to "Let go and let God." As we allow God to be God, without trying to fix or manipulate his reality in heaven or earth, we welcome his healing love. We let love flow. We use no force, no struggle, no strain, no competition, no trying harder, no willpower. We admit and accept our weakness and God's strength. If we do not make this unconditional surrender to God, our own spirituality will lie dormant and lifeless. Our selfish will becomes our god, and we run rampant toward our own self-destruction, screaming to the end, "I can do it myself!"

But when we take that first step of surrender and admit our out-of-control powerlessness, we become open to God's own miracle in Christ. We learn how wonderful and blessed it is to receive and accept, to be vulnerable and defenseless before God. To become like softly turned soil, like good yielding dirt ready for the seed of life, is to encourage recovery to take root. We stop declaring our own independence. We become like little children; we abandon our own unmanageable control and allow love to manage and control us. When we let go and let God, we give up our natural compulsion for power, to be right, to be managing directors, to be our own masters. We release the hurt little inner child deep within each of us, starving for affection and attention, and collapse into the everlasting arms of our Savior.

I believe firmly that by surrendering to God as he is known in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and at the same time surrendering to Twelve-step recovery, we surrender to the same healing love of God. A Christian and a person in recovery are not in conflict; they are companions and friends. A recovering Christian works a program and lives a faith that produces and glorifies the same God of faith, hope and love. Going to meetings and going to church are the same pilgrim's road. When we "let God" we are already walking the "King's highway." As Christians, we know that such surrender is frightening as "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (Hebrews 10:31) But it is only "into his hands we commit our spirits" (Luke 23:46) that we may live. Recovery and salvation are the same. Our life depends on God. May these pages draw you even closer to this truth.

A. Philip Parham Easter 1987