Do You Give Your Power Away to Your “God”?



Do you give your power away to your “God”? Many people do. Many people still associate with a God or a Higher Power that goes back to their childhood. And often times, this “God” is a false “God” that was taught to them by well-intentioned people who held horrible theological beliefs. It’s also a “God” who has never really been on their side.

My parents taught me about God in more ways than one. Sure I heard their verbal stories about God, but I also witnessed their own actions which further illustrated their beliefs about God to me. For example, my mother told me on various occasions “I may not always know what you’re doing, but GOD KNOWS.” In other words, God was a big invisible spy.

The “God” I came to know as a child was 007 to the ump-degree, but he really wasn’t on my side. He was out to catch me—and get me—if I did something bad, or made a mistake. There were many times as a child when I also caught my mother spying on me. She was a control freak in that way. And because parents represent God in human form to us as small children, her spying reemphasized my newfound belief that God was out to get me and punish me just like my mother.

There’s little hope in recovery for someone who still has a skewed, negative childhood image of God like the one I just described. As long as your “God” isn’t 100 percent on your side, you will always be giving your person power away to that “God.” You will always feel demeaned, betrayed and abandoned by that God whenever you fail in some way. First you will demean, betray and abandon yourself if you believe in a “God” who doesn’t really love you but is simply out to get you; and then you will project all of that negativity onto your false “God” and make matters seem even more hopeless. There’s no way to trust or love a “God” who isn’t on your side.

This is why it’s so essential in recovery to build a new relationship with a new “God” for so many people. We all need a “God” who is on our side, who is there for us when we make mistakes, who loves us through all of our failures and all of our pain, and who loves us NO MATTER WHAT. We need a Higher Power who is truly HIGHER LOVE: complete, unconditional, always available Higher Love.

If we don’t have a “God” who is completely open and accepting of us, who is 100 percent Higher Love, then we will never feel redeemable and we will never succeed in transforming our self-loathing into self-love. We will always be giving our power away to a “God” who wants us to fail.

And if we are holding on to a “God” who wants us to fail, then we need to question ourselves. Are we holding on to that God because deep down we really want ourselves to fail? Are we fearful of success and of actually having happy lives? Have we so identified with our misery and victim-status that we can’t give it up? Is this why we haven’t built a new relationship with a REAL Higher Power who can help us and love us through our recovery?

If you never feel “good enough” for your “God,” then you need to get rid of that “God.” It’s a false God. If you are holding on to a “God” who isn’t 100 percent on your side, you need to examine “why” by asking yourself some tough questions. Then you need to work on getting rid of your false “God” and replacing it with the REAL one. Talk to people in your 12 Step group about their Higher Power or seek out a spiritual leader who you see has a wonderful spiritual energy about him or her.

The sooner you stop giving your power away to a God who’s out to get you, the sooner you will be on your way down the true road to recovery with Higher Love on your side!

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