Let Go. . . of the Twelve Steps, the Let God Bless You

"Let Go and Let God" -- almost every AA meeting has this cliche clutching the walls and binding the minds of selected members.

Let Go and Let God  - - I loved the sound of this statement.

Just let go, and everything will be just fine.

The problem for me, along with another man in an AA meeting which I had attended, was that I just sat and did nothing, and nothing happened in my life.

This piece of advice is the most annoying and distorted, misconstrued and contorted that I remember from the meetings.

How does "God" do anything?

What am I supposed to do, exactly? These questions bounced through my mind constantly. The doubt and fear which would push me to do nothing, then to do something, nearly brought me to mad wranglings.

The Holy Spirit provides a better way:

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

"And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

God places His laws in our hearts and minds, so that He can lead us from within by the power of His Holy Spirit:

"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. 18But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." (Galatians 5: 16-18)

The Twelve Steps, like any other system of merit  or achievement, will frustrate the work of God's graceful Spirit in our lives.

How can we let go when we are expected to work Twelve Steps, a "program of action" which creates a conundrum of inaction or incapacity, with contradictions confusing and abounding.

He empowers us from within. When we rest in our identity in Christ, that He had done all things for us, from saving us from death, hell and the grave, to promoting us seated in heavenly places in Christ, this grace then quickens us from within, that we may do all things through Christ, who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13), for God the Father promises us all things in Him (Romans 8: 31-32)

Instead of working the Twelve Steps, every believer should let go of the Twelve Steps, and rest in the growing grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.