Digging Deeper – Doing What We Couldn’t

As a recovering alcoholic, 9.5 years sober, it is imperative that I remember the condition that brought about my sobriety. In those last miserable days, when my wretchedness reached a fever pitch, God, even in tribulation, was doing for me what I couldn’t do for myself. That is, He was imparting to me a perspective that could only be reached through desperation and, in doing so, casting off every objection that my spirit would otherwise give to such a surrender.

To use a common recovery expression, this is “the gift of desperation.” It is a gift, on the one hand, because it is benevolent, securing for us our welfare, and on the other because it must come from outside ourselves. A gift is given by another. We cannot give ourselves awareness—for unawareness is, by its very nature, ignorant of itself. Nor can our perspective be altered without the external application of some force.

No, this gift is given from without, by God, who knows the remedy for our condition and the measures that must be taken to arrive at it. He does this daily in the subjectivity of our own affairs and once and for all in the Incarnation.

This is the Gospel: that God, through Christ, has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. And, what’s more, He is continually doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves—breaking chains, restoring relationships, healing infirmities, quieting anxiety, and providing things both material and immaterial.

Ask God today to do for you what you cannot do for yourself, and thank Him that He has already done it in eternity.