An Essay on Step Two
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
At almost any NFL game, you’ll see someone holding up a sign that says, “John 3:16.” (For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. [WEB]) Surely, if God loved all of us enough to give His Son to redeem us, He would love me and want to care for me. He would want to heal me.
I believed in God before I got into recovery. If you had asked me, I would have told you that He was all-powerful and loving. I would even have told you about ways that He had cared for me when I was in distress. What I didn’t understand was how much of His help I needed.
At Step Two, I came to believe that my behavior was not sane. I understood the unmanageability of my problem with the First Step. I began to grasp that I’m at the root of the problem—that I can’t fix myself but that God can. I believed He could. Not all of my friends in recovery have come the Step Two with that belief.
Some were atheists or agnostics. They were either hostile to the very idea of God or at least skeptical. However, their situation was sufficiently hopeless that they were willing to try anything. Those who worked the program and have seen what God has done for them are now believers.
Others came to the Step believing in God but with mindsets that put limits on His power. They thought there were things he couldn’t or wouldn’t do or that He didn’t do anymore. These people tell me that they had more trouble with Step Two that the atheists. They had to let go of their preconceptions and give God permission to be truly all-powerful.