How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? (Galatians 3:3)

Thus started one more journey to the asylum for Jim. Here was the threat of commitment, the loss of family and position, to say nothing of that intense mental and physical suffering which drinking always caused him. He had much knowledge about himself as an alcoholic. Yet all reasons for not drinking were easily pushed aside in favor of the foolish idea that he could take whiskey if only he mixed it with milk!

How foolish can we be?
Foolish enough to fool ourselves
when we know
without a doubt
when we did our best
for years upon years
we fell on our faces
before
and nothing has changed
if nothing has changed
and when we play god
we end up
face down,
for nothing has changed.

God, we knew what we did
when we turned our lives over
and, truth be told
we still know.
Forgive our foolishness
and help us let go
when we surrender
this time.