obedience

there are tons of places where the Bible tells us that obedience in the christian faith is paramount. "obedience is better than sacrifice", "if you love me, obey my commandments", "Jesus learned obedience by the things he suffered".
Usually, when you're a kid, you learn to obey because of the consequences of disobeying. You'd get spanked or grounded, or something like that. Because you feared the consequence, you did what you were told. God still works the same way when we're adults, but the consequences don't seem nearly as bad or as obvious as being sent to your room for the weekend. A relationship may be wounded, or bad habits set into motion that will cause major calamity years down the road, or you may just slowly lose your ability to hear God's voice very well. We learn to weasel out of what God asks of us by justifying it any number of ways. "he didn't mean that I have to totally give that up", "I'm trying at least, that's the part that matters".
I used to think that way. It didn't really make sense, but I took comfort what I had been taught - God knew that I wanted to obey him, and so I tried - I would get points for effort. But then why couldn't I ever succeed? Was I not trying hard enough? Did I not really want to obey God? I guess I figured that I would eventually get there if I tried for long enough - you only fail when you stop trying, blah blah blah. Now I think I have a different point of view.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book called The Cost of Discipleship. I think what I've really been working on the most from it is the idea that most American Christians have this mindset of discipleship on their own terms. "I can decide how to follow Christ, and to where he is going to lead me, and I can make sure that I'll get there." It's a very self-sufficient situation. But that's not what Jesus had in mind when he called his disciples. The idea of salvation is that Jesus did something we could not. And it continues past that point. If we would be able to live Christ-centered lives through our own strength and abilities, how Christ-centered would they really be?
I realized this past week how very determined I am to do certain things in my own power, but that I kinda suck at it. Since the holidays are not too far behind us, we've had people bringing to work the remains of their candy and cookies and every sweet imaginable. I have tried all week long to resist and not gorge myself on these things, especially since I am not back into a normal workout routine. I failed miserably every single day. Until one day, I really got it - I was trying this on my own. I was being disobedient to God by allowing my own sweet tooth to control my behavior, and I wasn't able to fix it alone. So one morning, I prayed that God would help me obey him and not have any candy at all. I barely had any urges whatsoever to even touch the candy, look at it, long for it. It didn't interest me at all. I kept thinking that it should be harder, but then I was very thankful that it was not. It's sort of humiliating, but it's kinda cool - my God wants to help me not eat candy. And I need his help to not eat candy because I would gain 50lbs if I keep trying this on my own.
There's nothing like a good reminder of how absolutely and entirely weak I am all by myself.