OKaysez

 

Made a Decision

Letting God In

I arrived in AA with all my insanity intact. I had no idea who I was or what my life was supposed to look like. Recovery has been all about my staying sober while being given the tools to get those answers.

I was told right away to turn my life over to "the God of my understanding." I was so miserable and so desperate I was willing to do that, but what did that mean? It took a long old time for me to even have a concept of God take root in my head.

In earlier blogs I have outlined my search for God has taken me down many paths - from Goddess worship to Christianity and to many other concepts in between. I went to various places of worship. I read a lot of stuff. I prayed a lot. And I tried hard to meditate, even though I was pretty crap at it for a very long time. 

And meditation, is still not my superpower. I do it and I know that I benefit from it, but my mind on most days remains more restless than not.

Alcoholics in general, and I am no exception, tend to want to know what life is all about. We want to know if there is a system of cosmic justice, and, if there really is a God, does that God truly care about us? All the spiritual books assure us of that truth. Even so, we want to KNOW for sure!

Getting that assurance is up to us. We have to do the seeking and the finding. We have to reach our own conclusions based on the results we find in our own prayers and meditative times. And we have to find it by giving AA our service to help other alcoholics find and keep sobriety.

As our Big Book states:  We try not to indulge in cynicism over the state of the nations, nor do we carry the world's troubles on our shoulders. When we see a man sinking into the mire that is alcoholism, we give him first aid and place what we have at his disposal.

I've come to the conclusion I needed every bit of that exploration to find a God of my understanding, one I can hang out with, believe in, and trust that He/She is looking out for me. I have absolute faith in that God of mine today, but it sure didn't happen overnight.

What did happen was I stayed sober and I believe my willingness to keep looking for my personal God had a big part in that. That's my story and I sticking to it, but it's not everyone's story. Some in AA never find a personal God, yet they stay sober by living the principles of our program.

I take no one's inventory about these things. The winners we're supposed to hang out with in AA are those we see living lives that are joyous, happy and free. They're the ones who smile a lot and I enjoy their company. I don't care if they have a personal God or not, or what their God looks like if they do. It's none of my business anyway. I stay busy enough trying to decipher my own God's guidance for me.

Here's what prayer alone can do for us, according to an article in the AA Grapevine: As the doubter tries the process of prayer, he should begin to add up the results. If he persists, he will almost surely find more serenity, more tolerance, less fear, and less anger. He will acquire a quiet courage, the kind that isn't tension-ridden. He can look at "failure" and "success" for what these really are. Problems and calamity will begin to mean his instruction, instead of his destruction. 

He will feel freer and saner. The idea that he may have been hypnotizing himself by auto-suggestion will become laughable.

 His sense of purpose and of direction will increase. His anxieties will commence to fade. His physical health will be likely to improve.

Wonderful and unaccountable things will start to happen. Twisted relations in his family and on the outside will improve surprisingly.

One of the things I had to learn first was about my dark side. When I could do that, when I started to see myself more clearly, I was then (with my HP's help) able to stop my darker impulses before they get me into trouble - again!

(As my first sponsor often advised me, "When in doubt - don't.")

My learning to be more honest has been a help, too. The more honest we are with others, and with ourselves, the healthier we become.

When we first start our walk along the spiritual path we often want to just stay there, up in the spiritual treetops, where it feels safe and protected. Over time we learn, while we can get a pink cloud ride anytime we really need one, our proper place is right here at ground zero helping other suffering alcoholics. 

As long as we keep on doing-that-doing God will be right there with us. 

I've come to believe our trying to carry out God's guidance as best we can is the secret of personal power. We do our best to follow the directions and then we leave the results to Him.

I spend a lot more time these days thinking about my Higher Power maybe because I expect to meet Him in person in the not too distant future. I'm trying to think, act and live (to the best of my very limited ability) as if we are already in one another's presence.

Today I know for sure that the God of my understanding knows my circumstances better than I do and always comes up with far more creative solutions to my problems than I can. My God often appears disguised in amazing "gifts," or as "luck" or "happenstance" or "coincidence." He knows all my needs, wants, strengths and weaknesses and, when I let Him, always takes me along a smoother path to a better outcome.

We have to remember the God who calls us into the unknown is right there traveling with us to make the way easier. Getting to know Him is our job, all the rest is up to Him. The key - as we learn in AA - is to pray for guidance, look for its arrival, and then to just keep it simple and be grateful.  

Can I get an Amen?