Step Eleven: "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."
It works - it really does. We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined. But this is not all. There is action and more action. "Faith without works is dead." The next chapter is entirely devoted to Step Twelve.
So I love this step. It asks me to chat with my favorite buddy / friend / Father. But first I must disciple myself to do this. Discipline is not a hard or mean or difficult thing. It pays great dividends. I look at it like this “either I discipline myself from within or I will get disciplined from without.” If I know the speed limit is 65, I have two choices, either to obey the speed limit (discipline from within) or the police will pull me over and give me a ticket (discipline from without). It follows though the whole of my living. It gives me the greatest freedom, knowing I have nothing to fear (a great BIG deal in my Life) for I am doing the right thing. When I drank I was always afraid of something (real or imagined). This step (which I use throughout the day) keeps me from having the fear of not doing what I know I should do.
When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.
Doing this, in the evening before bed, allows me to see my day for what it really was, and not what I might have imagined it to be. Now honestly I cannot think of a single day in my life where I was kind and loving toward all. Not that I am a jerk to everyone, I am normally a nice guy, but it is hard to be kind and loving to someone who cuts me off in traffic or is a living example that their family tree has no branches. But today I can look over my day and see if I was able to tolerate that behavior and not live in the retaliation mode. I didn’t chase anyone down and show them my talents in being an ass. It is a time of reflection, and when I reflect, it usually turns into a gratitude session. Being grateful to the things my God has put in my life, of the many gifts I have been given and the blessings that make my life worth living.
Now there are a great number of good prayers and readings out in the world, so I am not going to get into that here and now but the important thing for me is I have some that kind of force me in, a pleasant way, to look at God and my relationship with him. I do not know when in my sobriety (early on it was) when I stopped talking to myself and starting talking with God (and no I don’t hear voices, lol) but it has turned into a great joy in my life to chat with God and laugh at my silly daily plans for life. Whenever I look at it, I am always surprised with God wanting what’s best for me and me wanting to settle for good enough.. lol… ah life.
On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorce d from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life will be placed o n a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.
Like I have written about, I am not a morning person especially before the morning coffee and cigarette. So what I do is get my coffee and cigarette, my morning reading, relax (yes my mind can go a hundred miles an hour at 5 a.m.) and just read and think a little about what I have read and my life. I ask my Friend to keep an eye out for me and to let me know where I can be of use. Nothing drastic or in depth, just let me how I can help. Seems to work nicely for it calms my mind and keeps me reminded of what’s really important in life.
All this does is allow me to live a more relaxed, less stressful life, for I am not producing disharmony or anger, and that frees up a lot of energy I would have been using in worry and fear. My God is a pretty good guy. He knows I am trying and so in the grand scheme of things he cuts me some slack. He still is not going to do for me what I can do for myself, but he makes it easier for me to accomplish whatever is at hand.
No comments:
Post a Comment