Ponderings on Faith

Ponderings on Faith

            I like to ponder on things over coffee and cigarettes.  Some of the things I like to ponder on are faith, prayer, belief, actions and gratitude.  I was raised by my parents with a set of beliefs.  Very good beliefs, and for many years I believed that I had lived up to them.  But through the course of sobriety I had to look at them, look at where I had fallen short of them, and then look at why.  Now I am a pretty normal guy, and I don’t like to look at my failings as a person, let alone as a man, so if I had to do this, there must have been a pretty good reason as to why. The reason is unless I look at it, my chances of any real; long lasting sobriety is slim to none.  I cannot continue to relive the mistakes of the past or set myself up for failure.  A definition of insanity being “doing the same things over and over again expecting different results”.  So I need to look, ponder, reflect, bounce off my sponsor, and if need be, change my actions to reflect my belief.

            For as I have said I am a pretty simple guy and this is my take on it.  My actions are direct reflections of my beliefs. If I lie, then what my actions are saying is that I believe it is ok to lie.  And if I believe it is ok, then how can I get upset when someone lies to me?   I keep it just that simple, and no, I do not believe it is ok to lie.  It is a matter of making sure my house is in order. For when I drank I was a great one for “do as I say, not as I do”, it was a lot easier than living up to the moral code I thought I had.

            Now the pondering part of it:  I believe that gratitude is an action.  If I am grateful for my job, then I should show up on time, dressed appropriately, ready to work.  If I am grateful for my car, then I should keep it clean and in good working order.  That is pretty simple.  Now like I mentioned: if gratitude is an action, and action is direct reflection of my belief, if I pray to be a good man, a good father, a good friend, and a good person trying to do the next right thing, then the actions I take, should be that of a good person. So if I pray to be patient, then my belief is that patience is a good thing, then the action I should take is to be patient, which, when I am being patient, then I am also being grateful for the gift of patience, which I did not have without His help (as based on my previous actions, in my drinking life), which leads me to faith, not only in patience, but in the process by which patience was obtained, prayer, belief, action, gratitude and lastly faith.  The faith coming as a result of seeing how being patient was beneficial in my daily life, and that if I take this action, this what the result will be.

            So that is how my faith in this God of my understanding has developed. Through using the process I just described in all aspects of my life, I end up by default developing a faith in the God of my understanding. It is through seeing the results of these different actions I have taken, that I did not believe to be useful or needed, but I took as a result of the instructions of others (sponsor, Big Book etc.) because the actions I was use to taking (my own warped ideas) didn’t work.  When I look and ponder on these results, I can see that my life has gotten better and that I enjoy the person I am becoming.  More importantly, it adds depth to this faith in my God that allows me to take actions based on this faith, not necessarily on the known facts.  This is a growing thought process so I am pretty sure more to follow.

            I like to ponder so I will soon post some more ponderings.