Today I want to address that age old question: what is God’s will for me?
It seems to me that for those of us in 12 step programs, doing God’s will seems to look something like this: “I have no clue what God’s will for me is, but I’m just going to do the next indicated right thing, go to meetings, call my sponsor and work the steps.” Which is a very good beginning.
But I think there is more to it than that. ...continue reading
“The eternal inquiry concerning God is an inquiry into the nature of our own being.“. Ernest Holmes, Living Without Fear
”We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found.” Alcoholics Anonymous textbook
”...enter into the inner secret communion with that great Reality, which is our Universal Self—God...” Ernest Holmes, Science of Mind textbook
When I first entered recovery, I was not religious. I never understood the concept of a God separate from me, which is what most religions teach, at least on the surface. I never cared to explore such things, instead preferring to explore the nature of this substance or that, and how it effected me. When I stopped exploring substances and began to explore the nature of God, I was very frightened.
I was frightened because I did not want to drink, and what the steps seemed to be telling me what that I had to believe in some sort of outside God in order to not drink. It wasn’t the belief in God that was bothering me. I got the concept that it was a God of my understanding. It was the belief in a God separate from me that did not make sense to me.
Today I know that belief in a God separate from me is a sort of Religion 101. It’s beginner religion. I accepted that outside God for a while, which is probably a good thing for a newcomer to do. My mind was still a dangerous neighborhood back then, and not only did I not know how to explore that unknown territory, but I was afraid to do so.
But the steps set me up to do inner exploration that I continue to this day. Back then this exploration was also a bit surface, but it was a beginning. Today, inner exploration means deep communion with God. The Great Reality is indeed deep within me. I will never forget how much fun I had when, in my research, I realized that both Bill W. and Ernest Holmes used the same phrase to describe the same thing in their writings. I do not know who got it from whom, but it is important to me to know that two wise spiritual teachers used the same phrase for the same concept.
Inner exploration is a beautiful way to live. By going within I commune with God as well as discover the nature of my own humanness. Daily I realize new insights, discover new aspects of spirit, and feel the presence of a power that feeds me with faith when I would feel fear, with peace when I would be agitated. This daily practice also is a source of no small amount of humor as the opportunities to laugh at myself are endless. This Inner Presence allows me to know the right things to do, and when to do them.
Today I am so grateful for the 10th and 11th steps. The 10th encourages me to continue that daily practice of inner exploration. The 11th encourages me to continue to explore how God works in my life. Taken together, these two steps provide a strong and unshakeable foundation for successful living.
Buy the book, A New Thought Journey through the 12 Steps here on my web site, or on Amazon
Today, I came across one of my most favorite Ernest Holmes quotes in the Science of Mind textbook: "trained thought is far more powerful than untrained, and the one who gives conscious power to his thought should be more careful what he thinks than the one who does not. The more power one gives to his thought—the more completely he believes that his thought has power—the more power will it have."
I was about 10 years into recovery when I re-discovered New Thought, something I had been briefly exposed to when I was a kid. I was on a search on behalf of the 11th step, because where I was at in my life was not satisfactory to me.
This concept of training my thinking was appealing to me, because at the time my mind was a very dangerous neighborhood.
Untrained, my thoughts will take me to depression and all sorts of other unpleasant places. Trained, I am happy and at peace.
How does one train their thinking? The 11th step suggests prayer and meditation. I happen to think those are great suggestions, except that I define prayer in a different way. Prayer traditionally is about a beseeching to an outside entity. I like the new thought definition better: prayer as inner knowing and then affirmation. Couple that with meditation, which is nothing more than focusing the mind, and you have a formula for living life on a firm foundation of trained thinking that leads to happiness, peace and joy.
How are you doing in training your thinking? I'd love to hear about it.
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I get asked all the time: what is God's will for me?
Indeed...this can be one of the most difficult questions to successfully answer, at least in the beginning of recovery.
On the surface, it would seem, from the traditional language, that we are asking to know the will of something outside of ourselves. Something we can't understand, can't define and really have no clue about. And yet, this Something, we are told, is what guides and shapes our lives. If we let it.
It can all be very confusing.
I know for me, in the beginning of my recovery, I looked at the language: "Sought through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God as I understood him, praying only for the knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry it out." I looked at that and thought, "my god is not a him, and he isn't separate from me, and I've learned that I can pray for all sorts of stuff besides just will and power." And I took it a step further, "I'm NEVER going to be able to stay sober!" I did not have a traditional christian upbringing. I was brought up being taught New Thought principles: that god was within me, it was everywhere present. I had just hidden it's presence by the use of drugs and alcohol.
Luckily, I had a sponsor who reassured me. She asked me what I was doing every day. I said, "I go to meetings, I call you, I'm working the steps, I read that daily meditation book." She said, "honey, you are going to be just fine. Don't worry about the language."
She was so wise! What she told me, and what I heard over and over again, was that my understanding of the principles wasn't as important as my actions: I needed to simply do the work. And so I did.
Fast forward to now, 30 years into this deal I have a pretty deep understanding of the principles. Today I know that my understanding of god is still not based in the traditional language. Today I know that back then, they had no other way to talk about spirituality other than traditional religion. Today I am grateful for New Thought, that takes the traditional language and translates it into something I can understand, that bears the weight of deep spiritual truth. Today, I know that through the process of introspection (steps 4 and 5), setting things right, communication and knowing my truth (steps 8 and 9), and prayer and meditation (steps 11), I KNOW god's will for me, because I can feel it. God's will feels right, even if there is sometimes grief (for letting go of what no longer serves) involved. Not doing god's will feels forced, like a battle, and sometimes manifests as a feeling of having a basketball in my stomach.
Would I ask someone new to recovery to automatically know that god's will is within them? No. Remember that the original textbook of AA was written for newcomers. People who have been under the influence of a substance have no clue how to do an accurate introspection of themselves. They rightly do not trust themselves or their thought processes. I say rightly because that thought process has been altered by drugs and alcohol. It takes time and work to set it right. Doing the steps the first time around is really about making amends to ourselves. There is a reason the god's will thing doesn't come up until the 11th step.
Fortunately, by then, self trust has begun to return, and the concept of an inner god that we are one with can then be considered.
So, if you are uncomfortable with the concept of god's will, consider that the solution is one of two things: do the process of working the steps at a deeper level, or.....find a new god, like it encourages us to do in the 11th step.