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.
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"We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it." AA textbook
"Never limit your view of life by any past experience." Ernest Holmes
Statements such as these teach us that we should not base our current lives on what happened in the past.
It is tempting, I know, to look at something that happened in the past and tell ourselves that we will never do THAT again, because look what happened!
If we do so, we limit our future.
What if instead we looked at the events of the past as stepping stones to our next greatest and highest good?
All those shitty things that happened are not something to be ashamed of. Shame and guilt only keeps us in the problem. Fear and attempts to prevent it from happening again only keep us in the problem.
Instead, try to view it from a different perspective. If we look at those things as necessary for our greatest good, then we can thank them, do our grief and forgiveness work, and move on. This is why this particular promise is stated after completion of the 10th step in the textbook. There is work to be done before we can stop blaming ourselves for past events.
In New Thought, we are taught that God is everywhere present, all good, all the time. This means not that we should put our heads in the sand and declare that all that bad stuff was really good. It means that we take a look at it and glean the nuggets of wisdom from them; therein lies the good.
So...we take a good look at our past, without shame and blame and condemnation, and use it to move into our greatest good.
How has your past served you? I would love to hear your thoughts.
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I love the way the steps are set up. There is an order to them that makes it easy, for me at least, to move from victim to empowerment.
I know that it is common to hear, in 12 step meetings, that we must continually acknowledge our powerlessness. In all my research of the steps, and in my personal experience of 29 years of incorporating them into my life, I have failed to find any evidence that advocates powerlessness as a way of life. Instead, I find much evidence that says powerlessness is like a doorway into recovery. Powerlessness is for beginners.
In a way, much of life is like this: when we first encounter a new concept, a new way of living, a new way of being, we must be open to possibilities, even though the unknown is sometimes much scarier than the known, as unsatisfactory as the known may be. But if we admit to not liking the way things are, and to acknowledging that there must be a better way, then we somehow open ourselves up. Powerlessness is that doorway. Yes, we are in a powerless place in the beginning....but only in the beginning.
Once we get to step 10, we get our power back. (Actually in my personal experience it comes much sooner in the process, but I know it isn't that way for everyone) Here are the 10th step promises in the textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous:
"And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone—even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."
Jean Houston writes, in the Foreward to the Science of Mind textbook, that in thinking of God as something within us, it moves us from a state of powerlessness to one of power. "This grants us tremendous power and with it the innate responsibility to make or break our world through the extraordinary working power of our minds. Thus the practical emphasis in The Science of Mind of schooling in the power of trained thought."
So....we move from a state of powerlessness in the beginning, to one of power by the tenth step. The steps teach us to live in 10 and 11, inventories, meditation and prayer. New Thought teaches us to consistently do our spiritual practices, with introspection (inventory) and the resulting personal awareness, and meditation and affirmative prayer making for a lifestyle that does indeed move from powerlessness to being safe and protected, from victim to empowerment.
This is a lifestyle that works, and I am so grateful for it.
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