Once again, I remind all that this is a very simple program for very complicated folks. Many, such as I, came into the AA Program not really knowing what or if to believe! My prayers were mostly “foxhole prayers” of “Get me out of this and I will never do it again.” I didn’t even know, for sure, What or Who I was praying to. Only that it was usually a begging, pleading demand for peace. Or to be relieved of some type of pain. AA taught me how to actually have effective prayer.
Step 11 tells us what to pray for. The step does not advise us to plead for a laundry list of people, places, or things. Only “… praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.” A quick paraphrase of this is to just do the next right thing. Seeing this made my prayers a lot shorter. They were much more to the point. This simplicity is a beginning for having effective prayer.
AA has a foundation of Spirituality. New Thought Spirituality that Bill W. learned from Emmet Fox PhD led the way. Dr. Fox was one of the New Thought pioneers in the USA. In fact, Dr. Fox wrote “The Sermon On The Mount,” which was used as AAs first Big Book. This was before Bill W. wrote the one that we are all familiar with. Bill W. incorporated many of the teachings of Dr. Fox into the entire AA Program. Many of the early AAs attended Dr. Fox’s talks in New York City while at the same time attending early AA meetings. One of the standout ideas of Dr. Fox that I remembered from my early AA days was “Every thought is a prayer.” This thought is both empowering and frightful to some. Bottom line, though, is it is effective prayer.
Since only the first half of the 1st Step of AA mentions alcohol, all of the rest concern our thinking. How has it helped me? I now am very conscious of even my thoughts on a regular basis. When I change my thinking, I change my life. EVERY action is preceded by a thought. And this swings back to “every thought is a prayer.”
So, what is the answer to the thought in today’s topic regarding effective prayer? It is to continually monitor your thoughts so you can continually do the next right thing. When you work your program in this way you will KNOW if you are doing the next right thing. How? When working your program the best that you can, if it FEELS right it IS right! If it doesn’t FEEL right, STOP and reconsider. Simple as that. Simple but not always easy. But even this improves as it is practiced. God bless you!
Please let us know what you think. We can be reached at Spiritualityandrecoveyr@gmail.com or 810-965-6140 usually within hours and many times instantly.
Please come join us at our AA Zoom meeting. It is every Monday through Friday, 3:00 PM EST, including holidays. Meeting ID is 6035280704. Password 399778. It is simple to locate the blogs and Facebook pages. Simply search #spiritualityandrecovery For the podcasts, just go to https://anchor.fm/james-b-boylan
