Surrender was not even part of my vocabulary when in the madness
Step 3 states: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. I don’t remember turning much over to anyone or anything before coming into the AA Program, let alone surrendering to anything either.
It just wasn’t done! How could this be an admirable thing? How could any good at all come from it?
I must step back a few and say that I also had no ‘real’ God in my thoughts. I had no religious or spiritual training or real experience that I cared to remember. To give something up or surrender it was absolutely unthinkable!
Then the fabulous Program of AA threw me what came to be a life preserver in the form of Spiritual teachings. I learned that we are all born into this human experience as Spiritual Beings. The main difference between people comes from God creating us and then giving us free will.
Since we were born as Spiritual Beings, we ARE spiritual beings. We always will be spiritual beings. We will never be more or less spiritual. Spirituality does not make people bad. Free will does!
Emmet Fox, who was the Spiritual Advisor to Bill W. and to the early AAs, said in his pamphlet The Golden Key, “We lose nothing in surrendering to God, and gain everything we could possibly imagine, plus more.”
This was my introduction to the knowledge that surrender may not always be a bad thing. So, when we consider what we are saying in Step 3, we are surrendering to our God when we turn our wills and lives over to Him.
Reverend Stephanie Sorensen, of the Flint Life Enrichment Center, spoke recently. “In this relative world of duality and opposites, winning not only creates winners, but it also creates losers. We can’t have one without the other because winning is a competitive thing. When we win in this world we feel good about ourselves, and we may even brag a little. When we lose we often feel bad about ourselves, and may complain a lot! Feeling like a winner creates confidence that Life is on our side. Feeling like a loser creates self-doubt, and often self-pity because we’re convinced that life is against us.”
She goes on to say “We read in the Book of Romans, ‘What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?’ How we respond to people, conditions, situations, and events in our life is our choice. And it is the choice we make that works for us or against us.”
“We can choose to respond with trust that if God is for us we have all we need in every moment to get us through with flying colors. Or we can choose to respond with fear. Convinced that there is some power that is opposing our good and keeping what we need from us.” More from Reverend Stephanie.
Since I didn’t drink or drug today, I now have choices. I choose to use the shortened version of the 3rd Step at every crossroads in my life by saying simply “God, Help me.” Then I get out of the way and let him.
It has worked for me for 45+ years now and can and will for you. “How” you may ask? Just work your program 24/7/365 and step back and enjoy the results! Thank you, God!
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