If you have been in the program for even a short time, you should have noticed that your life, although maybe not looking great right now, is grudgingly seeming to be getting better.
If you have been in the program for some time, days, months, years, or decades, your life has been getting better quite regularly since starting on this new venture but seems to have hit a detour, dead end, brick wall.
The AA program and its wonderful guidelines for a better life, the 12 Steps, may seemingly not be working for you right now. This, my friends, is the time to stop whatever you are doing and run, not walk, back to the 3rd Step.
Step 3 says “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”
In Step 2, we learned that there was a Power that was greater than ourselves and that It was here to help us. The logical thing to do is to turn our will and our life over to this Higher Power for guidance and help.
When you totally and truthfully turn your will and life over to the care of the Higher Power of your understanding, you don’t have to fret, stew, or worry any more about outcomes.
This is only one of many reasons that Step 3 is so important in every facet of our lives.
When I was new to the AA Program, I was having some problems with returning bad ways of handling the simplest of problems. I questioned decisions and wondered why the extreme highs and lows returned.
My sponsors told me to figure out where I was working my program wrong. I pored over the 12 Steps, over and over. Soon, every time that I went through the Steps, the 3rd Step jumped up, big and bold.
It was at this time that I came to believe that I needed the presence and help of my Higher Power, who I have chosen to call God. I have chosen to live my life working my program 24/7/365 to the best of my ability.
Working my program is simply attempting to regularly just do the next right thing.
To accomplish this, I have since used the shortened version of the 3rd Step, simply by saying “God, help me,” every time that there is a decision to be made, no matter how small.
What has this given back to me? What is the reward or prize?
Happiness, joy, and freedom. I am surrounded by love. I make good decisions. I am free of all mind-altering substances.
The opposite of FEAR is FAITH. Hear this, know this, and you, too, will feel this throughout your body.
HOW CAN YOU HAVE THE SAME HAPPINESS, JOY, AND FREEDOM?
As you can see above, for me it came flowing when I began utilizing the shortened version of the 3rd Step, simply saying “God, help me,” and then letting Him without my direction.
It can and will work for you, too, as soon as you try it and then really believe that He will.
Ask and believe in the results. This is a very simple program for complicated folks. The more that you use it and see the positive results the easier it becomes until it seems just to be instinctual.
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