There are several ways that we can best deal with the chaotic world that we live in. For us, not drinking and/or drugging is the just start. Then comes asking for help to shoulder the load from Something more powerful than ourselves. This is how we deal with EVERYTHING outside of ourselves. How and who do we ask for this help? Enter Step 3. Step 3 states: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Remember The Serenity Prayer where it tells us to know the difference in what we can change and what we can not? If it is me, I can change. If it is ANYTHING or ANYONE else we can not, including our loved ones.
If you have totally Conceived, Believed, and are using the first 2 Steps, you are ready to Achieve the 3rd Step with CBA, Conceive, Believe, Achieve. This is a step in the process of our self discovery that the more gratitude that we have the more rewards we receive. My mental loads could be likened to telephone poles. If a telephone pole were lying on the ground in front of me, I could not move it alone. A group could, if not lift it, at least roll and move it away if we choose to.
That is power! If this human power could move an obstruction like the telephone pole, just think of how our Higher Power, with unlimited love and might can and will do, if only asked. For all of my time in the madness, and also before that time, I never asked unless it was a ‘foxhole prayer’ of ‘get me out of this and I will never do it again.’ He would then either get me out of it and I would chump Him or not get me out and I would think that He had chumped me.
Steps 1 and 2 were instrumental in my discovering that there was a Higher Power with unlimited love, strength, and compassion that was ALWAYS there. I was just unable to see It. I saw It working what I thought were miracles with others in the AA Program and wanted in on It. I had not asked for help with much of anything. “I can do it myself.” As soon as I was able to ask for help from this newly found mysterious Power, I was able to understand that the ‘helping hand’ was there for me and ready, able, and willing to help. I must then remember that I was not the Higher Power. God was and is. OK, how did I do this? I discovered gratitude. As soon as I was able to be genuinely grateful for whatever I had, I got more in return. This worked EVERY time that I practiced it.
Today, I feel like blessings are chasing me around just waiting to reward me. Most of the time, the return does not come immediately or even from the one that I was addressing. I may smile at a grouch and they think about it and smile at someone else later. That is fine with me. I have a priceless life today in sobriety and hope each and everyone else can obtain the priceless life, too. If you take something that I say or do and use it to become even more Happy, Joyous, and Free than I, I love it because it will then give me something to aspire to. And the beat goes on and on and on!
ALL that I must remember is to ASK God for help and I get it. Never asked for help before? Me neither. But after surrendering to my God by saying the shortened version of the 3rd Step, “God, Help Me,” because I couldn’t handle something alone, I discovered that I became much stronger because of the immediate help. Not easy, at first, but very simple. And it works every time, as long as I simply ask and then get out of God’s way. Does “Let go, let God” sound familiar? This is what it really means. Of course, getting out of the way also means no more “directing” God. No more “God help me out of this by doing it this way.” Let it go and step back!
Reverend Stephanie Sorensen, of the Flint Life Enrichment Center, said recently that there are many spiritual practices that can help us to become more aware of our life as it’s happening so that we feel the power of being the navigator. We possess the spiritual gift of choice, and the vibrational power of our choices can create life experiences that we enjoy. We then attract others to us that we enjoy experiencing life with. How do we do this? We say “God Help Me,” get out of the way, and He does! See, a very simple program for complicated folks. As the old AA slogan goes, “Easy does it!” AND IT DOES! Bless you all!
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