Prayer was not even part of my thinking when I was introduced to the Program of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Meditation was something that was just something that I read about that “those people” did with snakes coming out of baskets and a flute playing in the background.
InAA, I was quickly advised that this was not a religious program but it was deeply spiritual. I, of course, thought that they were only playing with semantics and that there was no difference.
I very quickly was able to see that there was something really different about many of these AAs that I was seeing and hearing in the meetings.
The difference was that, when I had known them when we were in the madness together, they had been just as miserable and undesirable as I was and they now were happy, joyous, and free.
They had a spark of life about them that did not exist before. I was willing to go to any lengths to get what they were showing me. They introduced me to the teachings of Emmet Fox.
Dr. Fox had been the Spiritual Advisor for Bill W. and many of the first members of the then-new AA. His Sermon on the Mount was used as the first Big Book before Bill wrote the one that we still use.
I read The Sermon on the Mount numerous times and started giving it as a gift along with the Big Book. Several of the books, letters, and essays that Dr. Fox wrote, said the same thing about prayer. “Every thought is a prayer.”
WOW! That statement smacked me upside the head and filled me with both apprehension and awe. The apprehension came when I thought of the many obscene, violent, negative thoughts that I had on a regular basis.
I wondered that if I thought of doing serious harm to someone was I praying for it to happen? And if so, what kind of rotten so and so did that make me?
This was very quickly overruled by the feeling of awe over knowing that I could pray for something or someone by just thinking and/or saying the thought in my own language, not the one filled with thees, thys, and so-called religious talk that I had learned about in my youth.
Since every thought is a prayer, I can pray meaningfully for anything just by thinking of it. This led to me talking with my Higher Power, who I now choose to call God as if He were a friend sitting next to me in the car or living room or porch.
Step 11 tells us: “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
Todo this, I talk on a regular basis to my Higher Power as mentioned above just like talking with a friend. When I meditate, I believe that this works and I get the guidance that I requested from God.
It always comes, whether or not I like the response. The thing I am comfortable about with using these tools is that I am comfortable going where I am being guided because I am doing God’s will.
If I am apprehensive at all, I stop and reassess because it just might not be His will. So, to me, the answer to the question posed in the topic: Just what is prayer, is each and every thought that I have is a prayer.
That is why it is so important for me to watch my thoughts closely and act accordingly. Very simple but not always easy! Thank you, God!
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