Daily
Reflections reading November 5th
The Quality Of Faith
This.
. . has to do with the quality of faith. . . . In no deep or meaningful sense
had we ever taken stock of ourselves. . . . We had not even prayed rightly. We had
always said, “Grant me my wishes” instead of “Thy will be done.” TWELVE STEPS
AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p.32
God
does not grant me material possessions, take away my suffering, or spare me
from disasters, but He does give me a good life, the ability to cope, and peace
of mind. My prayers are simple: first, they express my gratitude for the good
things in my life, regardless of how hard I have to search for them; and
second, I ask only for the strength and the wisdom to do His will. He answers
with solutions to my problems, sustaining my ability to live through daily
frustrations with a serenity I did not believe existed, and with the strength
to practice the principles of A.A. in all of my everyday affairs.
© Alcoholics Anonymous World Services
My thoughts
on November 5th Reading
I needed to find that power greater than myself the idea of
a Higher Power who actually cared for me was just not in my belief system, I
needed that starting place the idea of simply making a decision to turn over my
life to this higher power
At first this was the group I met at the meetings, they all
seemed to have this elusive faith I was trying to find, they showed me the way
to turn my life and will over to the care of the God they all knew and who was
all loving and forgiven
I started to give this Higher Power lip service, it took
time and a lot of honesty and humility to even start to have a little faith,
God did not want perfect faith from me, only a willingness to try to do my part
the trusting in some thing I could not see nor at that time feel
Faith is knowing what is beyond my knowledge and seeing what
is beyond my sight, faith is a feeling we can acquire by practicing and seeing
the wonders God has preformed, I wanted to know how to work the program, fear
would stop me in my tracks every time
I found the faith to over come the fears, I had to look at
my own life in a different light, when there are no signs and all is darkness
like my past that's when faith is needed, I now have the faith God is putting
my life back together, only if I keep working the program
Being grateful is to accept all my gifts as well as my faults
faith helps me do this, with my faith and an attitude of gratitude anything is possible
for me, first thing I learned in recovery is I am not God but it took a lot to
see He really did exist
Going about Gods business going along with His plans for me
is not an issue today, I have a fantastic Relationship with God, I have faith
and I am one with Him most days, but I had a big issue with God in the
beginning of my recovery, I did not want Him in my life
The God of my understanding was a very vengeful, angry, God,
who I feared very much, I thank the founders for realizing this gave us a
choice of our own higher power, I had to come to believe in this wonderful God
of AA who forgave me and saved my life
What got me here was when He intervened with my plan to end
my life, it was very ignorant to try to take my life because of all the
mistakes of my past, and I made many mistakes and had harmed many people when
out there drinking
God knew how much it hurt me to keep reliving those feeling
of my past, drinking stopped the feelings for a while, but even that was not
working in the end, He gave me this chance to do the right action and start
over feeling my feelings
He gave me the hope and strength to begin feeling and change
my life around, this was hard because I had to feel the pain, guilt, and
remorse of my past, I had to feel that pain to have any chance to learn how to
live life with out booze
All the tools I needed were in the big book and the twelve step
and twelve traditions, with the help of the people in this fellowship I found
the strength to take the action to change, I could now see how my attitudes
affected others in my life and learned the truth about myself
I made amends to friends and family, I was truly sorry that
I had hurt them, I had to turn to God to learn how to find that forgiveness for
myself, after all the others that I hurt had forgiven, me God had forgiven, me
who did I think I was not to accept God's forgiveness
God Bless Al
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