Daily
Reflections reading December 7th
True
ambition is not what we thought is was. True ambition is the deep desire to
live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE
TRADITIONS, p. 124-125
During
my drinking years, my one and only concern was to have my fellow man think
highly of me. My ambition in everything I did was to have the power to be at
the top. My inner self kept telling me something else but I couldn’t accept it.
I didn’t even allow myself to realize that I wore a mask continually. Finally,
when the mask came off and I cried out to the only God I could conceive, the
Fellowship of A.A., my group and the Twelve Steps were there. I learned how to
change resentments into acceptance, fear into hope and anger into love. I have
learned also, through loving without undo expectations, through sharing my
concerns and caring for my fellow man, that each day can be joyous and
fruitful. I begin and end my day with thanks to God, who has so generously shed
His grace on me.
© Alcoholics Anonymous World Services
My
thoughts on December 7th Reading
The Twelfth Step it is where we find true ambition, where we
turn towards others to help them find recovery, thru working the steps into
their lives, like we have worked these steps in to our own lives the twelfth
step is practicing all the steps and given away what we have learned
How we faced our troubles and walked thru the fears of our
pasts now we can show other how to do this working the Twelfth Step is really
talking about the kind of love that has no price tag on it, who could put a
price on seeing the joy of another person
When they see the light at the end of the tunnel finding
hope in the fellowship and finding the God of there understanding this is
priceless, for me a spiritual awakening is the awareness that I was not God and
that God will help me if I let Him, His unconditional love for us all is what
gave me the hope to become the person I am today
A new state of consciousness is the grace of God coming into
my life, His elegance beauty and love the generosity of His spirit, given me
the capacity to tolerate, love and forgive people, for harms done this grace is
a gift of God to all
The love mercy forgiveness and goodwill freely given to us
by the God of our understanding, our manner of making ready to receive this
gift lies in the practice of the Twelve Steps in our program.
This is just about anything we do, like just being there for
the new comer
With our had out to welcome them to recovery, or to speak at
a meeting trying to share or own experiences strengths and hopes to carry
A.A.'s message, or we can take on the tasks of our group being coffee maker, secretary,
or treasurer, become a GSR for our group
Get active in all the affairs of AA as a whole, this list
can go on and on, bottom line is anything we do for AA is twelve step work the
biggest problem I have had with this work, is trying so hard to carry the
message, I some time start to carry the mess
I want to fix people wanting them to do it my way, this just
leads to dissepiments for me and more misery for the person I tried to help,
after all my way did not work for me, why should I think my way will work for
others,
Pride and ego can easily get in the way, trying to force
feed this program just does not work for any of us, the steps are what lead us
all into a new way of life, by letting go of our old self-seeking we find
ourselves in a new place
We have to put the steps into practice always watching out
for our defects and shortcoming to stay in check, practicing them in all are life’s
situations will safe guard us against our old inflated egos and the feeling of
being superior over others
This is where my faith and trust in God can keep me in the
right frame of mind to face all the situations that come up in my life being
sober does not mean we are free from life’s experiences we all have calamity
and pain in our lives
We lose loved ones and need to grieve for them we watch some
travel down the same road we did sometimes we have to watch them slowly killing
themselves but a drink would not change anything that life brings on and prayer
will get us thru anything we are never alone again
For me with out the help of God's grace, I could not handle
problems of life I could not face up to such problems like changing me and my
attitudes towards people, places, and things, I had to give up being the ruler
of the universe king of my domain
Only thru growing spiritually could I ever see it was me who
need to change not others in my life with out my growing spiritually I would
not have any life or time for anything else, I would be to busy drinking to care,
I needed an honest effort to practice these principles in all my affairs
Please feel free to mail
suggestions or comments