How it finally broke a Southerner’s obstinacy and destined this salesman to start A.A. With a bit of effort, I can smile at someone today, even though I’m frowning inside. Kind thoughts bless us as well as the receiver. The effects of our goodness will often be felt quickly. Giving love, attention, and respect to the individuals who share our lives and to the people who cross our paths by chance, will smooth our own passage day by day. And the repercussions are seldom immediate. During the difficult times, however, it is not uppermost in our minds that “what goes around, comes around.” It feels all too easy to be justifiably resentful or to gossip, or to ignore another’s presence. Our thoughts, deeds and words, return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy.Įach of us can attest to the truth of this passage. The game of life is a game of boomerangs. I’ll sign-up to give a meeting on honesty. Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, make me honest.Īction for the Day: I’ll list all the ways honesty will help me in recovery. We might think, “If people see the real me, what will happen?” We might be afraid of what will happen if we don’t lie or make excuses.īut telling the truth works! We find out we never did fool anyone anyway! One thing is a lot easier in life now is this-we can keep our story straight! We are learning that there’s one really good way to get along with people. If you tell the truth, you don’t need to remember anything. I will be careful not to let my own prejudices keep me from viewpoints that will help me and others. Today I’ll be open to what people are thinking and saying. This means being open to new ideas and opportunities, but also being concerned about others and taking care not to harm them. In living the program, we seek to cultivate true open-mindedness. This attitude is really the result of a desire to be accepted in spite of questionable behavior. It follow that people who are deep into selfish, compulsive behavior will appear to be open-minded and even very tolerant. We learned that what we considered open-mindedness was really indifference based on self-justification. Oddly, many of us though we were open-minded long before we ever considered a 12 Step program. Open-mindedness is a quality that helps us attract new ideas for our self-improvement. With the best of intentions, he tends to force his will into all sorts of situations and problems with the comfortable assurance that he is acting under God’s specific direction. He may have forgotten the possibility that his own wishful thinking and the human tendency to rationalize have distorted his so-called guidance. To any questioning or criticism of his actions, he instantly proffers his reliance upon prayer for guidance in all matters great or small. A man who tries to run his life rigidly by this kind of prayer, by this self-serving demand of God for replies, is a particularly disconcerting individual. We have seen A.A.’s ask with much earnestness and faith for God’s explicit guidance on matters ranging all the way from a shattering domestic or financial crisis to a minor personal fault, like tardiness. I pray that I may make this my real life’s work. I pray that I may keep growing spiritually. The material things that you need most are those that help you to attain the spiritual. Work on the material plane should be secondary to your real life’s work. From one point to the next, you have to follow the way of obedience to God’s will until finally you reach greater and greater spiritual heights. The hidden spiritual wonders are revealed to those who diligently seek this treasure. To do this you must follow the path of diligently seeking good. Your real work in life is to grow spiritually. The choice is ours each day of our lives. Or we can take the path that leads to a reasonably happy and useful life. And remember, our next drunk could be our last one. We can take the path that leads to insanity and death. We have this choice every day of our lives. My feeling set me free, where my thoughts had held me in bondage. With no effort on my part, I became aware that to love myself was good and right, as God had intended. meeting I was blessed with a feeling that it was all right to admit defeat to a disease which had nothing to do with my “moral fiber.” I knew instinctively that I was in the presence of a great love when I entered the doors of A.A. I believed it was my moral obligation to conquer my “enemy-friend.” At my first A.A. regeneration: strength arising out of complete defeat and weakness, the loss of one’s old life as a condition for finding a new one.Ī thousand beatings by Barleycorn did not encourage me to admit defeat.
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