I have always believed in God, even through the most horrendous experiences I had. I, like most others, have said the despairing fox hole prayers in the middle of some incomprehensible insanity that I caused and sought Gods relief to escape from. So when I walked into my first AA meeting and saw the word "God" in the 3rd step, I thought, ok, that shouldn't be a problem for me. WOW, was I wrong about that statement. I had no real idea of what the steps were asking me to do when it came to a belief in God. I'll just say a prayer, ask for help to stay sober, and go about my business, doing whatever I want. Because I said a prayer, I've got God on board, everything is as it should be. The notion that God may want something from me never crossed my mind. Ah, the arrogance and myopothy of youth. I didn't realize that sound sobriety required much more in the spiritual than I comprehended. I had to find a loving God, or design my own conception. I had to develop a relationship with this God, which required a humility that was nonexistent in my personality. I had to let this God direct and inform my actions, thoughts, and behaviors; to instill in my heart what He wanted me to do, not what I wanted; and I had to trust this God, not only with my will, but with my very life. That's a big task to accomplish; and it is through a process of positive loss and spiritual insight that comes from such loss, that it is acquired.
It is important to understand the concept of insight through loss. Humility comes from the same root word as humiliation, and human as well. They are all closely related. My humiliation can bring humility and an acceptance of my humanity. The losses I incurred were of every different kind. Some financial, some romantic, all based on a want, desire and will that didn't work out for me. Plain and simple, I didn't get what I wanted, and I had to look at why. All that loss had one thing in common, it was designed to show me a fundamental spiritual truth. They all contained powerful lessons about what I needed to change in my life in order to live more closely to the serenity they talk about. I really didn't pay much attention to whether I had serenity or not, I really didn't care. I was consumed with material and professional success, and trying to make the outside look as good as I possible. That's why I'm sober, right? To go and get. Interestingly, even when I attained that success, I either rejected it or sabotaged it. When I lost money, position, romantic relationships, and friendships I was being harshly and profoundly informed about one thing primarily, that I was living without a workable relationship with God; without acceptance or surrender. That I was driven by an over inflated ego, willfulness, unrealistic desire, self important sense of entitlement, and lack of spiritual connection or true trust in God. So because God played a secondary function in my life, all things always went badly for me. There's a statement in AA, that whatever you place in front of your sobriety, you will lose. I believe whatever you place in front of God, you will also lose. Again, even if I got what I wanted, it held no real worth or value for me. The spiritual satisfaction of living life with God as the primary was lost on me as I pushed to continue to create and adhere to my desires.
Historically, my reaction to loss was anger, rage and feeling victimized. I had no idea of life on life's terms; that shit was for you, not me; I'm special. Life was not to touch me in the way it touched you. Yet if something happened to you, I would tell you, well that's life; but that didn't apply to me. Self pity was a rampant emotion for me in those days. After each loss, I would go into an initial rage and then depression. I would come out it, shake it off, and arm myself with a new set of desires and intentions, reload my will, put my head down and charge onward, again without spiritual assistance or consciousness. I really was'nt getting it. Not necessarily hard headed or inherently willful, but deeply afraid. Though I would pray my way out of emotional extremes, I had not yet made the connection that it was my spiritual attitude where the problems lie. That God had to reside with me constantly, that I had to bring Him into the very center of my life. Like being caught on a roller coaster that you can't get off of. Rarely did I have an emotional even keel.
See I believe that God is the most easily assessable entity in my life, like oxygen; it's everywhere. All I have to do is stop and ask. Nothing more, it is really not that difficult to understand. It is difficult to do though. But to get to that place, all those things had to be removed and seen for the reality that they were. Materials hold no real value, they are just things. Nice to have, but essentially unnecessary. They have no ability to make me happy, worse yet, when they are attained and the happiness sought through them is unrealized, then a great emptiness follows, as it should. Like security, it doesn't exist either. There is none, and the striving for it makes one more insecure. Living in the moment, how hard is that? I found it extraordinarily difficult to live in the moment. Did you ever think why it is so hard? Because in the moment, there is only you, God and truth; the truth that through the now is attempting to impart an important belief to me, and I need to listen to it. Truth when seen, always requires action on that awareness. Sometimes very difficult and confrontational action is needed. One main reason why truth is avoided, because the action required is going to cause a lot of change, adjustment, discomfort, and loss of something I want. Usually a loss of some cherished mythology that I am living. Truth strips away the trivial and exposes our denial in stark terms. Reality is not easy to accept, but denial is impossible to continue to live in.
How do you find this God? Where is He? What does he want? Why me? I have had a spiritual bent to my personality throughout my life. But before I sobered up, I thought that life was meaningless, directionless, and an unbelievable painful experience to endure. A short and agonizing fluke of nature. If there was a God, well He didn't seem to be around too much. But when the gift of sobriety was freely given to me, well all those bets were off. God did exist and He had graced me with this unbelievable gift. He did care and possibly even loved me. I had to realign my thinking. The funny thing about God, He isn't lost, I am. There is no place to go to find Him, He is here residing in my heart; all I need to do is allow His presence into my consciousness. It is that simple. So simple only a child can understand it, and children do.
God, trust, workability, and allowance all sort happen together. As I began to get one of them, the others sort of tagged along, a package deal. The more conscious contact, the deeper the realizations, the better and more acceptable life became, and the better and more secure I felt. Character defects, are very hard to embrace and handle one at a time. It is much easier to center myself in God and the influence and power of those defects greatly diminish, naturally. I took beating after beating psychologically and emotionally over the years because surrender was so difficult for me to do. Eventually though, I got sick and tired of hurting myself and not getting those wonderful attributes that they talk about in AA. Surrender got easier to do when I started to realize that God wasn't going to hurt me or deceive me. The 12 Steps are not some sentence that has been thrust upon me. The Steps are designed to help me life a fuller, happier, and more productive life. That's when trust began to happen. Allowing God was one thing, trusting Him was a completely different thing. That took some real time. Pony tail Bob says it took the first 10 years to believe in God, the next 10 years to allow that belief to begin to inform his life, and the next 10 years to trust God. That's about the schedule I was on. Just the way it was.
What is it about God that is so frightening? I don't know if it is so much fear as it is the ego belief that I am god; who needs a God when I already am god. That's a persistent problem that I had for years. I have hard time with authority and I had an extremely toxic relationship with my father. Both of those got in the way finding a loving authority that I could believe in and surrender to. The real enemy of my spiritual happiness is my ego. The henchmen it dispatches into my intellect are will, desire, and want. There seems to be an endless supply of all those. But if I pay attention to my needs, they are much simpler and fewer in number. At this moment, what do I really need that I don't have? I have my daily bread, a place to live, a vehicle to transport, albeit an old vehicle; enough money to get through the month; ok that's covered. What do I have in the way of spirituality, which is the priority need. I have a workable, functional and trusting relationship with God; and I know in my heart that I am loved by whatever this entity is. I have AA, and I still go to a shitload of meetings. I have loving and caring friends, of which I am also loving and caring towards. I have a good mind and now an artistic ability to express my deepest emotions. I have the respect and friendship of my 2 brothers; and I am learning about loving and forgiving myself and others; and learning about living closer to the moment. Did I miss anything? And I would ask you, what else is there? What else matters? There is a God, and it's not me. I'm glad I finally figured that one out.
Yours in kinship,
Mike C.
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