YOU, Dude

I'm reading Step Eleven in the 12 & 12, amused at the different colors of ink and highlighters I've used over the years, when I notice that on a couple of pages devoted to the prayer part of prayer, meditation, and self-examination, that these have caught my attention over many readings.  See if you can pick up on a thread:

"We ask for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out."

"Even so, when making specific requests, it will be well to add this qualification . . .  'if it be Thy will.' "

"They will, not mine, be done."   

". . . permit us to return to the surest help of all -  our search for God's will, not our own, in the moment of stress."

Sort of the summing up of this idea that my will is just fine until it gets in the way of God's will is the reminder that we're prone to a "self-serving demand of God for replies."

I'm getting a thread here, a theme, aren't you?    

Last couple of pages in Step Eleven: "In A.A. we have found that the actual good results of prayer are beyond question.  They are matters of knowledge and experience.  All those who have persisted have found strength not ordinarily their own.  They have wisdom beyond their usual capability.  We discover that we received guidance for our lives to just about the extent that we stop making demands upon God to give to to us on order and on our terms.  We will also report that out of every season of grief or suffering, when the hand of God seemed heavy or even unjust, new lessons for living were learned, new resources of courage were uncovered."

This is one of the messages I have finally internalized and am eager to spread: painful things are going to happen to YOU.  YOU, dude.  You are going to suffer physically, mentally, and emotionally and certainly spiritually.  The first trick is recognizing that fact but the really huge trick is understanding that everything is a lesson.  If I don't learn from my pain I'm destined to suffer pain over and over again.

Often in meetings we read a section of the Big Book called The Promises without remembering that "promises" are found all through the literature.   And here's a whopper from Step Eleven: "Perhaps one of the greatest rewards of meditation and prayer is the sense of belonging that comes to us.  We no longer live in a completely hostile world.  We are no longer lost and frightened and purposeless.  (This happens) the moment we catch even a glimpse of God's will . . . "