12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps….
Spiritual awakening:
The part of us as He created to know Him is birthed – we begin a life-long process of awakening, of becoming aware of spiritual truths, of the spiritual reality that hold and supports or temporal and earthly reality.
We come to know – more and more about our lives as we seek to know and act on the knowledge.
We are spirit, soul, body. Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us awakening our spirits to join with God so we can receive from the Father and from Jesus their love and direction.
New way of living with peace, love, and joy.
And Henri Nouwen writes again, “Lord, you have revealed your love to me by coming into this world as a helpless child, human in all except sin. Let me respond to this great gift of love by making your love a reality in this world. Keep me rooted in your love and let me flower into a new person transformed by the giving and receiving of your grace. Amen.”
Sums up our Twelfth Step miracle very well.
Spiritual purpose and application and progress with grace given power.
I had a client today who was struggling with an event, she called her sponsor who said, “got a bump on an old bruise!” And yes, old bruises make us vulnerable to current pain. However, over time with a spiritual awakening, the bruises fade. Promises of the Program.
God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.
Having had a spiritual awakening…. we carry the message..
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen; not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. Having had a spiritual awakening….
“So, I shall be content if I can remind myself and any who would hear that Alcoholics Anonymous is not, after all a personal success story. It is, instead, the story of our colossal human failures now converted into the happiest kind of usefulness by that divine alchemy — the living grace of God.”
Bill W. A talk in Los Angeles April 9, 1947
Are you living in the blessing of the 12th Step?
The gift of an awakened spirit – knowing, not just knowing about, God?
The gift of the joy that comes from helping another – acts of service.
We tried to carry the message to:
A good word found on a thank you card:
There is wisdom in taking the time to care.
There is wisdom in giving and wanting to share.
There is wisdom in grace and making amends.
There is wisdom in having and keeping good friends.
All in favor say aye!
Our experience, strength, and hope:
- How God changed us.
- How we found recovery.
Relational ministry of reconciliation, restoration.
Sustained commitment.
He uses caring, committed people to comfort, support and confront.
Remain teachable as to doing it His way. His teachings and promptings.
Continue to remain teachable.
Examine our motives. Motives of grace.
Bear one another’s burdens.
Confront false assumptions about self.
Paradox, the more we give, the more receive – for our lifetime.
We learn to listen and encourage.
Less and less self-centered.
From being held in bondage – powerless to change with absolute unmanageability we now live by His power and skills to manage life appropriately – a miracle.
And another truth, the more we give away what we have learned, the deeper and more life-changing and power filled our own lives become.
We come to realize that we are different and celebrate how He made us.
Consider this…
Recovery is like creating a pizza. First come the dough for the crust, the foundation for all the rest. Dough needs to be stretched and shaped. Like our relationship with our High Power. The foundation….
Then comes the sauce, cheese, meats, veggies, more cheese, and sauce. The powerful and desirable favor comes from the blending of all the unique flavors of each additional topping. All that we are doing….
The more you do in the first 18 months, the better the results. Fill your time with recovery.
Then the pizza goes into a hot oven to finish up. The challenges of living each day in world-stress. It gets very hot sometimes! All we are learning is put to the test as we stay sober….
Finally, the pizza is cut into slices to share. The goal in our 12th step is to be of service. We give away our experience, strength, and hope.
Enjoy….
Here’s a 12-Step thought by Erma Bombeck: “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I had not a single bit of talent left, and I could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’”
Practice, perseverance, persistence brings the reward.
“By perseverance the snail reached the ark.”
Charles Spurgeon
Don’t quit 5 minutes before your miracle.
Great reminder…”I am not interested in the past. I am interested in the future, for that is where I expect to spend the rest of my life.” Charles Kettering.
But staying sober in today will bring the future.
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” Pericles (495-429 B.C.) good advice from long ago…
How are you sharing?
Practice these principles in all our affairs.
Principals: from Latin meaning first, basic truth, law, rule, standard, objective, permanent universal, wisdom.
Basically, our code of conduct, how we make decisions about how we act. We are to use as basis for our reasonings and evaluations.
Principles:
- Honesty – Acceptance – what are my limits?
- Hope – Faith – Awareness – How do I know what is real?
- Spirituality – Surrender and Trust – am I lovable to the God of my understanding and to others?
- Courage – Responsibility – Who am I?
- Integrity – Willingness – Openness – How do I trust?
- Honesty – What must improve?
- Humility – Courage – What risks must I take?
- Brotherly love – Forgiveness – Commitment – How am I responsible
- Responsiveness – Justice – Freedom – What is integrity?
- Perseverance – Trust – How do I live, not knowing the outcomes?
- Spiritual awareness – Patience – Meaning – What is the purpose of my life?
- Service – Charity and Love – Generatively – How do I pass it on?
Character Defects/Shortcomings Principles
Selfish and self-seeking: interest in others:
Dishonest honest
Fear courage
Pride humility/seeking God’s will
Inconsiderate considerate
Greed giving or sharing
Lust purity
Anger calm, serenity
Envy gratefulness
Sloth action
Gluttony moderation
Impatience patience
Intolerance tolerance
Resentment forgiveness
Hate love, empathy
Harmful acts good deeds
Self-pity self-forgetfulness
Self-justification self-acceptance
Self-importance modesty
Self-condemnation self-forgiveness
Suspicion trust
Doubt faith
Covetousness charity, generosity
Disrespect respect
Practice, practice, practice: easy does it, change takes time.
- Do it when it needs done, act!
- If can’t go through it, go around it.
- If can’t solve, accept.
- If can’t today, perhaps tomorrow – one day at a time.
- Hurry doesn’t accomplish.
- Give it the time it needs.
- If don’t succeed, try again.
- Nothing is hopeless.
- Slow down, rest.
- Expect delays.
- The effort is important, not the result.
How important is it?
Only works to change us.
Do anything but go back to addiction let go, let God.
Don’t look for perfection in self or others.
Fear:
F = Frustration
E = Ego
A = Anxiety
R = Resentments
AA sayings:
- Wisdom
- First things first
- Keep it simple
- Progress not perfection
- Principles before personalities
- Spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection
- Act as if…
- Easy does it!
- Stinkin’ thinkin’
- Powerless over people, places, and things
- But for the grace of God…
Working the Steps on an Issue:
When something has become an issue, the resolution can come by practicing the principles offered in the Steps.
- Realizing that we don’t have the responsibly and therefore don’t have the power to fix, and as we continue to try/fail/try/fail our lives are now unmanageable.
- Our thinking and acting in reaction to X needs God’s help to think and act sanely.
- So, we make a decision to turn our will/desires/wants/life about <the thing> over to God to take care of. Admitting we can’t.
- Then look to see what part we played in <the thing>. What does our reactions show us about our patterns of behavior?
- Ask to talk to a trusted person about X, as we continue to discuss it with God in prayer.
- Look to see what we learned about our behavior reactions about X that reveals broken/dysfunctional patterns that need changed.
- Admitting defeat, that we can’t change ourselves. Even though X has given us an opportunity to learn more about us, only God can make the needed changes.
- Did we do harm to ourselves or others by our reaction to X?
- Admitting our wrong behavior to anyone we harmed, as well as to ourselves, and asking for forgiveness.
- What did our reaction to X uncover about our past, or our culture, or…that we need to take an inventory around? Is there more there that we need to go to God to for His care?
- And what can we ask God to show us about how we can respond differently to <the thing> in our life? We can choose to trust His way and His power to help us do differently.
- Have an attitude of gratitude about X, that we grew spiritually from the experience. Also, who can we share it with to help them with their X’s. And now we have a strategy for living successfully by using the Xs in our lives to accept God’s help, healing, change and correction.
Part 1: making sense:
- Acceptance: what are my limits?
- Awareness: how do I know what is real?
- Spirituality: am I love able to God and others?
- Responsibility: who am I?
- Openness: how do I trust?
Part 2: creating congruence:
- Honesty: what must improve?
- Courage: what risks must I take?
- Commitment: how am I responsible?
- Responsiveness: what is integrity?
Part 3: growing vision:
- Trust: how do I live, not knowing outcomes?
- Meaning: what is the purpose of my life?
- Generatively: how do I pass it on?
“One of the great liabilities of history is that too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.”
Martin Luther King
Still true; those of us in recovery are now awake and practicing the principles of program so that we may be part of the solution.
”If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others, that feeling of usefulness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook on life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”
The Big Book (Alchoholics Annonymous), p84.
From the Good Book:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old has passed away, behold the new has come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17
“Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.”
Mark 5:19
“Make the most of your chances to tell others the good news. Be wise in all your contacts with them. Let your conversation be gracious as well as sensible, for then you will have the right answer for everyone.”
Colossians 4:5-6
“Not that I am implying that I was in any personal want, for I have learned how to be content (satisfied to the point where I am not disturbed or disquieted) in whatever state I am. I know how to be abased and live humbly in strained circumstances, and I know also how to enjoy plenty and live in abundance. I have learned in any and all circumstances the secret of facing every situation, whether well-fed or going hungry, having a sufficiency and enough to spare or going without and being in want.”
Philippians 4:11-12
“This is God’s doing, for he has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ; and he made us agents of the reconciliation. God was in Christ personally reconciling the world to himself, not counting their sins against them, and has commissioned us with the message of reconciliation. We are now God’s ambassadors, as though God was appealing direct to you through us.”
2 Corinthians 5:18-20
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I was the worst of them all. But that is why God had mercy on me, so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe and receive eternal life.”
1 Timothy 1:15-16
“God helps us in all our troubles, so that we are able to help others who have all kinds of troubles. Using the same help that we ourselves have received from God.”
2 Corinthians 1:4
“Looking away (from all that will distract) to Jesus, who is the leader and source of our faith (giving the first incentive for our belief) and is also its finisher (bringing it to maturity and perfection). He, for the joy (of obtaining the prize) that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Hebrews 12:2
“And I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ (right up to the time of His return), developing (that good work) and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you.”
Philippians 1:6