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July 27, 2004
The Third Step
The Third Step: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of G-d, as we understood G-d.
When I find myself more and more uncertain and frightened about where my quickly deteriorating financial situation is leading, I seem to fall into an everlasting triangle of worry, paralysis and failure.
The worry is based on my own preconceived notions of myself, derived from the mistakes of my past and combined with the negative parental and sibling suggestions from my youth. My mind focuses on the unknown, the impossible to predict, the future; and I am unable to function in the present. Thereby paralysis sets in. Failure soon follows, for I have made promises and taken on obligations only to have to apologize for my own ineffectuality. I make fewer promises; avoid any and all opportunity for people to ask me favors; and continue to doubt my talent and ability to work effectively. I start to worry again.
What is the unfortunate constant in this stream of unconsciousness? It remains entirely in the first person. I worry, I can't do anything about it, and I fail. As I remain close to spiritually based friends, I watch their successes and examine how they deal with problems on a day-to-day basis. Often when confronted by negative forces, they will claim to “give it up to G-d.”
Most of my life, I paid attention only to the physical evidence before me, and possessing the genius mind that I possessed, I determined that there could not possibly be a G-d. Any declaration of G-d's existence came from less capable minds, sad unfortunates who were easily duped by fraudulent ministers and ancient, dusty texts. There was no convincing me that G-d was, in fact, a true and verifiable force in people's life.
During the most difficult time of my addiction, I often remarked at the miracle of my survival; which could only have be the result of desperate “foxhole” prayers. I suddenly believed: G-d did in fact exist, and I was one of G-d's abject failures. G-d listened to my prayers at only the worst of time, the rest of my life I would have to rely on the higher power of other men.
But when I learned more about prayer, and began to pray on a daily basis, I found out that A) I wasn't asking the right things, and B) I was only looking for G-d where I wanted to find G-d. This superior being, my higher power, was always open to hearing my prayer. I only needed to learn to align my requests with the will of G-d!
As I began to open my eyes without the cloud of my history behind them, I could see the evidence I so dearly sought. People were in my life at certain times. Opportunities presented themselves the very moment I needed them. It wasn't that G-d was ignoring me; G-d was constantly working in my life and the lives of everyone around me!
When I make that decision, to “give it up,” I am surrendering the misguided perception that only I know what is best for me. I am able to work moment by moment, not putting things off until a tomorrow that never comes, but putting one step in front of the other and doing what I can do for myself today. My own will is faulty, for all too often I don't know what I want anyway.
My life is forever in G-d's able and loving care, and always has been. It was, even when I did not believe in G-d. It was, even when I believed G-d had forsaken me. Turning my life over to G-d's care is simple, for that is where G-d is all along.
G-d, to my understanding, simply is. I don't have to intellectualize G-d. I don't have to decide that G-d is the Lord over all His people or the Mother in the Earth. G-d is all those things, or the best qualities of all those things, without the rain of fire on the city for acts that offend Him, or the burning lava and ash in revenge for harming Her kingdom. G-d is in my fingers as I type, and in my mind as I work.
I live much happier when I know I am in the care of G-d.
Artwork image entitled "Emergence of Mother God" courtesy of William Wagenaar ©2002.
Posted by Bastique at July 27, 2004 5:21 PM