AS WE UNDERSTAND HIM My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. . . . "Why don't you choose your own conception of God?" That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 12
I remember the times I looked up into the sky and reflected on who started it all, and how. When I came to A.A. an understanding of some description of the spiritual dimension became a necessary adjunct to a stable sobriety. After reading a variety of versions, including the scientific, of a great explosion, I went for simplicity and made the God of my understanding the Great Power that made the explosion possible. With the vastness of the universe under His command, He would, no doubt, be able to guide my thinking and actions if I was prepared to accept His guidance. But I could not expect help if I turned my back on the help and went my own way. I became willing to believe and I have had 26 years of stable and satisfying sobriety. From AA Daily Reflections
But I wanted to share your thoughts on the Blessed people in A. A. that make those suggestions to us. They are like "angels" in the Program. I had a simliar experience. Someone said to me once. Stop and try to imagine a God that you would be able to Believe in, that you can have a close personal relationship with. I had a very new mysterious God that had led me to the Doors of A.A. Was given the information thru a very Mysterious way that this was not going to be another "Temp" job, but one of a Permanent nature.
And so I began trying to conceive of this new Mysterious force in my life, as a God of my understand, that offerred, endless, vastly unconditional love to me and all others. And began Believing in this new Concept of My Own Higher Power, maybe a little less Mysterious than it felt originally, but a Force that I would come to know as much more of a Personal Experience. Learned how to Trust this new force of a Higher Power, and have an Active living,loving Relationship today.
But once again, the transformation occurs when we have those "angels" offering us the possibility of a new Concept. Where would you and I be, without those suggestions?????? Let's not go there.
