AA Thought for the Day
(courtesy AA-Alive.net)
January 20, 2016
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Step Three
"Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."
In all times of emotional disturbance or indecision, we can pause, ask for quiet, and in the stillness simply say:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done."
- Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 41
Thought to Ponder . . .
The stillness of God speaks louder than a choir of voices.
AA-related 'Alconym' . . .
H O W = Honesty, Open-mindedness, Willingness,
A Member Shares:
Good morning everyone, my name is Rick, and I am an alcoholic. Step 3 is the Step I spend the most time practicing and the most time failing at. I find it much easier to admit I'm an alcoholic, accept that I need AA and a Higher Power to stay sober and grow spiritually. I take inventory daily, I pray, I work hard to forgive people who've wronged me and I try to recognize and make amends to people I've wronged. I look out for others the way I'd like to be looked out for. But turning my will and my life over to God I flub all the time. I turn it over every morning and I take it back multiple times every day. I just don't succeed at adhering to this Step long-term, even though I consider it perhaps the most important Step for me, to growing. Whenever things are going really well, I take my will back because I get cocky and think I'm on solid ground. Whenever things are going wrong, I take my will back because I need to micro-manage and take control of the situation to fix it, my way. Both reactions get me in trouble. Always have. Safe bet they always will. I've forced myself to practice spot-checking myself every couple of hours, just to improve on this Step. I take a couple of minutes and reflect on my previous couple of hours and look for areas I allowed my will to be handled by God and for areas where I reacted instead of responded to an issue. The Serenity Prayer really helps me with this...it says so much in so few words...and it helps me bigtime. I don't know if I'll ever get this Step down to my satisfaction, but I'm going to keep trying. Thank you for letting me share.
To respond to the sharer, please email DTShare@aa-alive.org and it will be forwarded to them.
(All shares are reproduced with the kind permission of the person sharing)
Thanks to all of you for sharing so generously of your experience, strength and hope in carrying the AA message.
Blessings in sobriety to all,
In love and service,
joanna b
dailythought@aa-alive.org
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