Latest / Sober Readings / The Determination Of Our Founders
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Welcome to Sober Readings. My name is Scott. Today is Sunday, the 28th of June. Let's begin today with a serenity prayer. God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Today's reading from Daily Reflections The Determination of Our Founders. A year and six months later these three had succeeded with seven more. And that's on page one hundred fifty nine of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. If it had not been for the fierce determination of our founders, AA would have quickly faded like so many other so called good causes. I look at the hundreds of meetings weekly in the city where I live, and I know AA is available twenty four hours a day. If I had had to hang on with nothing but hope and a desire not to drink, experiencing rejection wherever I went, I would have sought the easier, softer way and returned to my previous way of life. Today's reading from twenty four hours, june twenty eighth, AA thought for the day. You can prove to yourself that life is basically and fundamentally an inner attitude. Just try to remember what troubled you most a week ago. You probably will find it difficult to remember. Why then should you unduly worry or fret over the problems that arise today? Your attitude toward them can be changed by putting yourself and your problems in God's hands and trusting Him to see that everything will turn out alright. Provided you are trying to do the right thing. Your changed mental attitude toward your problems relieves you of their burden and you can face them without fear. Has my mental attitude changed? The meditation for the day. You cannot see the future. It's a blessing that you cannot. You could not bear to know all the future. That is why God only reveals it to you day by day. The first step each day is to lay your will before God as an offering, ready for God to do what is best for you. Be sure that if you trust God, what He does for you will be for the best. The second step is to be confident that God is powerful enough to do anything he wills, and that no miracle in human lives is impossible with him. Then leave the future to God. And today's prayer for the day. I pray that I may gladly leave my future in God's hands. I pray that I may be confident that good things will happen as long as I am on the right path. Today's daily meditation from Touchstone. We fear our highest possibility as well as our lowest one. We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments. That's a quote from Abraham Maslow. In our daily lives, we may dream of success and achievement. We strive and compete in the workplace. We go to meetings and do our part on each step in the program, searching for better lives. When success comes, we are faced with a new problem we could not have expected. It comes as an outcome of some hard work, some good luck, and some help from our friends. It is frightening to have a good thing in our lives and not be in control of it. We are just as powerless over our successes as we are over the worst of our behaviors. We can only be faithful to ourselves and our duties. The successes that flow from our work come and go. Since we can't nail them down, they make us feel insecure. Many a man has destroyed his moment of success because he couldn't stand the powerless feeling. We must return to our program and allow success to rise and fall as it will. Today I turn to my higher power for help in accepting success. And today's final reading is from As Bill Sees It. We're gonna read from page 305. From the Taproot. The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole society has sprung and flowered. And that's from the twelve and twelve pages twenty one and twenty two. Every newcomer is told and soon realizes for himself that his humble admission of powerlessness over alcohol is his first step toward liberation from its paralyzing grip. So it is that we first see humility as a necessity. But this is the barest beginning. To get completely away from our aversion to the idea of being humble, to gain a vision of humility as the avenue to true freedom of the human spirit, to be willing to work for humility as something to be desired for itself takes most of us a long, long time. A whole lifetime geared to self centeredness cannot be set in reverse all at once. And that's also from the twelve and twelve, pages seventy-two to seventy-three. And that's gonna do it for today's episode of Sober Readings. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed the show. And if you did, do me a favor and hit that like button and also subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. And if you're someone who loves to read sober literature and you'd like to be a guest on my show, I'd love to have you. Send me an email at sober readings with Scott at gmail.com and we can make that happen. Also, if you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket for today's readings, just go to my website, sobereadings.com and click the donate button. So again, thank you so much for listening today. Stay sober, keep reading, and I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other. And remember, just for today, don't drink, go to a meeting, and keep coming back. Have a great day, and as my friend Larry says, best day ever.