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God Either Is or Isn't · Not a Doorknob

• 0:00
  Hey, welcome back to The Big Book Deep Dive here on Progress and Perfection. You can find more information on our website. You can contact us. All the links for that will be in the description below. My name is Eamon.
• 0:10
  I'm joined by my good friend, John. Here we go. Yeah. I stopped and got six large fries. [laughs] That was my contribution to the meal. That wonderful, uh, conduit for ketchup. Totally. The, the k- the ketchup vessel.
• 0:23
  [laughs] Totally. It was delicious. Wonderful. It was delicious. Quite a meal. It was quite a meal. Oh. Yeah, but anyways, if you hear me burping, that's... Yeah, that, that's it. Pay, pay no heed.
• 0:32
  Ah, that's what's happening. It's just the burgers doing their work. Yeah. Doing the good work. That's, that's what's happening. They were delicious still. Shout out. Boom. They were great. They were good.
• 0:39
  They were good. All right, so we're on page 50. We're on page 50. Let's- Of, uh, agnosticism... We agnostics. All right. Uh, shall I open this? And, and shout out to atheists.
• 0:50
  They've, they've, uh- Shout out to atheists... hashtag atheism. They've, they've thrown that in the mix here too. Hashtag atheist. Yeah. Theists. That's right. You know. That's right.
• 0:58
  Uh, seems to be a popular term these days. Mm. Theists. Mm-hmm. I'm a theist, whatever. Uh, okay. So top of page 50.
• 1:07
  "Instead, we looked at the human defects of these people and sometimes used their shortcomings as a basis of wholesale condemnation. We talked of intolerance while we were intolerant ourselves.
• 1:20
  We missed the reality and the beauty of the forest because we were diverted by the ugliness of some of its trees. We never gave the spiritual side of life a fair hearing.
• 1:30
  In our personal stories, you will find a wide variation in the way each teller approaches and conceives of the power which is greater than himself.
• 1:38
  Whether we agree with a particular approach or conception seems to make little difference. Experience has taught us that these are matters about which, for our purpose, we need not be worried.
• 1:48
  They are questions for each individual to settle for himself. On one proposition, however, these men and women are strikingly agreed. Every one of them has gained access to and believes in a power greater than himself.
• 2:03
  This power has, in each case, accomplished the miraculous, the humanly impossible. As a celebrated American statesman put it, 'Let's look at the record.'" Thoughts? Uh, not really.
• 2:20
  I mean, th- this is... They, they, they walk the tight line here a good bit- Mm... because, you know, they're still keeping that door open to anybody who's reading it, #atheist, #agnosticism. Mm-hmm.
• 2:38
  But they're still like, "Hey, this is the common thread. This is the thing that people who have recovered can definitely agree with." So lay aside...
• 2:49
  a- and almost everybody, lay aside your preconceived notions and just explore. I feel like this whole chapter is about just the willingness to be open-minded- Right... wherever you're coming from. Right.
• 3:02
  Like, if that's a staunch disbelief, for sure, but- Right... even the other end of the spectrum. Yeah. Opening the door. Mm. At least being willing to open the door- Correct...
• 3:11
  to the possibility that there is something that exists that's, that's bigger than you. And, and, like, a, uh, some logical looking around. Mm. Like, I think that's what they're hinting at here is, like, just
• 3:26
  people who've recovered. Like, you can't deny that something is working, and there is this thread that binds them together, this commonality that they have.
• 3:33
  So, like, it's not a complete throwing out your, uh, you know, your thoughts and, and what your mind is seeing. Mm-hmm. It's, there's some logic to it as well. Mm-hmm. So just open your eyes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
• 3:46
  And- And, but, I mean, I guess, like, the other thing to that, though, is, like, they are saying, "Open your eyes to this power." Mm-hmm. Capital P. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?
• 3:57
  So again, there is sort of this, this, uh, like, doubling down- Mm-hmm... on the idea that, like, it's, it's, it's an opening, but it is an opening that directs your gaze towards a specific thing. Yeah.
• 4:10
  And that thing is, is higher than you. It is greater than you. Yeah. It's not less than you. Back to the not a doorknob, which I think is a great name, by the way. Back to the? Not a doorknob. Oh, yeah.
• 4:23
  I was looking at them earlier- I thought that... Yeah, I thought that was a great name... like, "What's at the top of the list?" And that's, that's up there towards the top. Yeah, I like that. I like the not a doorknob.
• 4:29
  Anyways, "Here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed.
• 4:34
  They flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a power greater than themselves, to take a certain attitude toward that power, and to do certain simple things, there has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking.
• 4:49
  In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them.
• 5:00
  This happened soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements.
• 5:05
  Once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence, they show the underlying reasons why they were making, why they were making heavy going of life.
• 5:16
  Leaving aside the drink question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory. They show how the change came over them.
• 5:23
  When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith."
• 5:36
  All right, so a lot of meat in that- Mm-hmm... paragraph. Mm-hmm. Backing up to the bottom of page 50. Mm-hmm.
• 5:43
  I've got written to the margin here, uh, you know, it says, "Hey, th- this happened soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements." Kind of a throwback to these being the steps. Mm-hmm.
• 5:54
  Like, once they were willing to, and once I was willing to walk through the steps- Mm-hmm... these are some of the things That, I mean, I've got promise written over here. Yeah.
• 6:05
  It doesn't say it's promising these things, but the movement from despair into peace and happiness and a sense of direction, those are results of doing something. Mm-hmm.
• 6:16
  They're not results of sitting around, you know, twiddling your thumbs- Right... and asking and not doing. Right. Um, and so- Right... I really like the thrust towards action that this- That's right...
• 6:28
  that this is alluding and talking about. Mm-hmm. Um, because, uh, you know, for... And, and even today, I mean, I'm not immune to wanting the things that are farther than a couple steps in front of me. Right.
• 6:44
  And looking at something, some benefit that you've got, expecting or wanting to have that without putting in the work. Right. I mean, that's like the, the common denominator of everybody coming into recovery. Yeah.
• 6:57
  It's like, "I want two days clean when I got a day. I get, I want a year when I get a month," so forth and so on. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, and so just a, a note on these are not overnight matters. Mm-hmm.
• 7:09
  But they're the result of concerted effort. Right. Right. Yeah, and I, I, I, I think that's a really important point to make. I can't, I can't remember the origin of this, um, this little anecdote, but it's this idea
• 7:25
  of this starving man who was praying to God to feed him. And someone came along and offered him bread, and the man said, "No, God's going to feed me." Yeah, yeah.
• 7:40
  Uh, and he ends up dying, and he goes to heaven, and he's like, "God, why didn't you feed me?" And God says, "Remember the bread I sent you?" "I sent a dude." [laughs] Right? But there was this requirement of work. Yeah.
• 7:51
  It wasn't just this, like, cosmic thing. There was also this requirement- Yeah... of, of work. I think two other th- interesting things, though, that, that sort of slide a little bit under the radar- Hmm...
• 8:04
  in this paragraph, to your point of a meaty paragraph, um, two things. One, the introduction of consciousness.
• 8:12
  "When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the presence of God today is the most p- important fact of their lives."
• 8:21
  So that indicates something different than just, like, this acknowledgement of a power- Hmm... greater than yourself. Yeah. You know what I mean?
• 8:30
  It's sort of this sly way of, of connectivity to a broader consciousness that exists within that power. Um, I th- I just think that's clever. But then the other biggie there, the other big word there, is faith.
• 8:45
  Suddenly there at the end of that paragraph, they, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith. Like, whoa, that's a foreign concept. Yeah, bringing the F word into the agnostic chapter. Yeah, yeah.
• 8:57
  So I think that's another sort of sly, subtle, like, sneaking in of a, um, requirement- Yeah... that they're asking you to have. Totally.
• 9:08
  And, and they'll go further with the, you know, just quoting s- straight up quoting scripture later. Mm-hmm. You know, "Faith without works being dead." Mm-hmm.
• 9:15
  You know, I, I do enjoy how they slide these things in- Mm-hmm... uh, just in, in the natural course of, of making their argument, so to speak. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, okay.
• 9:25
  "This world of ours has made more material progress in the last century than all of the millenniums which went before. Almost everyone knows the reason.
• 9:33
  Students of ancient history tell us that the intellect of men in those days was equal to the best of today. Yet in ancient times, material progress was painfully slow.
• 9:44
  The spirit of modern scientific inquo- inquiry, research, and invention was almost unknown. In the realm of the material, men's minds were fettered by superstition, tradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas.
• 9:57
  Some of the contemporaries of Columbus thought a round Earth preposterous." Some people still do, by the way. Mm-hmm. #flatearthers. Shout out to all my flat Earthers out there.
• 10:06
  [laughs] Uh, "Others came near putting Galileo to death for his astronomical heresies. We ask ourselves this.
• 10:14
  Are not some of us just as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit as were the ancients about the realm of the material?
• 10:23
  Even in the present century, American newspapers were afraid to print an account of the Wright brothers' first successful flight at Kitty Hawk. Had not all efforts at flight failed before?
• 10:33
  Did not Professor Langley's flying machine go to the bottom of the Potomac River? Was it not true that the best mathematical minds had proved man could never fly?
• 10:43
  Had not people said God had reserved this privilege to the birds? Only 30 years later, the conquest of the air was almost an old story and airplane travel was in full swing.
• 10:56
  But in most fields, our generation has witnessed complete liberation of our thinking.
• 11:00
  Show any longshoreman a Sunday supplement describing a proposal to explore the Moon by means of a rocket and he will say, 'I bet they do it. Maybe not so long either.'
• 11:11
  Is not our age characterized by the ease with which we discard old ideas for new, by the complete readiness with which we throw away the theory or gadget which does not work for something new which does?"
• 11:25
  Okay, what are the... What's he getting at here? So it, it, it's funny because
• 11:32
  he's trying to say, "Hey, open your minds," because all progress has occurred by people opening their minds to stuff that we didn't think was possible, right?
• 11:44
  But I f- I feel like where people get hung up with God in AA and in recovery is viewing it as still an old, outdated concept.
• 11:55
  And so it's curious 'cause that's, it's sort of the inverse point he's trying to make- Mm-hmm... is that this is not necessarily... It is an old idea, but, like, don't think of it in that way.
• 12:06
  Think of it as a new idea for you- Mm-hmm... because you've never actually, to the agnostic or atheist, because you've never accurately and actually investigated it for yourself. Mm-hmm. And if God is personal-
• 12:21
  Then that is the requirement to rule it out or to accept the help that comes from it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Is to actually give it a chance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 12:31
  And, and like as you're talking, I just c- can't help but continue to think about the conscious contact with God. Mm-hmm. It's this new realm of contact that they planted the seed for. Mm-hmm.
• 12:42
  You know, it's not just this power greater than yourselves. It is this personable- Yeah... uh, creator God that we know to be active in our lives.
• 12:54
  Uh, and, and yeah, like taking a new look at that and, and sort of opening your, opening our eyes to the possibilities that that could be true. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's neat.
• 13:05
  Um, "We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems the same readiness to change our point of view. We were having trouble with personal relationships.
• 13:17
  We couldn't control our employ- our emotional natures. We were a prey to misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. We had a feeling of uselessness. We were full of fear. We were unhappy.
• 13:29
  We couldn't seem to be of real help to other people. Was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreels of lunar flight? Of course it was.
• 13:41
  When we saw others solve their problems b- by a simple reliance upon the spirit of the universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas did not work, but the God idea did." Right. Well- So I think that a,
• 13:56
  an unspoken requirement here, "When we saw others solve their problem," well, if we are s- completely isolated, we're not gonna see that. Hmm.
• 14:09
  And so the, like one of the, one of the things that had to happen for me is I had to come out of my alcoholic shell- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm... at least enough to like poke up above the surface and like, "Uh, help."
• 14:20
  [laughs] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I- is there, is there any help out here? You know, what's up? Yeah. For me to get introduced to treatment, then to what I thought was an insurance company- Right... which was AA- Mm-hmm...
• 14:32
  is what I thought it was before I went to it- Mm-hmm... for the very first meeting. That's awesome. Uh, and then... But, but you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Like- Mm-hmm...
• 14:39
  if we're s- in our cocoon, like that's where we stay until- Right... we poke through, even for a minute, to, to kind of invite in, "Oh, well, other people have had this same plague of problems." Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 14:54
  And maybe I don't believe 50% of the room that shares, but, you know, those couple people, uh, kinda sounded s- I kind of bel- I believe them. Right. You know? Right. And I can relate to them. Right.
• 15:05
  Looking for those similarities- Right... rather than the differences. Right. Right. Especially in the beginning. Right. Yeah. Unclogging our ears to be able to hear- Totally... the commonalities of our condition. Mm-hmm.
• 15:17
  We're not as special as we thought we were. Nope. You know, but there are, there are these things we share. Yeah, and then the importance of hearing the, the God idea as it says there. [laughs] Yeah. You know?
• 15:29
  That, okay, I've gotta stop doubting it, that maybe this is something that, that can work for me. Well, and, and it just becomes at a certain point a case of literally beating your head against the wall. Mm-hmm.
• 15:41
  It's like- Mm-hmm. [laughs] Our ideas didn't... The, the last two sentences, "Our ideas did not work. The, but the God idea did." Yeah. You know?
• 15:50
  And, and, and we, we hit our head against the wall until we're willing to not, right? Right. Right. Uh, the idea of the spirit of the universe, is that scary or is that comforting?
• 16:05
  Simple reliance upon the spirit of the universe. It's scary if you think about it. Um, and, and it, and it, it's been both for me. Mm-hmm. Like I think I shared last week or, or some week- Mm-hmm...
• 16:18
  that we've talked in the past about the absolute horror that I had of considering eternity- Right... and like the vastness of God. If, if, if there is a God and he's eternal, omniscient, omni-pre...
• 16:31
  You know, that blows my mind, you know? Mm-hmm. Because my mind, if that's all true, is not capable of- Mm-hmm... grasping that. Right. And same thing, this spirit of the universe is sort of the same lines for me.
• 16:43
  Mm-hmm. Like, yeah, that's, th- that's at first terrifying- Mm-hmm... but it also can and should be a comfort that- Mm-hmm... okay, maybe I was living
• 16:55
  in that alcoholic, in the, in the drunk world, out of tune, out of sync with right alignment with the spirit- Mm-hmm... that like the people that are hooked up to it and flowing in it- Mm-hmm...
• 17:09
  they seem to be a lot better off, a lot more satisfied- Yeah... happy- Yeah... uh, fulfilled. Mm-hmm. All those things from the couple paragraphs up that, that I was missing. Right. Yeah.
• 17:19
  Am I working with that current or against that current? Right. Right. You know? Am I- And that can kinda depend on whether that spirit of the universe is, is horrific or if it is one that's for you. Yeah.
• 17:32
  But that's what it... Hmm. Am I viewing it as an undertow or, or just letting go and letting it? Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. Fighting it or not. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, "The Wright brothers' almost childish faith
• 17:46
  that they could build a machine which would fly was the mainspring of their accomplishment. Without that, nothing could have happened.
• 17:54
  We agnostics and atheists were sticking to the idea that self-sufficiently would, self-sufficiency would solve our problems.
• 18:02
  When others showed us that God-sufficiency worked with them, we began to feel like those who had insisted the Wrights would never fly. Logic is great stuff. We liked it. We still like it.
• 18:15
  It is not by chance we were given the power to reason, to examine the evidence of our senses, and to draw conclusions. That is one of man's magnificent attributes.
• 18:24
  We agnostically inclined Would not feel satisfied with a proposal which does not lend itself to reasonable approach and interpretation.
• 18:34
  Hence, we are at pains to tell why we think our present faith is reasonable, why we think it more sane and logical to believe than not to believe, why we say our former thinking was soft and mushy when we threw up our hands in doubt and said, "We don't know."
• 18:52
  When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fear- fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is or He isn't.
• 19:08
  What was our choice to be? So is that, like, the... Is that the thesis of the chapter, why it's about we agnostics? Sure. 'Cause isn't this what agnostics bump up against? Right. It's like, sure, there's a God, but-
• 19:24
  Right... not personal- Right... and just out there. Right. And yet here, here is the question. Right. He either is or He isn't, right? Well, and I love it because, like...
• 19:35
  Well, it's funny because, like, I work with a lot of OCD people, and I always encourage them to work towards the middle. Hmm. To not exist in these bowls. Yep. You know?
• 19:43
  But I think in the context of this, like, that is a great statement, because He either is everything or He's nothing. Mm-hmm. There is no in between.
• 19:53
  The idea that God just created something, set it in motion, and then just sits off and eats popcorn- Mm-hmm...
• 20:01
  that's, that doesn't fly, especially when it comes to, to recovery and to the faith that we have to have for recovery. He's either everything or He's nothing. That's quite a line in the sand.
• 20:12
  I mean, that's a bold- That's the line. Yeah. That's a bold proclamation to make with obviously, like, for us as believers, like, eternal consequences. Mm-hmm.
• 20:24
  We can't be agnostic when it comes to God, and I think that's the point to your, what you were saying. That's the point of the chapter right there. Yeah.
• 20:33
  Arrived at this point, we were squarely confronted with the question of faith. We couldn't duck the issue. Some of us had already walked far over the bridge of reason toward the desired shore of faith.
• 20:45
  The outlines and the promise of the new land had brought luster to tired eyes and fresh courage to flagging spirits. Friendly hands had stretched out in welcome.
• 20:55
  We were grateful that reason had brought us so far, but somehow we couldn't quite step ashore.
• 21:01
  Perhaps we had been leaning too heavily on reason that last mile, and we did not like or-- and we did not like to lose our support. That was natural, but let us think a little more closely.
• 21:13
  Without knowing it, we had not been brought to where we stood by a certain k- had we not been brought to where we stood by a certain kind of faith. For did we not believe in our own reasoning?
• 21:25
  Did we not have confidence in our ability to think? What was that but a sort of faith? Yes, we had been faithful, abjectly faithful to the God of reason.
• 21:35
  So, in one way or another, we discovered that faith had been involved all the time. Gotcha. Yep. We found, too, that we had been worshipers. What a state of mental goose flesh that used to bring on.
• 21:50
  Had we not variously worshiped people, sentiment, things, money, and ourselves? And then, with a better motive, had we not worship- worshipfully beheld the sunset, the sea, or a flower?
• 22:02
  Who of us had not loved something or somebody? How much did these feelings, these loves, these worships have to do with pure reason? Little or nothing, we saw at last.
• 22:13
  Were not these things the tissue out of which our lives were constructed? Did not these feelings, after all, determine the course of our existence?
• 22:21
  It was possi- it was impossible to say we had no capacity for faith or love or worship. In one form or another, we had been living by faith and little else. Imagine life without faith.
• 22:35
  Were nothing left but pure reason, it wouldn't be life. But we believed in life. Of course we did. We could not prove life in the sense that you can prove a straight line is the shortest distance between two points.
• 22:47
  Yet, there it was. Could we still say the whole thing was nothing but a mass of electrons created out of nothing, meaning nothing, whirling on to a destiny of nothingness? Of course we couldn't.
• 22:59
  The electrons themselves seemed more intelligent than that, at least so the chemist said. Hence, we saw that reason isn't everything.
• 23:08
  Neither is reason as most of us use it entirely dependable, though it emanate from our best minds. What about people who proved that man could never fly?
• 23:18
  Yet we had been seeing another kind of flight, a spiritual liberation from this world, people who rose above their problems. They said God made these things possible, and we only smiled.
• 23:29
  We had seen spiritual release, but liked to tell ourselves it wasn't true. Actually, we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God.
• 23:44
  It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worshiping of other things, but in some form or other it is there.
• 23:52
  For faith in a power greater than ourselves and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives are facts as old as man himself. So there's the definite Christian belief that, like,
• 24:07
  we are created in God's image and image-bearers of Him. Therefore, there is that recognition, whether you like it or not, that exists within all of us, that, like the Bible says, leaves us no excuse.
• 24:22
  That, uh, all we need do is look at creation, and we can, we can see the evidence of the handiwork of the Lord. Self-evident. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, uh, uh, you know- I think one of the reasons why
• 24:43
  this chapter for me is almost nonsensical is because I take my faith for granted at this point in my life. Mm. You know, it's almost like all these things are like, "Well, duh. Well, duh. Well, duh." Yeah. You know?
• 25:00
  But I've been living as a believer for, what, 25 years- Mm... of my life now. Yeah. So it's, it's like, uh, it, my relationship with the Lord is so normalized within, like, my, my brain
• 25:16
  that I read some of this stuff and I'm like, "Well, duh," you know?
• 25:19
  But then I can remember back to a time, this is kinda interesting, I can remember back to a time, though, where all of this wouldn't have meant anything to me anyway. Mm-hmm. Just apathy.
• 25:30
  There was no argument that was- Mm... going to convince me to believe in God. You know? It... And I don't, I don't,
• 25:40
  I don't know that I've ever met anybody who has been argued into a belief in God. Mm-mm. I mean, as I'm sitting here thinking about it, I don't know if you have. No. No, and I'm, I'm shaking my head also. Mm-hmm.
• 25:57
  Like, it's, it's not something that you can do, and it's the popular thing to, like, you know, make fun of- Mm-hmm... evangelizing Christians- Mm-hmm...
• 26:06
  and people on the corners trying to, "You're going to hell unless you..." Mm-hmm. And, you know, maybe that saves people sometimes. But
• 26:13
  in AA, what I see is the desperation springing from the hopelessness as a result of trying everything but- Yep... brings you around to a s- a state of willingness. Right. Right. And, and coachability. Yeah.
• 26:30
  Where it's like, okay, well, I guess...
• 26:32
  My first sponsor, uh, David, who's no longer living, he s- he used to say that, uh, when he got to that point in sobriety, he said, "Well, hell, I'll, I'm willing to do anything, even work the steps." Right.
• 26:44
  Like, "As a last resort, I'll try these last things that all the people who are sober-" [laughs] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm... have been saying all along." Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
• 26:55
  To your earlier point, too, but the only way that happens is if you get into the room. Yeah. You've gotta know about it. You gotta get into the room. Gotta see it. And then you see it- Yeah...
• 27:06
  and you go, "I want what that guy's got." Yeah. "And I'm willing to put all of my reservations on the sidelines." Mm-hmm. "'Cause I am desperate, and I want what he's got." Yeah. Right?
• 27:17
  You see it, and it's tangible, and it's walking, and it's living, and then you want it. You know, it's not a... I don't know. It doesn't seem to be an argument that somebody makes,
• 27:31
  where suddenly they have this compulsion. It's, it's, it seems to me to always be, like, evidential. You see it in somebody. It's, it's attraction rather than- Right... promotion. Right.
• 27:42
  You know, back to the, the tradition. Mm-hmm. That's where that came from. Mm-hmm. 100%. Mm-hmm. Um, okay, you wanna read some? Yeah. 55, right? Yeah. "Actually, we were fooling our..." No, you read that. "We finally."
• 27:57
  "We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our makeup, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were.
• 28:13
  We found the great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis, it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us." W- and I think that speaks to what you were just saying. Mm-hmm.
• 28:26
  Like, w- we, we had to find Him for ourselves, not beaten into- Mm... submission from someone else. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. "We can only clear the ground a bit.
• 28:35
  If our testimony helps sweep away prejudice, enables you to think honestly, encourages you to search diligently within yourself, then if you wish, you can join us on the broad highway.
• 28:47
  With this attitude, you cannot fail. The consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you. In this book, you will read the experience of a man who thought he was an atheist.
• 28:58
  His story is so interesting that you, that some of it should be told now. His change of heart was dramatic, convincing, and moving. Our friend was a minister's son.
• 29:09
  He attended church school, where he became religious at what he thought an overdose of religious education." Rebellious. Rebellious. [laughs] Slight difference there. "He became rebellious
• 29:21
  at what he thought was an overdose of religious education. For years thereafter, he was dogged by trouble and frustration, business failure, insanity, fatal illness, suicide.
• 29:33
  These calamities in his immediate family embittered and depressed him.
• 29:38
  Post-war disillus- disillusionment, ever more serious alcoholism, impending mental and physical collapse brought him to the point of self-destruction.
• 29:49
  One night, when confined in a hospital, he was approached by an alcoholic who had known a spiritual experience.
• 29:56
  Our friend's go- gorge rose as he bitterly cried out, 'If there is a God, He certainly hasn't done anything for me.'" Hmm.
• 30:04
  "But later, alone in his room, he asked himself this question: 'Is it possible that all the religious people I have known are wrong?' While pondering the answer, he felt as though he lived in hell.
• 30:17
  Then, like a thunderbolt, a great thought came. It crowded out all else. 'Who are you to say there is no God?' This man recounts that he tumbled out of bed to his knees.
• 30:30
  In a few seconds, he was overwhelmed by a conviction of the Presence of God. It poured over and through him with the certainty and majesty of a great tide at flood.
• 30:40
  The barriers he had built thuv- through the years were swept away." He stood in the presence of infinite power and love. He had stepped from bridge to shore.
• 30:52
  For the first time, he lived in conscious companionship with his Creator. I mean, that's... I'm sorry, but that's like a conversion story. Big time. I mean, that's- That's what it is... that's how that reads. Mm-hmm.
• 31:07
  It's, it's, it's, uh... And I mean, I appreciate, like, the palatability of how they phrase it. Yeah.
• 31:16
  But like, when I read something like that, I mean, you just get the idea that, like, that overwhelming presence is like the Holy Spirit. Yeah.
• 31:25
  And the thing, the conviction that only the Holy Spirit can produce, that puts him on his knees, like, face first, and then he's filled with this overwhelming sense of peace and love. I mean, that's, that's all that is.
• 31:42
  It's like- What else are you gonna call it? Right. I mean, that, that, that's all that is, is the Spirit. And I love the question, like the- Mm-hmm... the epiphany he's got. Mm-hmm. 'Cause it's, that's true.
• 31:52
  And, and again, if, if you don't know it, he grew up religious and was, knew a lot of people in this re- Right... in this realm like we did. Right.
• 32:00
  And, and if you do, you have the benefit of considering honestly, like- Mm-hmm... are all these jokers really just dead wrong- Mm-hmm... and just oblivious and happy reg- It's like, well, no. [laughs] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 32:14
  Right. Right. Yeah, and I mean, it's like, it's very, uh, Jobian. Mm-hmm. Who are you to say there is no God? Yeah. Like, who are you? Mm-hmm. Were you there when I hung the stars? Yep.
• 32:24
  Were you there when I set the plumb lines? Yeah. You know, like who, who, who are you? Who are... You know? Who are you to say that I am not real? Yeah. Who are you to say that I don't exist?
• 32:34
  And then as an answer to that question, He just pours Himself out- Wow... in a way that leaves this guy just, like, in a, like, humble position where he can't do anything about it. I just love that.
• 32:50
  I just think that's- Jobian... I think that's beautiful. Thus was our friend's cornerstone fixed in place. No later vistitude has shaken it. His alcoholic problem was taken away.
• 33:03
  Oh, by the way, the alcoholic problem was taken away. Mm-hmm. That very night, years ago, it disappeared.
• 33:11
  Save for a few brief moments of temptation, the thought of drink has never returned, and at such times, a great revulsion has risen up in him. Seemingly, he could not drink even if he would. God had restored his sanity.
• 33:27
  What is this but a miracle of healing? Yet its elements are simple. Circumstances made him willing to believe. He humbly offered himself to his Maker. Then he knew. Even so has God restored us to all our right minds.
• 33:45
  To this man, the rel- the revelation was sudden. Some of us grow into it more slowly, but He has come to all who have honestly sought Him. When we drew near to Him, He disclosed Himself to us.
• 34:01
  And it's a, you know, it's a chicken-and-egg thing here. Yeah. It's like circumstances made you willing. We humbly offer ourselves to Him. Mm-hmm. And it's after the action- Yeah...
• 34:12
  not before, that, you know, in the words here, that he knew. Mm-hmm. That, that we sort of get the benefits of. Yeah. Okay? Yeah. At, at a certain point, it does have to feel like I'm taking the action in faith. Right.
• 34:27
  'Cause that's what it is. Right. Right. Yeah. And I, I mean, I greatly appreciate the caveat, "Some of us grow into it more slowly." Yes. But He has come to all who have honestly sought Him.
• 34:42
  'Cause I think that's important. I mean, I've, I've shared stories, I think, with you of, like, people I've worked with who have earnestly prayed to the Lord to have this compulsion removed- Yeah...
• 34:53
  and just how frustrating that their life has become because they seemingly aren't getting an answer. Yeah. Um, but I think, like, those people
• 35:04
  that come to my mind who have struggled with that have not put forth the action. Hmm. It's kinda like praying the prayer, and God says, "Yes," but they're not reaching for the bread. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah.
• 35:16
  They're not, they're not coming to, uh, the community. They're not willing to take the necessary steps of engagement to get the relief that the Lord is, is giving to them. Mm-hmm.
• 35:28
  And so then they get to heaven just like the guy with the bread. He's like, "God, I thought You were gonna feed me." And God's like, "I did. You didn't take the bread." Yeah. You know? Um, how about that? We agnostics.
• 35:42
  How about it? Coming up next. We- Coming in hot, How it Works. You know, I'm a big fan of, uh, chapter five, How it Works, simply because it's pretty much ingrained into my brain- [laughs]...
• 35:57
  from reading it every- How many times? [laughs]... single day in treatment to begin with- Oh... uh, and then in meetings. You know?
• 36:06
  Yeah, it's, it's got a permanent place in my- I can firmly remember, and we'll get to it, but, "Many of us exclaimed, 'What an order. I can't go through with it,'" was always a high point in treatment. Yeah.
• 36:19
  Because the reader of that day would pause. "Many of us exclaimed." Then everybody would shout- What an order. [laughs] I can't go through with it. Correct. You know, so you remember that too. Oh, yeah.
• 36:30
  Uh, so that's, that's exciting. That's exciting stuff. Well, and we plow through, like, several steps here. Yes. We, we go through three, four, and... Well, I guess just three and four- Mm-hmm...
• 36:44
  and then five, six, seven in the next chapter. Well, and I mean, let's not gloss over the fact that we're presented with all of them. We're not working our way through them That's a good point, yeah.
• 36:54
  Well, like finally- The full breakdown... we get to, yeah, we finally get to, uh, the point. Yep. You know? Um, but I think, uh,
• 37:05
  you know, just fair warning, I think how it works may take a, a little bit of time to get through. Yeah. There's, there's too much in it to not- Yeah... work through pretty slowly over- Yeah...
• 37:14
  over the course of a couple episodes. There's lots of meat, and I think it would be beneficial also if we, um, especially when we're talking about the fourth step, if we shared our experience- Mm...
• 37:25
  of doing a fourth step. Obviously, not in detail, but sort of like what that looked like mechanically. Yep. Um, working through a sponsor.
• 37:32
  'Cause, you know, I mean, there's, there's lots of different ways that people do fourth steps. Worksheets- Yep... sort of organically doing it. Um, so I think that might be, that might be of interest. So
• 37:45
  maybe we do that. For sure. All right. Well, always a pleasure. Likewise. Enjoyed it. It's good to see you. Good to be seen. Yeah, I mean, you know everybody out there, Eamon is, uh, trying to run a three-hour marathon.
• 38:00
  Sub three hour. A sub three hour marathon. Going for that 2.59 slot. He will not, he will not be happy- [laughs]... if it's 3:00:00. He will be- Oh, I'll be overjoyed... sorely disappointed.
• 38:10
  But we're, we're going for the sub. But so that you people know out there, uh, he is documenting this journey- This is true... on a YouTube channel. This is the truth. Uh- Run Tired. Right, Run Tired.
• 38:22
  Um, I would, I would subscribe to it, but I don't think I have a YouTube account, so I don't know that I can. You're, you're stuck with watching the videos- But I'll follow, yes... with advertisements alone.
• 38:31
  I'll watch them. Right. [laughs] And I'm okay with that. You know, I'm totally okay with that. Uh, but lots of fun, and I'm, I'm proud of you for taking on that, that journey. Heck yeah. It's, uh, is hard to do.
• 38:41
  Not everybody- The next journey... not everybody's run a sub three hour marathon. This joker may not run one either. Yeah, so. We'll see. I'm excited to see. What's up, boys and girls? The kids just got here.
• 38:52
  How about that? Perfect timing. You didn't hear- You want to say something? You didn't hear them in the background today. Not yet. It's not too late. Here you go, Adam. Say hello. Hello. [laughs] Where does it end up?
• 39:05
  Where does it end up? Everywhere. In the world. Everywhere. [laughs] It's the magic of the interwebs. Hey, hello. It ends up everywhere. Hello. Hello. So is your, uh, is your dad gonna run a sub three hour marathon? Yes.
• 39:23
  I have one yes. Is that it? You got one out of three saying yes. One out of three. Anybody else think he's going to? You think yes or no? Yes. Yes. Got two yeses. Yes or no? No, wait, what?
• 39:35
  Will I run a- Oh, she said no... will I run a three hour marathon? Uh, what does Tristan think? He said yes. Yes. All right. Yes. All right. I think you will. Such, such smart kids. I think you will. Smart kids.
• 39:47
  I think you will. All right. That's a wrap for that. Always a pleasure. Let's go eat. [outro music] Hey, thanks for listening. Find out more information over on our website at progressimperfection.com.
• 39:57
  Links for everything are in the description below. Have a great one, and goodbye.