Latest / Sober Readings / Love And Fear As Opposites
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Good morning and welcome to Sober Readings. Today is Friday. Happy Friday everyone. It is the 17th of April. Alright, let's begin with the 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. Okay, today's reading from Daily Reflections for April 17th. Love and fear as opposites. all these failings generate fear, a soul sickness in its own right. That's a line from 12 Steps and 12 Traditions page 49. Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. No one was there. I don't know to whom this quote should be attributed, but it certainly indicates very clearly that fear is an illusion. I create the illusion myself. I experienced fear early in my life, and I mistakenly thought that the mere presence of it made me a coward. I didn't know that one of the definitions of courage is the willingness to do the right thing in spite fear. Courage, is not necessarily the absence of fear. During the times I didn't have love in my life, I most assuredly had fear. To fear God is to be afraid of joy. In looking back, I realized that, during the times I feared God most, there was no joy in my life. As I learned not to fear God, I also learned to experience joy. Today's reading from 24 Hours, April 17, AA ⁓ Thought for the Day. Every time we go to an AA meeting, every time we say the Lord's Prayer, every time we have a quiet time before breakfast, we're paying a premium on our insurance against taking that first drink. Every time we help another alcoholic, we're making a large payment on our drink insurance. We're making sure that our policy doesn't lapse. So ask yourself, am I building up an endowment in serenity, peace, and happiness? that will put me on easy street for the rest of my life. The Meditation for the Day. I gain faith by my own experience of God's power in my life. The constant persistent recognition of God's Spirit in all my personal relationships, the ever accumulating weight of evidence in support of God's guidance, the numberless instances in which seeming chance or wonderful coincidence can be traced to God's purpose in my life. All these things gradually engender a feeling of wonder. humility, and gratitude to God. These in turn are followed by a more sure and abiding faith in God and His purposes. Today's prayer for the day. I pray that my faith may be strengthened every day. I pray that I may find confirmation of my life in the good things that have come into my life. And for today's final reading, we're going back to As Bill Sees It. And today we're going to read from page 273. Compelling Love. The life of each AA and of each group is built around our 12 Steps and 12 Traditions. We know that the penalty for extensive disobedience to these principles is death for the individual and dissolution for the group. But an ever greater force for AA's unity is our compelling love for our fellow members and for our principles. That's from 12 Concepts, page 8. You might think the people of AA's headquarters in New York would surely have to have some personal authority. But long ago, trustees and secretaries alike found they could do no more than make very mild suggestions to the AA groups. They even had to coin a couple of sentences which still go into half the letters they write. Of course, you are at perfect liberty to handle this matter any way you please. but the majority experience in AA does seem to suggest... AA World Headquarters is not a giver of orders, it is instead our largest transmitter of the lessons of experience. That's from the 12 and 12 pages 173 to 174. Well that's an interesting read, this last one in As Bill Sees It, and it just reminds me that Tradition 4 says... Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole. So what that means to me is that, you know, these groups that write to AA headquarters asking for guidance, what they're gonna get is an opinion. They're not gonna get orders. They're gonna get basically the group conscience and what the group thinks. So that's interesting. What are your thoughts and your comments on that? You can send me an email at soberreadingswithscott at gmail.com or you can go to website soberreadings.com and fill out that form. ⁓ Okay, so that's it for today's episode of Sober Readings. Thanks for listening everybody. If you enjoyed the show, don't forget, do me a huge favor, hit that like button, share this episode with somebody that you think needs it, drop a comment, and also share a link on your social media. That would be a big help. If you'd like to drop a dollar in today's virtual donation basket, that's also a big help. Go to soberreadings.com and click that donate button. So again, thank you so much for listening everyone. 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.