Latest / Sober Readings / The Idea of Faith
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Good morning, happy Friday everyone. This is Sober Readings for Friday, March 6th. Today's reading from Daily Reflections. The idea of faith. Do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you. That's a line from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, page 47. The idea of faith is a very large chunk to swallow when fear, doubt, and anger abound in and around me. Sometimes just the idea of doing something different, something I am not accustomed to doing, can eventually become an act of faith if I do it regularly and do it without debating whether it's the right thing to do. When a bad day comes along and everything is going wrong, a meeting or a talk with another drunk often distracts me just enough to persuade me that everything is not quite as impossible, as overwhelming as I had thought. In the same way, going to a meeting or talking to a fellow alcoholic are acts of faith. I believe I'm arresting my disease. These are ways I slowly move toward faith in a higher power. Today's reading from 24 hours, March 6, AA Thought for the Day. In AA, we must surrender, give up, admit that we were helpless. We surrender our lives to God and ask him for help. When he knows that we're ready, he gives us by his grace the free gift of sobriety. And we can't take any credit for having stopped drinking because we didn't do it by our own willpower. There's no place for pride or boasting. We can only be grateful to God for doing us what we could never do for ourselves. So ask yourself today, do I believe that God has made me a free gift of the strength to stay sober? the meditation for the day. I must work for God, with God, and through God's help. By doing all I can to bring about a true brotherhood of man, I am working for God. I am also working with God, because this is the way God works, and he is with me when I am doing such work. I cannot do good work, however, without God's help. In the final analysis, it is through the grace of God that any real change in human personality takes place. I have to rely on God's power and anything I accomplish is through His help. The Prayer for the Day. I pray that I may work for God and with God. I pray that I may be used to change human personalities through God's help. And today's final reading is from as Bill sees it. Today we're on page 253. Look before you leap. Wise men and women rightly give a top rating to the virtue of prudence. They know that without this all-important attribute, little wisdom is to be had. Mere looking before we leap is not enough. If our looking is charged with fear, suspicion, or anger, we had better not have looked or acted at all. We lose the fear of making decisions, great and small, as we realize that should our choice prove wrong, we can, if we will, learn from the experience. Should our decision be the right one, we can thank God for giving us the courage and the grace that caused us so to act. And that's from two separate letters written in 1966. Just a quick note on this last reading from As Bill Sees It. The first line says, ⁓ You know, a lot of times I'll be sitting in a meeting and a word will come up in the readings that I don't necessarily understand or know the exact meaning. So I looked up the word prudence and here's the definition. Prudence is the ability to govern and discipline oneself through practical reason, acting as a virtue of caution, wisdom and foresight in decision making. It involves carefully evaluating situations to discern the true good in every circumstance. and choosing the right means to achieve it, avoiding unnecessary risks. And now after reading that definition, I can see how it relates to the second paragraph in this reading where it says, mirror looking before we leap is not enough. So this reading is talking about making decisions and using caution, wisdom, and foresight in that decision-making process. So I'd love to hear your thoughts and your comments on this reading and on the word prudence. and how good decision making plays a role in your sobriety. Send me an email at soberreadingswithscott at gmail.com or go to my website soberreadings.com and fill out that little form. While you're there, if you haven't followed the show already, click that scrolling red link. And if you want to drop a dollar in the donation basket for today's readings, just click the donate button. So thanks everyone for listening. 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.