Monday, January 11, 2016

The God of my understanding

(This is a personal story from one of our members.)

One of the challenges both for me prior to starting to work the Steps of the SA program and while working Steps 1, 2 & 3 was my concept of God. I had been quite sure of what I believed about God, and, being as arrogant as I was, quite sure I was right. But the challenge came in that what I believed obviously didn't work. If it did work, then what was I still doing with this absolutely insane addiction? How could I go on "sinning" again and again if I really wanted to stop, but I couldn't? What did it say about me and my surety of who and what God was if I was still acting out in my addiction? If I and all of the other people who shared my beliefs about God were also entirely right in what we believed, then why was I trapped, in bondage, and had found no escape in the practice of my supposed faith in God? I wanted to be free. I begged to be set free. I hated who I was, and the God of my understanding apparently did nothing to change that.

If nothing was wrong with my understanding of God, then why was I showing up at SA looking for something more? Something was terribly wrong, or I wouldn't be here.

Today, things are very different. God "as I understand Him" is still very similar to the God I previously "believed in." But there are some significant differences.

One of the significant changes is that I no longer am in the practice of talking about some "hypothetical faith" that clearly doesn't really work, because it hasn't kept me sober, joyous, and free. No, instead I talk about "a faith that works." I know it works, because it works for me every day.  And I continue to learn that God is so much more than I ever imagined he would be. And that of course makes sense to me now that I have accepted that God is God and I am not, and that he is free to be what he is regardless of what I thought I knew about him.