Where do we find God?

[Leadfoot]

One of the things that a newcomer stumbles on the most is “This God Thing” as they call it. I must admit that I stumbled myself. To me, God was Organized Religion and nothing more. Even with my own conception of God, I still couldn't get past the image that was ingrained through my upbringing. God was The Bible and The Bible was God. How was I to get past this?
Where was I to find this God? I looked to the heavens and didn't see him. I never did believe in Angels playing harps on clouds anyways. I looked at all the things that God had provides. Mountains water and trees. Still no God. I ask people that had found God. They pointed. Out there. Over there. Up there.
It's about a 20 minute drive from my house and I'm in the middle of nowhere. No signs of human life to be seen anywhere. Here I am in the middle of Gods Creation and still no God.
How am I to have my Spiritual Awakening when I can't find God?
First off, I was looking in the wrong place. God wasn't "Out There" He was in me the whole time. I had just lost contact with Him through my own desire to do God's job for him. God's God and I'm not. There's nothing else that I need to know. God never left. He never left and he never will. I didn't know that. That was the reason I was looking for a sign that God existed. Where was my burning bush? Where was any indication that God existed?
Ask "ol Leadfoot" the same question! "Where is any indication that God lives in you"? Show me a sign! Now the ball is back on my side of the net. It's up to me to act as a messenger of God. No longer am I playing God, I am just the humble Messenger. Nothing more!
Let me reconcile this with what is in the book!

Pg55 We finally saw that faith in some kind of a God was part of our make-up 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. 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.

[sioux]

I had a friend that used to say why are you looking for G-d? G-d is not lost; it is you that is lost. You're just creating another diversion Sioux. Okay.

I could accept that and agree with it too. I had found the open-mindedness so necessary to becoming willing to turning my life will over to a power greater than myself. Even if it meant I yo-yoed it until the string unwound and I'd have to make a decision as to whether not I wanted to wind it up again.

And it was the first time in recovery I could agree on anything, so wingo! I had a renewed sense of hope too.

For me G-d is here and now.

[rebosman_99]

CHAPTER FOUR WE AGNOSTICS



Lack of power, that was our dilemma. we had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a Power greater than ourselves. Obviously. But where and how were we to find this Power?

Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself which will solve your problem. That means we have written a book which we believe to be spiritual as well as moral. And it means, of course, that we are going to talk about God. Here difficulty arises with agnostics. Many times we talk to a new man and watch his hope rise as we discuss his alcoholic problems and explain our fellowship. But his face falls when we speak of spiritual matters, especially when we mention God, for we have re-opened a subject which our man thought he had neatly evaded or entirely ignored.

Besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, we often found ourselves handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice. Many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things make us bristle with antagonism. This sort of thinking had to be abandoned. Though some of us resisted, we found no great difficulty in casting aside such feelings. Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness. Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will prejudiced for as long as some of us were.

[Craig A.]

Great comments, I love this subject. I was the same way God was there or God was over here but not in here(me). I knew about the religous God but a God that cared for someone like me, who drank, did drugs, hurt people, disobeyed the Commandments, and whatever I could think of. I could not believe that, my sponsor explained to me that I don't have to believe in that, I could believe in a Group Of Drunks (G.O.D.) staying sober, or I could borrow his Higher Power. He told me to pray and ask Him to reveal Himself to me. Then something magical happened, I believed, my sponsor told me to take it slow there is no reason to rush, just believe and keep an open mind. I read that passage also and to me it is so true I turned my back on Him and when I honestly looked back in my past I can see where He was there (footprints ). He was always there and I am forever grateful for that. My sponsor all I had to do is ask and I did, He answered. Thank you for the topic and God Bless!!!

[DavidNOLA]

Great topic and something I definitely need to find an outlet for as it seems my home group can be kind of God light at times.
But as it says on p.68 " We never apologize for God."
I think my new spiritual bank account began getting filled as soon as I started practicing the letting go and letting God.
When I decided to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, I started to realize that God had been trying to show me all along that miracles do happen. I was just too busy trying to prove otherwise.

[Uh_Andy]

Wow - thanks everyone for the great discussion. I was so relieved when someone finally pointed me to the book and I found out that a belief in God was not required to complete step two. With just some willingness I was able to complete the steps and have a true spiritual awakening - as a result of the steps.

We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a Power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results,

- pg 46 -

As soon as we admitted the possible existence of a Creative Intelligence, a Spirit of the Universe underlying the totality of things, we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction, provided we took other simple steps.

- pg 46 -

As soon as a man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way.

- pg 47 -

Most emhpatically we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts.

- Appendix II -

(emphasis mine)

[AAcanada.com]

Somewhere in the big book it says.
"Deep down inside of every man, woman & child is the fundamentals of God"