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Higher Power

Posted by mjdunn on February 14th 2010 to Recovery

From:100 Blessings Every Day

…You shall have no other gods before me. -Exodus 20:2-3

There is a saying around A.A. fellowship meetings that if you make your #2’s your #l’s, you lose your #l’s. It is the program’s way of saying: Maintain your priorities. For us, the #1 priority is to avoid false gods. Notice that the edict does not command belief in God. Free-willed beings can­not be commanded to believe anything. Believe in a Higher Power or believe nothing, but no false gods. Anything we view as the highest good, be it money or sex or chemical sub­stances, is as idolatrous as a ten-foot statue.

Living to use and using to live, we worshipped a sub­stance with a devotion that led us to hell. In recovery, our #1 priority must be recovery. Anything that we place ahead of it puts our recovery at risk. By refusing to bow down to drugs, we are free to turn toward a Higher Power of our understanding.

The difference is as profound as that between slavery and freedom, as significant as that between evil and good, and as clear as that between life and death.

The text says, “No other gods but Me.” Stop bowing down to anyone or anything else.

* 1 Comment

One Response to “Higher Power”

  1. E. Anonymous
    February 23rd, 2010 | 4:16 pm

    If the nucleus of an atom were the size of a baseball, the first orbit of electrons would be just outside the baseball stadium. So all matter is mostly empty space. Since empty space, or nothing, is in, around, and between all things, it actually makes a pretty powerful higher power. Since there’s 7+ dimensions that we cannot perceive, that means the mechanisms which act on the universe we can perceive are residents of the empty space.

    There are lots of good reasons to believe in nothing. First and foremost is that whatever we choose to believe will eventually be challenged, whereas nothing, or absolute nothingness is impervious to all challenges. More practically, holding on to fixed beliefs robs us of the opportunity to learn new ideas, and have meaningful experiences which would challenge our beliefs.

    I’m pretty sure the stronger faith comes, not from believing, but being willing to believe.

    E. Anonymous

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