The one exception
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| "....as my requests bore on my usefulness to others." |
Step We Are On: Four
Page: 67
Chapter: 5 "How It Works"
Subject: Resentment Inventory, Prayer
Good morning. We are going through the columns of the 4th step directions. (3rd column) We are looking at the upsetting things others do in the world from an angle quite different from the one we are used to.
We also learn that there is a prayer for ourselves after all - but a very special kind.
There is great wisdom from these co-authors who recognized how ambition forms barriers to real helpfulness to others.
There is great wisdom from these co-authors who recognized how ambition forms barriers to real helpfulness to others.
· What did we see about the ones who offended us?
Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too.
Comment: The following is the Fourth Step “Resentment Prayer”.
· What do we ask God?
We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend.
· When a person hurts us, what do we pray? The rest of paragraph
When a person offended we said to ourselves, "This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done."
Comment: Do we pray for the ones who offend us or do we pray for ourselves?
The Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous, quite pointedly tells its practicing readers to never ask God for anything unless it bears on a very special kind of usefulness to others. Not merely things that are useful to others, like good health or relief from stress—but specifically the reader’s usefulness to others. This 4th step prayer” is one example of this. We are not actually praying for ourselves, but for “OUR” usefulness…to others.
Please remember what Ebby said to Bill on page 13 regarding all prayer, “Never was I to pray for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others.”
All Big Book prayers fall within this parameter. It eliminates MANY of the prayers so many AAs have been used to--but the price of awakening and sobriety is high. It includes an opened mind that drops the vestiges of old prejudices, and that means how we pray too.
· What do we avoid?
We avoid retaliation or argument.
· Why do we avoid that?
We wouldn't treat sick people that way.
· What might happen if we do?
If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful.
Tomorrow: Column four
Peace and Love,
Danny S – RLRA
Real Live Recovered Alcoholic
So, you mention a fourth step prayer, but it looks like there are two separate prayers here...right? Secondly, do we pray both of tge prayers back to back? Thirdly, do we pray those prayers for each itemized reason for being angry in column 2, or are these prayers more a direction for how to treat people and the things they do to us in the future?
ReplyDeleteI just blew a vessel in my skull.
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