Daily Recovery Readings - July

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July 8

Daily Reflections

AN EVER-GROWING FREEDOM, p.198

The Seventh Step is where we make the change in our attitude
which permits us, with humility as our guide, to move out from
ourselves toward others and toward God.
12 & 12, p.76

When I finally asked God to remove those things blocking me
from Him and the sunlight of the Spirit, I embarked on a journey
more glorious than I ever imagined. I experienced freedom from
those characteristics that had me wrapped up in myself. Because
of this humbling Step, I feel clean. I am especially aware of this
Step because I'm now able to be useful to God and to my fellows. I
know that He has granted me strength to do His bidding and has
prepared me for anyone, and anything, that comes my way today. I
am truly in His hands, and I give thanks for the joy that I can be useful
today.

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Twenty-Four Hours A Day

A.A. Thought For The Day

We in Alcoholics Anonymous do not enter into theological
discussions, but in carrying our message we attempt to explain the
simple "how" of the spiritual life. How faith in a Higher Power can
help you to overcome loneliness, fear, and anxiety. How it can
help you get along with other people. How it can make it possible
for you to rise above pain, sorrow, and despondency. How it can
help you to overcome your desires for the things that destroy. Have
I reached a simple, effective faith?

Meditation For The Day

Expect miracles of change in people's lives. Do not be held back
by unbelief. People can be changed and they are often ready and
waiting to be changed. Never believe that human nature cannot be
changed. We see changed people everyday. Do you have the faith to
make those changes possible? Modern miracles happen every day
in the lives of people. All miracles are in the realm of personalities.
Human nature can be changed and is always being changed. But we must
have enough faith so that we can be channels for God's strength into
the lives of others.

Prayer For The Day

I pray that I may have the faith to expect miracles. I pray that I
may be used by God to help change the lives of others.

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As Bill Sees It

Experimenters, p. 189

We agnostics liked A.A. all right, and were quick to say that it had done miracles. But we
recoiled from meditation and prayer as obstinately as the scientist who refused to
perform a certain experiment lest it prove his pet theory wrong.

When we finally did experiment, and unexpected results followed, we felt different; in
fact, we knew different; and so we were sold on meditation and prayer. And that, we
found, can happen to anybody who tries. It has been well said that "Almost the only
scoffers at prayer are those who never tried enough."

12 & 12, p. 97

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Walk In Dry Places

God’s will for us.
Spiritual Guidance.
"I was afraid God would want me to do something unpleasant, like go off to become a monk," a young man said at a 12 Step meeting. "That’s why I had a hard time seeking God’s will for me." This sort of comment is heard now and then at meetings. It reveals a belief that God is a harsh taskmaster who delights in imposing difficult conditions on us.
The truth is that God’s purpose is to help us be more of what we ought to be, which is always something better than what we’re experiencing now. Few people are ever called to be monks, but those who do are pleased with their choice and devote themselves to it.
We must always be interested in finding God’s direction in our lives. It will turn out to be something far better than anything we could have planned.
I need not fear God’s direction in my life. It’s actually what I need in order to reach my true place.

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Keep It Simple

Pain can't be avoided. It's as natural as joy. - Unknown
We got into a lot of trouble trying to avoid pain. We used alcohol and other drugs to avoid pain. We didn't want to accept pain as a fact of life.
We can't avoid pain, but now we have the program. The program teaches us how to talk about our pain. The program teaches how to turn over our pain to our Higher Power.
We don't have to be alone when we face pain. We have friends to go to. Before, when we hurt, we ran to alcohol or other drugs.
Now, when we hurt, we run to the comfort of our sponsor and our program friends.
Prayer for the Day: Higher Power, help me accept pain as part of life. Help me remember that You are always there to help me with my pain. I'm not alone.
Today's Action: Today, I'll list three painful events in my life. I'll talk with a friend about them.

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Each Day a New Beginning

Women like to sit down with trouble as if it were knitting. --Ellen Glasgow
How often we turn minor challenges into monumental barriers by giving them undue attention, forgetting that within any problem lies its solution! However, the center of our focus must be off the problem's tangle if we are to find the solution's thread. The best remedy for this dilemma is the Serenity Prayer.
We cannot change our children, our husbands or partners, not even the best friends who we know love us. But with God's help we can change the attitude that has us blocked at this time. A changed attitude, easing up on ourselves, lessening our expectations of others, will open the door to the kind of relationships we seek, the smooth flowing days we long for.
We need not take life so seriously. In fact, we shouldn't take it so seriously. We can measure our emotional health by how heartily we laugh with others and at ourselves. The 24 hours stretching before us at this time promises many choices in attitude. We can worry, be mad, depressed, or frustrated, or we can trust our higher power to see us through whatever the situation. So, we can relax. It is our decision, the one decision over which we are not powerless.
I will be in control of my attitude today. I can have the kind of day I long for.

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Alcoholics Anonymous - Fourth Edition

Chapter 11 - A Vision For You

Yes, there is a substitute and it is vastly more than that. It is a fellowship in Alcoholics Anonymous. There you will find release from care, boredom and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Thus we find the fellowship, and so will you.
“How is that to come about?” you ask. “Where am I to find these people?”

p. 152

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Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

Step Five - "Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."

The real tests of the situation are your own willingness to confide and your full confidence in the one with whom you share your first accurate self-survey. Even when you've found the person, it frequently takes great resolution to approach him or her. No one ought to say the A.A. program requires no willpower; here is one place you may require all you've got. Happily, though, the chances are that you will be in for a very pleasant surprise. When your mission is carefully explained, and it is seen by the recipient of your confidence how helpful he can really be, the conversation will start easily and will soon become eager. Before long, your listener may well tell a story or two about himself which will place you even more at ease. Provided you hold back nothing, your sense of relief will mount from minute to minute. The dammed-up emotions of years break out of their confinement, and miraculously vanish as soon as they are exposed. As the pain subsides, a healing tranquillity takes its place. And when humility and serenity are so combined, something else of great moment is apt to occur. Many an A.A., once agnostic or atheistic, tells us that it was during this stage of Step Five that he first actually felt the presence of God. And even those who had faith already often become conscious of God as they never were before.

pp. 61-62

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All time spent angry is time lost being happy.
--Mexican Proverb

Do what you can, for who you can, with what you have, and where you
are.
--Anonymous

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you
can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people
you can, as long as ever you can.
--John Wesley

Most of us are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be.
--Abraham Lincoln

"One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at
things."
--Henry Miller

Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required
to buy one necessity of the soul.
--Henry David Thoreau

"No one has ever done anything too bad to be forgiven."
--Ruth Sheppard

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Father Leo's Daily Meditation

ART

"There is no must in art because
it is free."
--Vasily Kandinsky

Now I understand why the religious people of the past persecuted
the artist. Now I understand why so many artists moved away
from religion and grew beyond it. The artist is always searching
for that which is different, that which cannot be contained or
codified; that which is free: Spirituality. As a drinking alcoholic I
found it necessary to control my life; control my thoughts and
behavior; control each and every situation -- and it was depressingly
exhausting. Today sobriety enables me to risk that which is new and
different. Sobriety allows me to experiment and take risks in God's
world. Sobriety is being free. I am discovering more of me in what
yesterday's artists wrote and produced. The "musts" of yesterday
have been replaced by the shoulds and needs today. I am free to
listen and consider the person because he is a person and not
simply because of his credentials.

Supreme Artist, let me hear You in the whisperings of Your creatures.

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Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you.
1 Peter 5:6-7

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:26

You are from God, little children, and have overcome; because
greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
1 John 4:4

"Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you
would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and
have seen him."
John 14:5-7

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Daily Inspiration

Keep your mind open to the possibility that things can turn out even better than expected. Lord, I trust in You and graciously accept all blessings that You send to me.

God gives us power, love and self-discipline, not fear and timidness. Lord, I will not be afraid to proclaim that You are my God. All will see it in my actions.