A Prayer & Some Thoughts - July

[bluidkiti]

July 11

Serving Others Prayer

Lord,
Allow me to serve others with a joyful heart;
Never keeping score;
Always giving;
Never expecting to receive.
Allow me to give of myself,
To give of my talents and of my goods,
To give of my time and of my energy,
To give of my heart and of my soul.
Help me understand the needs of others,
Never criticizing,
Never demeaning,
Never scolding,
Never condemning.
You have been so gracious to me,
Always Loving,
Always forgiving,
Always restoring;
Never gloating over my defeats,
Even when I have been so wrong.
Father, keep a condemning spirit
Far from my heart and further from my lips.
Allow me to serve others as You serve,
With gentleness, compassion, and tenderness,
Never diminishing the worth of another,
Choosing to extend mercy to the brokenhearted,
Like You have repeatedly shown it to me,
Amen.

~Jack Watts

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Just a Thought


When we were drinking, most of us never thought of helping others.
We liked to buy drinks for people, because that made us feel like big shots. But we only used others for our own pleasure. To really go out and try to help somebody who needed help never occurred to us. To us, helping others looked like a sucker's game. But when we came into A.A., we began to try to help others. And we found out that helping others made us happy and also helped us to stay sober.

So ............

Have I learned that there is happiness in helping others?


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Just a Contemplation

Easier Way

When we used alcohol, we did most things the hard way. We could turn a simple task into a day-long project. We could turn a simple problem into an argument. We were creative giants in doing things the hard way! We need to change this. We deserve easier lives. It's okay to take the smooth road .


In our program ,We have slogans for this: Keep It Simple, Let Go and Let God, First Things First, and Easy Does It. These slogans remind us that it's okay to live with as little trouble as possible.

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Belief

One of the oldtimers used the electricity metaphor, which I later found in the Big Book. 'A person walking into a dark room does not worry about understanding electricity,' he said. 'He just finds the switch and turns on the light.' He explained that we can turn on the switch of spirituality by simply asking God each morning for another day of sobriety and thanking Him at night for another beautiful sober day. He said, 'Do it mechanically if you really don't believe in it. But do it every day. There is probably no one who really understands the wonderful ways of the Higher Power, and we don't need to. He understands us.

Came to Believe, 30th printing 2004, Page 30

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Just a Quote

"Serving others breaks you free from the shackles of self and self-absorption that choke out the joy of living." ~ James Hunter