68:2-23
Quote:
We reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them. We asked ourselves why we had them. Wasn't it because self-reliance failed us? Self-reliance was good as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn't fully solve the fear problem, or any other. When it made us cocky, it was worse.
Perhaps there is a better way --- we think so. For we are now on a different basis; the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role He assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us, and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity.
We never apologize to anyone for depending upon our Creator. We can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages it that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. We never apologize for God. Instead we let Him demonstrate through us, what He can do. We ask Him to remover our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear.
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DEFINITION:
18----Paradoxically: apparently contradictory, i.e,. dependence upon God equals freedom and strength.
The clear-cut directions for the fears list of our fourth step are given here. Clearly, we are to write this list down. We add to the fears we idenitfied in our resentment list any other fears that we may have. The first column contains a descripton of our fear, e.g., "I am afraid of being alone." The second column contains the reason we have this fear and the third column contains the solution to our fear. The authors suggest a reason for our fears, which is a reliance upon our human resources rather than God.
We who have no experience with God working in our lives believe that our own human resources are the only power to which we have access. Our fear comes from the knowledge that our own power is often not enough. Some of our fears are instinctual, such as the fear of falling that we have from the time we are born. We learn some fears from experience. We expereience a negative result and we have faith that we will always expereince that same result. We may ask someone for help and be rejected, so we fear we will be rejected again. Fears such as this govern our actions. Some fears serve to keep us out of danger but when we are controlled by unreasonable fears we are not always free to act in our own best interests. This is a method of applying reason and the Power of God to our fears.
Source:
The Annotated AA Handbook
Frank D