god as i do NOT understand him..

[24hrsAday]

almost done with march and thus step #3 at my A.A. group (in our readings) *the care of god as we understood him.. i just still cannot claim to understand god! i have faith and pray on a daily basis to a god that "I" do not understand.. and i've stayed sober doing it too!

[sugErspun]

I hear you. I used to stare at the steps on the wall at some meetings where the word understood was underlined and cringe. I truly believed that the understanding was critical - it's even underlined. Throughout my schooling, if something was underlined it was best to pay close attention to it.

As I went through the first three steps ~ I came to some sort of understanding, even if it's that I CANNOT understand god...and moved forward. It's illogical in a way, because the word "understand" has a definite meaning. I understand 1+1=2, and I understand how databases work....this is a different kind. Then again - almost everything in AA goes against my logical thought process at some point.

Thanks for sharing..there's a lot of freedom in not being required to define things anymore.

[stone]

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a world where everybody said, 'We don't know?' The fact is that you're surrounded by God and you don't see God, because you KNOW ABOUT God. The final barrier to the vision of God is your God concept. You miss God because you think you know. The highest knowledge of God is to know God as unknowable. All revelations, however divine, are never any more than a finger pointing at the moon. As we say in the East, 'When the sage points to the moon, all the idiot sees is the finger'.
~Anthony De Mello


I think they underline the "understand" part just to emphasise that they are not telling you how to think of God it is YOUR conception that is important....even though ultimately we cannot possibly conceive God.

[bballdad]

to get to the point to where I realized I really did`t understand God,is the first step in understanding
it means old ideas have been set aside for a open mind...and I finally quit trying to define God

[Dime]

The "as I understood" part is important to me because it means I was allowed to believe in what I believe in and not necessarily what others chose to believe in. So the door is wide open to all beliefs. How great does our understand have to be? Simple as you like and are comfortable with. My understanding was extremely basis to begin with and still is very simple today. And if you have conventional organized religious beliefs it also works beautifully.

And we are just making the decision to do this. We work on it every day.

Keep it simple!

[stone]

Originally Posted by Dime

The "as I understood" part is important to me because it means I was allowed to believe in what I believe in and not necessarily what others chose to believe in.

Yea, that is how I see it too.

[least]

"Knowing what/ Thou knowest not/ Is in a sense/ Omniscience." Piet Hein, poet and scientist.

I can relate to this.

[jimhere]

Step Two: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Not figured out what that power is before it restores us to sanity. Coming to believe is a process, an ever evolving thing. I hear many who get the words concept and conception mixed up. A concept is narrow, defined, and rigid. A conception is open-ended and has room to grow. It starts small. A friend of mine says "As you grow, God grows." I was told that God would be revealed to me as I was revealed to me.

Bill says that while in the hospital he turned his will and life over to the care of God as he "Then understood him." A very crucial phrase. If I wait until I have it figured out out, I'll never start. That is why Step Two is more about willingness than belief, because willingness is action and the Third Step is the beginning of action.

The words in what I call the "Third Step decision" do not define God to me, but it does define my relationship. God is the director, God is the principal, God is the father and I am the child.


I'm so grateful that my first sponsor did not have me go home and make a list of everything I wanted God to be. Looking back, that would have been making God over into my own image. Instead, he said "Take the action, the understanding will come."

Sam Shoemaker had a saying, "Turn as much of yourself as you understand over to as much of God as you understand." So in taking Step Three, I start where I am at and grow from there. "Upon a foundation of complete willingness I might build what I saw in my friend. I saw that growth could start from that point," Bill says in his story.

Today I know that it is impossible to intellectualize God. God is more of an experience than an idea. And it has grown for me to something that I can't wrap my mind around, the whole conception of God is beyond me, it is too big. It can only be expressed through the actions of my daily walk.
Jim

Big Book references from Alcoholics Anonymous, First Edition

[nocoincidence56]

Oh yes! There has been a lot of division among people over God, it can be a raw nerve for quite a lot of people.... That's why the God of your understanding is so vitally important... Unlike numbers, the conceptualization of God is just that, a concept, very personal and deeply rooted. To try and understand God would border on control, in which case, who's playing God? If I try to play God, I will be unable to have God in my life. There is only room for the God of my understanding and, thankfully, it's not me.... Every time I tried to play God I ended up in awful shape... Let Go, give up the need to control, have some faith in something beyond yourself, by doing so a whole new world will begin to unfold as time goes by. Remember though, it's your idea of God, no others. Have no preconceived idea or established model, it limits and/or defeats open-mindedness to any/all possibilities. Could be, by wholeheartedly (honestly) deciding to let go of the way I used to "run" my own life and accept my inability to manage it, the door begins to open, at last, to becoming a "whole" person. I begin to transcend the opposites in my life and see them for what they are and my capability of being one or the other or all of them. I had to let go to finally be whole. There is more to me than the physical, there is more to me than the mental, there is more to me than the spiritual. I am the sum of them all........ Should I choose to be only one or two it comes at a cost: me becoming God again! I know what happens then....

[CAPTAINZING2000]

Let's go if, there's a God!!

If, you read the Bible, who does it say created the the heavens and the Earth? Genesis 1:1
Discounting the beauty of Earth, I'm fascinated anytime, I'm out sailing at night and can view all the stars on a clear night
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...8_ebersole.jpg

Let's get back to Earth again. Science has determined 2 million species on Earth but, there could be as many as 5 to 10 million
Greatest Mysteries: How Many Species Exist on Earth? | LiveScience

I have to ask myself about feelings. How did they evolve? We can see emotions in most species as well. Every time, I go out to feed my dog, she's happier to see me then most humans will ever be. Where did love come from? That feeling of holding your child from the hospital or grandchild for the first time.
What about morals? How do they come into play? Any human with a cognitive thought process, knows what is right from wrong.

The God of my understanding is, one of emotions. A God that loves us unconditionally. Much as we can't, make someone love us. A God that, gives us free will, to make decisions on our own.

It is my belief, the God of my understanding loves me as much as I love my own children. In my case more so!!!!

I also believe, we have to have an ongoing relationship with God. reading the Bible, doing unto to others, praying in good times as well as in bad times.

I'm able to place my faith an trust on the existence of God even if, I'm wrong. I'd rather believe in God and be right then, to not believe in God and be wrong today.

APOD: August 19, 1996 - Welcome to Planet Earth
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...ollo17_big.jpg

[freya]

At this point, I truly believe that it would be a very, very bad sign if I thought I understood HP/God/The Force/whatever-one-wants-to-call-It. I mean, how could anything that I could understand actually be adequate to be any kind of HP????? Seriously, at this point I'm pretty aware of the limits of my own intellect, and I definitely would not be willing to turn my will and my life over to the care of anything that I could understand.......and if I was truly capable of understanding HP, then why would I need to turn my will and my life over the Him/Her/IT anyway, because I'd be perfectly capable of managing them myself, right?

.....and I'm guessing we all have a pretty good idea of where that line of thought got me in the first place!

A story related to this:

Awhile ago I went to hear a talk by Nando Parado, who is a survivor of the infamous 1973 Andes Mts. plane crash in which the survivors survived for something like 2 months in the frozen mountains only by eating the flesh of the passengers who did not survive. Given his life experience, it was truly amazing to hear and see how serene and faith-full this man is.

After his talk, someone in the audience asked him how he could possibly still believe in God after what had happened to him.

His answer was: I would have no use for a God that I could understand. And it's impossible for me to express in words how simply and how certainly he said this -- but without any defensiveness and without condenscending to the questioner in any way. It was almost like answer was so obvious to him that the question made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

...and my favorite quotation related to this (from AA speaker Scott L. of Nashville): "God is not lost, so He doesn't need to be found. In searching for Him what we find is ourselves."

...and Melody Beattie's The language of Letting Go has an excellent reading on this topic for July 13th, part of which goes: "God is Creator, Benefactor, and Source. God has shown me, beyond all else, that how I come to understand God is not nearly as important as knowing that God understands me."

freya

[least]

"Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe, that you may understand." St Augustine. Smart man, Augustine.

[CAPTAINZING2000]

excellent reply's

[Music]

Originally Posted by 24hrsAday

almost done with march and thus step #3 at my A.A. group (in our readings) *the care of god as we understood him.. i just still cannot claim to understand god! i have faith and pray on a daily basis to a god that "I" do not understand.. and i've stayed sober doing it too!

Just keep doing what you're doing. It's working isn't it?

[CAPTAINZING2000]

Originally Posted by stone

Yea, that is how I see it too.

Originally Posted by Music

Just keep doing what you're doing. It's working isn't it?

keep it simple right buddy

[24hrsAday]

Originally Posted by Music

Just keep doing what you're doing. It's working isn't it?

yep.. it sure is! thanks man!

[trucker]

"God is more of an experience than an idea"
thanks for that jim...thats a powerful message to me..and clarifies my faith and belief in god.. that i have no idea sometimes of how to put across to others..
I had a belief........a belief that what was apparently working for others could work for me
Over time and the rest of the steps..that vague belief blossomed into a strong faith..
I left behind my old ideas of a punishing god and embraced a new concept of a power greater than me..
I believe god gave me willingness and openmindedness........giving me the ability to...explore.
For me that willingness and openmindedness couldnt have come from anywhere else.....only god.

Trucker

[Music]

Originally Posted by 24hrsAday

yep.. it sure is! thanks man!

You're welcome 24. One thing I realized early on is that the AA program isn't for people who need it, it's for people who want it. AA(and God)is very forgiving as long as I don't take that first drink. Doesn't matter how well I pray, or even how well I work the program, as long as I'm trying to do something to not drink. I have a lot of trust and faith in both AA and God. I've made a lot of mistakes in my time. Some days the only thing I did right was not drink, but I'm still here. The steps are there to be used and worked daily, if not minute by minute.

[Charmie]

keep it simple,,,,,,,

[paulmh]

The words in what I call the "Third Step decision" do not define God to me, but it does define my relationship.

Thanks Jim. That's what I've tried to say, in so many words, for a loong time.

[miss communicat]

re: "God of my understanding" or "God as I understand God"

my thoughts on this...

keywords: God, my, understand
1. God= All That Is, Infinite Intellligence, The Creator,The Creative Principle, Spirit of the Universe, Higher Consciousness
2. understand= to stand under.

This phrase and BB reference, therefore, TO ME, implies and instructs my relationship to God (as jim points out), not who or what God is, either in my mind or in some other form

[MsChief]

As human beings it is not for us to understand God. All we need to do it try to understand what 'He' requires of us and to follow that path closely. Easier said than done eh?

[Deb045]

My sponsor early on in my recovery this time around had me write down the qualities my God had and what He stands for. I thought it would be an easy task but it took some work on my part. I was and still am determined to be honest, open-minded and willing so it took a few weeks to do this because I had lost my faith in God somewhere in the bottle. I learned thru this task that an emotional elation was what I always expected to "feel" about God and when I wasn't feeling that then no god. I reconnected to God this simple way--For the first several months I would break out this paper and read it and I was comforted by this. I believe now that the God of my understanding has placed who he is in my heart and when I was having a hard time retrieving this knowledge on my own then this exercise suggested by my sponsor worked because I was willing to do it.