longbeachone

As a newcomer to recovery, some of you will have a difficult time turning your will over to God, or to your Higher Power. I've written down my feelings about this, in the hope that it will inspire you, and help you to see that God is where YOU find him. It's not a one size fits all proposition.

I see the universe as such a place of wonder and grace that I'm in awe of the magnificence of it all. As humans, we think we have answers, or that due to our our lack of understanding we have no answers, or that none of it matters...We'll all be dead in a hundred years anyway. Not me.

I know so little, how can I profess to understand the nature of a cosmos that is so vast that we cannot even comprehend it, and yet can still produce something as small and infintessimaly complex as a sparrow. Today, we walk around holding tiny boxes to our ears and talking to people thousands of miles away. Only a hundred years ago this would have been seen as magical, impossible. The amount of knowledge that we don't have, that will become known is staggering. What is possible? Will we walk between world's in a moment? Fly unaided like birds? Discover the secrets of the soul and its journeys, or lack of them? I don't know what the future holds, but in a hundred years, it will be US who will look and point and say "is it magic?".

So for now, I choose to pray to the God that I see and feel in everything around me. I don't look at the misery that exists as proof that God is not real. Balance is the most elemental principal in our universe. Without evil, how could good exist? Of course it hurts us, enraged us, alarms us, frightens us. But it is the existence of evil that proves the existence of good. One could not exist without the other.

What I find most comforting is that in this world, this universe, nothing is wasted. Atoms cycle through any number of manifestations...a mineral in the ground is absorbed by, and becomes a part of, a tree in a forest, whose leaves fall and feed an animal that is eaten by another, who then dies and once again becomes an element in the soil. Everything is used, over and over. When does animation signal that the element has become part of a living being, and when does that being develop a consciousness? Where does that spark begin? What, if any, part of that element is a component of that awareness? I can look at the hard scientific facts that we know now and hypothesize, but the answers will undoubtedly change, as awareness of the nature of life changes with new ideas, new facts, new science. It's been said that if knowledge is a vast ocean, what is known can be seen as a tiny circle of land rising an inch above the water. I love this analogy...it gives the future such potential!

So, back to the question of a higher power. I guess I see everything existing around me as my higher power, the existence of it all IS the proof that I need. That I look to the teachings of Jesus Christ as a guide comes down to the simplicity of his message. He teaches, beyond anything else, that it is love that transforms us. Love one another, even your enemies. Love is the answer. Many other philosophers teach this as well, but I have found none that preach the power of love as all transforming, as the rock to tether all of our actions to. His message resonates deeply within me.

I wish I could explain it better, but I'm not a physicist, nor a cosmologist, nor a scientist, nor any of those other "ists" that are far smarter than I. All I know is that when people say "There is no proof of God" I say "The proof is all around us!". And when I asked God for help, he gave me help. This I believe down to the core of my being. I hope that in some way this helps you find YOUR higher power.