When I think back with reflection to the time that my BBSS sponsor took me through the 12 step directions in the Big Book I'm amazed at how he didn't create a dependency on him for me. He truly worked for God and understood the role of being an agent. He was the tour guide and wholly trusted and relied on God to do the work. He was there to place me in God's hands.
He didn't try to persuade me or convince me of anything, most especially those three pertinent ideas. He intuitively knew that it would be the life's circumstances and the bedevilments that defined the station I'd arrived at that would be the best persuader to do the work, to muster the willingness to seek God. (I was sober many years in AA so alcohol being a persuader wasn't a part of it here.) He knew by his own experience that the work of steps 4 through 9 would indeed be the ultimate convincer (all by God's Grace) and that he didn't have God's power. He respected the position he had been placed in as a result of doing the work with perhaps the hope that I might do the whole deal and arrive at this same position. Indeed that is exactly what happened.
Who knew that the greatest lesson in how to carry the nature of the message of a spiritual experience would be shown to me the entire time my sponsor unselfishly worked with me?
I've seen fellows invest in trying to convince and persuade those they work with, and have seen the resultant futility of this folly. It does not serve the prospect, it does not serve God. Being guilty of this and seeing this also leads me to believe it is a form of playing God. I watched one of my dearest friends years ago try to lead with the religious angle all the time and saw the failure. I've seen others add conditions, their own stipulations, to the process of working with others trying to add to the recipe in the Big Book and always see that fail. I've seen some spend so much wasted time trying to convince others of the three pertinent ideas when indeed the work of the steps are designed to do exactly this.
The steps remove us from the position of playing God while providing the deepest understanding that it does not work. While we are carrying the message that trusting and relying on God is the most ideal was to recover perhaps it is wise to always be asking "Am I playing God?" The God idea, and His Works, never seem to fail yet when we put the God-shirt on failure is absolute on some level.
"May you find Him now." May you be willing to see all that He is ready to show you.
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