SURRENDER, TRUST, AND FAITH

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”

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Some decisions we have made

• We had been defeated.
• We needed help, and asked for it.
• We decided to keep going to meetings.
• We decided to stop acting and speak our own truth.
• We decided to listen intently to others.
• We decided to stop comparing.
• We decided to look at the literature.
• We decided to study the program.
• We decided we needed a sponsor.
• We realised that decisions are useless unless we follow through with action.

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Key Points

• Step Three is like opening of a locked door.
• How shall we let God into our lives?
• Willingness is the key.
• Dependence as a means to independence.
• Dangers of self-sufficiency.
• Turning our will over to higher Power.
• Misuse of will power.
• Sustained and personal exertion necessary to conform to God’s will.

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Light bulb moments

“Our whole trouble has been the misuse of will-power. We had tried to bombard our problems with it instead of attempting to bring it into agreement with God’s intention for us. To make this increasingly possible is the purpose of A.A.’s Twelve Steps, and Step Three opens the door.”

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Suggested Reading

Big Book: Ch 5 “How It Works” p60 – 63

12×12:”Step Three” p35 – 42

Came To Believe

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Some pages from As Bill Sees It

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Step 3 Promises

a) That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.  b) That probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism.  c) That God could and would if he were sought.	(p60)
Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible.	(p62)
Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom.	(p62)
When we sincerely took such a position, all sort of remarkable things followed.	(p63)
We had a new Employer.	(p63)
Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to Him and performed His work well.	(p63)
Established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs.	(p63)
More and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life.	(p63)
As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter.	(p63)
We were reborn.	(p63)
This was only the beginning, though if honestly and humbly made, an effect, sometimes a very great one, was felt at once.	(p63)

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Step 3 Prayers

Without help, it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power – that One is God. May we find Him now.

God I offer myself to Thee – to build with me and do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May Ido Thy will always!

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Thy will, not mine, be done.

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Humble, Open-minded and Willing

Into Your hands, 0 Lord, I praise this joy, this sorrow, this problem, this decision.

Into Your hands I praise each moment as it comes, each event You send to me.

Into Your hands I put this thing I have to do or suffer.

Into Your hands this love, this responsibility.

Into Your hands this weakness, this defect, this failure,this wrong thing that I have done.

And so, finally, into Your hands I place my life as a whole,all that I am; be it done according to Your will.

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My Way

Lord, take me where You want me to go;

Let me meet who You want me to meet;

Tell me what You want me to say;

And keep me out of my own way.

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“Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

• What can we believe in?
• A.A. does not demand belief.
• Twelve Steps are only suggestions.
• Importance of an open mind.
• Variety of ways to faith.
• Substitution of A.A. as higher Power.
• Plight of the disillusioned.
• Road blocks of indifference and prejudice.
• Lost faith found in A.A.
• Problems of intellectuality and self-sufficiency.
• Negative and positive thinking.
• Self-righteousness.
• Defiance is an outstanding characteristic of alcoholics.
• Step two is a rallying point to sanity.
• Right relation to God.

Some suggested pages from As Bill Sees It

Questions

ACCEPTANCE

“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.”

• Who cares to admit complete defeat?
  • “It is truly awful to admit that, glass in hand; we have warped our minds into such an obsession for destructive drinking that only an act of Providence can remove it from us.”
• Admission of powerlessness is the first step in liberation.
  • “Our admissions of personal powerlessness finally turn out to be the firm bedrock upon which happy and purposeful lives may be built.”
• Relation of humility to sobriety.
  • “The principle that we shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat is the main taproot from which our whole society has sprung and flowered.”
• Mental obsession plus physical allergy.
  • “We were the victims of a mental obsession so powerful that no amount of human will power could break it.”
• Why must every A.A. hit bottom.
  • “We stand ready to do anything which will lift the merciless obsession from us.”

Light Bulb Moments