November 6th

From Wisdom for Today:

Turning our addiction over to God is not something we can do absolutely. If I were capable of an unwavering faith and could let go of my addiction completely, then I could "breathe easy." But the fact is that my faith is not complete, and I am not capable of turning it over to God absolutely. So I must always work at strengthening my faith and building my trust in God. I need to attack any reservations that I have in this regard because if I am not building myself up in my faith, then I am going to wind up relying on myself again. I cannot afford to rely on myself. I know where that road leads already.

To build up my faith I need to keep going to meetings and listen to other people share their struggles and triumphs. I need to share my own spiritual struggles. I need to reflect back on my journey in recovery. As I look back, I spend time looking for evidence that the hand of God has been there to point the way for me. It is much easier to trust in my Higher Power when I see so clearly that He indeed walks the path with me. I also see how often He has carried me; for many times along the journey, I have not been able to walk the walk. Fortunately God has been there to do for me what I could not do on my own. Do I work to build up my faith in my Higher Power?

Meditations for the Heart

Learning to "Keep It Simple" has not been easy. You see, I seem to enjoy complicating things. I do this in lots of different ways. Sometimes I just like to worry about tomorrow, and at other times I just get hung up regretting the past. In both cases I am not living in today. Sometimes I like to “awful-ize” and make life much worse than it actually is. At other times I seem to look at life through rose-colored glasses. Sometimes I complicate life by trying to think with my heart rather than my mind. This leaves me reacting to all my emotions rather than using commonsense. It is not easy to keep it simple; but if I can stay in today and live life the way my Higher Power would want me to, it gets easier. I have found out that if I live the way my Higher Power would want me to live, life is simple. Do I complicate my life rather than keeping it simple?

Petitions to my Higher Power

God,

Today let me live my life as You would want me to live. Help me to keep things simple. Give me the courage to continue to grow spiritually, and let me grow in faith.

Amen.