Monday, May 30, 2016
Trust - Key Component Of Belief
To believe, we have to trust. Trust is the key component of belief. When I was a teenager I broke my relationship with God. It was a relationship that had developed through the early religious training I received in Catholic grade school. The fact that I broke my relationship with God did not change that I had always believed in God. I believed in God even while I was living the life of an alcoholic -- in utter pandemonium. My behaviors had nothing to do with my belief in Him. It was my lack of trust in Him which led me astray from a relationship with Him for so long. Trust, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is "assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something".
To have such certainty for the Supreme Power requires humility, exactly that which the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous gives us. The incorporation of the steps of such a program into our lives begins the break down of our egos, so that humility (and all the many benefits from it) can seep into our lives. After some time we actually develop a hunger for it. I have learned in my experience with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous that humility is the key which unlocks the door to the grace of God. It is only through this grace that we remain sober and recovered from our addictions and the manifestation of our character defects. Our egos must be deflated and our human desires subrogated to the will of God. Belief is necessary but trust is essential.
TRUST IS THE KEY COMPONENT OF BELIEF.
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At this point in my sobriety (decades), the word Trust is of singlemost importance to me. It may be the most meaningful Recovery word of all because I could not bring myself to believe without first knowing and feeling Trust. That awareness first came about in the Second Step but it took years to abandon my human nature to The Power Within me for it to became the basis for a new life. I heard a wise man once delineate that in The Second Step, he came to believe that by enthusiastically incorporating the remaining Steps into his life, he would ultimately find The Truth. That is what I've always wanted and have struggled with even in AA - The Truth of me, for me. Under no circumstances, will I ever live The Truth and find The Peace for which I yearn unless I Trust before all else. In that notion, I am certain, and in that certainty I believe.
ReplyDeleteMichael the deflation of ego is critical for an alcoholic to have the humility necessary to trust in anything either than their human decision making process. A life led by trust in God allows a recovered alcoholic to care and serve others even when their human nature perceives life as not going well...Thank you...Armand
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