Where Am I? Relationships with God
I’ve learned from past experiences that staying current with my relationship with God and spiritual practices were and are vital to not only sobriety but to my life. The tendency for so many is to rely on old experiences to be current. Our big book states to “grow in understanding and effectiveness,” so it begs the question, what am I doing currently to enhance this relationship with God to continue, to seek God without expectations?
What many folks fall into is – a life of faith without works. We become hearers only and not hearers and doers.
Do I practice fidelity to my worship of God, prayer and meditations? Do I practice fidelity to spiritual practices in general or have I found other activates to turn to when life seems to come at me unfairly? What I like to call these other practices are the “mistresses of life”. Things are not going the way I had expected or perhaps have run dry, so I turn to something that gives me what I want and not necessarily what I need. My wants can get dressed up as needs, and if that happens, I’m heading for trouble.
Life is, when we think about it, about relationships. The ones that we love and the ones we try to avoid. The people who smile when they see us the ones who don’t. It’s life!
The ego will insist that everyone must like us and do as we ask. We want to be the landlords of our own little kingdom and let only those who endorse what we want in. God is on the outer fringes of life, and life and the current moment is always in the way. We have family members, co-workers, neighbors etc., who do what they do based on how they see life and react as such. How am I doing in the mist of this? We can claim a Godly path yet character assassinate anyone who gives us a challenge. We practice judgment without mercy only to find that we are the ones who receive no mercy.
So my relationship, my current relationship with God as you can see is vital to walk through life gracefully with a spirit of gratitude. Not oblivious to what is around me and looking at life through rose-colored glasses, yet to see life as it is. A journey and my works as I go through it-doing His will and not mine. To do this, I need to be “awake” and not sound asleep to the God of my understanding. How can I seek God, how can I meet God, how can I hear God. when I am playing God?
A good spot check that always gets me centered is looking at the “bedevilments” on page 52 in the big book. How am I doing with life, with relationships?
It is somewhat remarkable that when I feel the nearness of my Creator, how the world is worn like a loose garment and I am in the world not of the world.
It’s the chopping of wood and carrying of water, the spiritual progress, and ploughing the field, seeking God and making it the most important event of my day.
Blessings,
Peter Marinelli
“Chop wood, Carry water.”
