Sometimes I have been in an agitated state in the recent past in response to what is going on around me in the world. What has changed?
Everything and nothing.
No matter what happens, I still don’t have power over what others think, say or do.
I never did and I never will—
But, God does.
The only thing that calms me is maintaining that conscious contact with God—Step Eleven:
“Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
What is conscious contact? Being spiritually awake (not checked out) is conscious contact with God.
God alone holds what has happened, what is happening today, and what will happen in the future. The only thing I can do in response to others is be an instrument of peace going forward.
The Eleventh Step Prayer is one of my favorites and one that I am invoking for this time in my life to remain spiritually awake.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
“Be still and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10
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