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."
Much has already been said
about receiving strength,
inspiration, and direction from Him who has all knowledge
and power. If we have carefully followed directions,
we have begun to sense the flow of His Spirit
into us. To some extent we have become God-conscious.
We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense.
But we must go further and that means more action.
Step
Eleven suggests prayer and meditation. We
shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer. Better men
than we are
using it constantly. It works, if we have
the proper attitude and work at it. It would be easy to
be vague about this matter. Yet, we believe we can
make some definite and valuable suggestions.
When we
retire at night, we constructively review
our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid?
Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to
ourselves which should be discussed with another person
at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What
could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves
most of the time? Or were we thinking of what
we could do for others, of what we could pack into the
stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into
worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would
diminish our usefulness to others. After making our
review we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective
measures should be taken.
On
awakening let us think about the twenty-four
hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before
we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially
asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest
or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions
we can employ our mental faculties with assurance,
for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought-life
will be placed on a much higher plane when our
thinking is cleared of wrong motives.
In thinking
about our day we may face indecision.
We may not be able to determine which course to take.
Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought
or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don't
struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers
come after we have tried this for a while.
What used to
be the hunch or the occasional inspiration
gradually becomes a working part of the mind.
Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious
contact with God, it is not probable that we are
going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this
presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas.
Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time
passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration.
We come to rely upon it.
We
usually conclude the period of meditation with a
prayer that we be shown all through the day what our
next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need
to take care of such problems. We ask especially for
freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request
for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves,
however, if others will be helped. We are careful never
to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have
wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn't work.
You can easily see why.
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