Step 3
“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.”
“Being convinced we were at Step three, which is that we decided to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Just what do we mean by that, and just what do we do?” (BB. P. 60)
READ: “How it Works” (Big Book P. 60-bottom of 63 “at once.”)
Contemplating the section on “The Actor”, consider for a moment Christopher Reeves, who played Superman. When Reeves was hit by a drunk driver, He thought his life was over. Yes, his life as he currently knew it, was over. But He turned his will and life over to the care of God and became a huge support for disabled people who were wheelchair bound. He was an encouragement to everyone he met. If Superman can do it, consider that we can, too.
READ: 12 and 12, Step 3.
I had some fixed ideas that were doing nothing but creating what Richard Rohr refers to as a “Tiny, American Jesus” in my life. I had been taught a mentality that my religion was the ONLY way for EVERYONE to find God, and with it came a cleverly disguised arrogance and superiority. It was not until I hit my alcoholic bottom did a power greater than myself (whom I choose to call God) lifted me out of that depth and open my mind to expand my ideas and thoughts. To not get so hung up on details and specifics of religious dogma. To broaden my thoughts about God and realize that I had placed Him in a small box… and ultimately limited His power in my life because I was so convinced I knew what He wanted.
I didn’t realize that God was too big, too powerful to fully define. I can’t humanize Him.
After I hit bottom, the God of my understanding completely changed, and this happened almost instantly and organically. It was as if an entire baptism or a rebirth had occurred, and he washed my entire “Old God” canvas clean and repainted the picture with a simplicity that brought me so much peace: It’s a free, general abstract painting now, based loosely on the possibility of these concepts of God as I understand Him today: A) God loves me, no matter what I do. I can’t earn it. He just loves me, and that’s not dependent on my behavior. Natural consequences will fall based on my choices of free will, but God doesn’t cause those consequences. B) He has useful things planned for me; or things ultimately planned for my later usefulness, OR the usefulness of others. I’ve yet to see pain wasted pain wasted, even pain that I have caused myself-He will ultimately use my experiences, self-inflicted or not, to help His other children in some way, who He also loves. C) This means I can fully surrender to His will for my life- I’m not in control anyway…. Control is just an illusion.
I currently don’t believe in “mistakes” as such anymore. No perceived “good” or “bad”… just choices and instances with varying degrees of usefulness.
I had to throw out my old ideas about the Santa Claus God: the result was nil until I let go absolutely. Now I can “relax and take it easy. We don’t struggle.” (BB p.86)
A good way to think of this step in an AA meeting is at the beginning of the meeting when we go to sit down in a chair, we trust that it will hold us. When we sit down, it might not be as comfortable as we would have hoped it would be, or we may not care for the positioning of the chair: maybe it’s too close to others, maybe it’s too far back and we can’t hear very well because of where it’s placed. But we DO generally trust that it will hold us. We trust it more than we think we do—because we generally don’t even think about it at all. It just holds us and gives us what we need: an opportunity to be “a part of” in the meeting.
The God of our understanding is the same way. We turn our will and our lives over to His care just as we turn our butts over to the chair. We learn to trust God like we trust the chair. We may not like what happens to us- but in God’s economy nothing is wasted! No pain is EVER unusable. In sobriety I’ve gone through comfortable and uncomfortable life circumstances. It’s always the uncomfortable ones where I’ve grown the most.
A personal example is shortly after my 1 year AA birthday, I had a surprise pregnancy. I had my life and my family’s life pretty much mapped out. I was upset and I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to stay sober once I had another baby. I had pretty much drank all through my third and fourth babies’ early years. I couldn’t remember how I had handled my first 2 colicky babies and unruly toddlers without drinking alcoholically, it had been so long. Slowly I began to come to a place of acceptance through the help of my sponsor and began to believe that God would provide what I needed to deal with life on life’s terms with this baby... one day at a time…as long as I continued to keep my recovery first.
Then shortly after I had come to a place of acceptance, I had some complications and it looked as if I might lose the baby. Suddenly again I found myself in a place of fear. Even though this pregnancy was a shocker, I certainly wasn’t desiring to lose the baby! Again I had to work through it with my sponsor and remind myself that even if the baby was not meant to be, God had used the experience to teach me to trust His will, even though I could not see what it was. One of the most important lessons learned at that time was for me to realize that self-reliance was impossible in this situation (much like my alcoholism). I had absolutely NO control over the outcome. And the second most important lesson was that not only would God take care of me, but the whole thing wasn’t even ultimately about me. It was me as a vessel for another child of God- HIS child, me just being a carrier for whatever plan He had for that baby, for the life of another.
As it turned out, God’s plan was for that baby to be born. She is a healthy, happy little beauty. She is a feisty firecracker who reminds me every day that I’m not in control. She’s a constant reminder that I don’t know what I need…. And that sometimes it’s not even about ME. I’m just able to learn some things and have certain experiences by being part of a bigger picture.
Like a child jumps into their parents’ arms with no fear, I have made a choice that I can do that with the God of my understanding too. I made a decision, and then was ready to say the 3rd Step Prayer:
“God, I offer myself to Thee To build with me & to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy love & Thy way of life.” (BB.P 63)
God wants us to get well, stay well, and rely upon and enjoy his power flowing through us.
Each day of our life, we carry out step 3. Examples: I slept through my alarm and now I’m running late. So I’m stressed out and angry. I can ask myself, “At this point, what part of this situation can I control?” I can control my thinking and my attitude. So….I’m powerless over being late at this point. What CAN I control in this situation?
-I can change my thinking on this and accept that I’m late. I’ll have to own the natural consequences of that lateness.
-But from an arial view, there is a reason I was late, that I may never know about. Maybe if I left the house 5 minutes sooner, I would have been in an accident.
-Maybe there is a person I would have missed a conversation with later in my day if I hadn’t been late this morning.
-Maybe someday someone else will ask me for help and this story will be valuable to them at that time, because Nothing is ever wasted in God’s economy.
-There are limitless possibilities, only proving further that the power of God or a Higher Power is SO much bigger and stronger than I ever could have imagined.
So we slowly learn to accept life on life’s terms, and we deal with the natural consequences resulting from our life circumstances, and soon we’re wearing a new pair of glasses. As we learn to see life differently and trust God and this process one circumstance at a time, we grow to trust the universe and get into the flow. It becomes easier and easier to release ourselves into the care of God as we understand Him.
Remember: Willingness is the key.