Daily Readings
Daily Reflections
September 27
WITHOUT RESERVATION
When brimming with gratitude, one’s heartbeat must surely result in outgoing love.
-AS BILL SEES IT, p.37
While practicing service to others, if my successes give rise to grandiosity, I must reflect on what brought me to this point. What has been given joyfully, with love, must be passed on without reservation and without expectation. For as I grow, I find that no matter how much I give with love, I receive much more in spirit.
Twenty-Four Hours
A Day
September 27
A.A. Thought For The Day
Continuing the consideration of the term “spiritual experience”: “What often takes place in a few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline. With few exceptions, our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a Power greater than themselves. Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves the essence of spiritual experience. Some of us call it God-consciousness. In any case, willingness, honesty, and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery.” Have I tapped that inner resource which can change my life?
Meditation For The Day
God’s power in your life increases as your ability to understand His grace increases. The power of God’s grace is only limited by the understanding and will of each individual. God’s miracle-working power is only limited in each individual soul by the lack of spiritual vision of the soul. God respects free will, the right of each person to accept or reject His miracle-working power. Only the sincere desire of the soul gives Him the opportunity to bestow it.
Prayer For The Day
I pray that I may not limit God’s power by my lack of vision. I pray that I may keep my mind open today to His influence.
As Bill Sees It
When Infancy Is Over, p.269
“You must remember that every A.A. group starts, as it should, through the efforts of a single man and his friends–a founder and his hierarchy. There is no other way.
“But when infancy is over, the original leaders always have to make way for that democracy which springs up through the grass roots and will eventually sweep aside the self-chosen leadership of the past.”
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Letter to Dr. Bob:
“Everywhere the A.A. groups have taken their service affairs into their own hands. Local founders and their friends are now on the side lines. Why so many people forget that, when thinking of the future of our world services, I shall never understand.
“The groups will eventually take over, and maybe they will squander their inheritance when they get it. It is probable, however, that they won’t. Anyhow, they really have grown up; A.A. is theirs; let’s give it to them.
Letters
1. 1950
2. 1949
AA Grapevine Daily Quote
“I have learned how to place principles before personalities, begun to understand that it’s okay for me to be wrong, and that it is also all right for me to allow others to be wrong and to make mistakes. Learning to let go is a huge part of service work on all levels.”
“More Than One Way,” Cleveland, Ohio, February 2010, Young & Sober: Stories By Those Who Found AA Early
Thought For The Day
First things first.
Alcoholics Anonymous (The Big Book) In Short
Takes
PART 3
They Lost Nearly All
My Bottle, Resentments and Me
From childhood trauma to skid row drunk, this hobo finally found a Higher Power, bringing sobriety and a long-lost family.
At school the gossip was vicious. At home there was chaos and no one would tell me what was happening, so I withdrew and began to block out the reality around me. If I could pretend it didn’t exist, it might go away. I became extremely lonely and defiant. The confusion, pain, and grief had begun to subside when an article appeared in a murder mystery magazine about my family’s misfortune. The children at school started the gossip and scrutiny all over again. I retreated further and became angrier and more withdrawn. It was easier that way, because people would leave me alone if I acted disturbed even before they tried to inquire.
