Hope this note finds you all living in the sunlight of the spirit. The other day I was coming out of a meeting and a young man who has close to three months stopped me to ask why I still go to meetings. He said after all this time surely the desire to drink is gone. I responded the obsession and compulsion have been removed from me, but the desire to be like that "normal person" is still there. I just don't know when it will rear its ugly head. Bigger than that though is the need to be available to my fellowship to receive and carry a message of hope.
I read somewhere that I have a new employer, being all powerful, He provided what we needed if we kept close to Him and preformed His work well .. I recall a time when I asked my sponsor a similar question. He directed me to this:
GOD in his wisdom selected this group of men and women to be purveyors of His goodness. In selecting them through whom to bring about this phenomenon, He went not to the proud, the mighty, the famous or the brilliant. He went instead to the humble, the sick, to the unfortunate. He went right to the drunkard, the so-called weakling of the world. Well might He have said to us:
"Unto your weak and feeble hands I have entrusted the power beyond estimate. To you has been given that which has been denied to most learned of your fellows. Not to scientists, or statesmen, not to the wives or mothers, not even to my priest or ministers have I given the gift of healing other alcoholics which I entrust to you."
"It must be used unselfishly; it carries with it grave responsibility. No day can be too long: no demands upon your time can be too urgent; no case be to pitiful; no task too hard; no effort too great. It must be used with tolerance for I have restricted its application to no race, no creed, no denomination. Personal criticism you must expect; lack of appreciation will be common; ridicule will be your lot; your motives will be misjudged. You must be prepared for adversity, for what we call adversity is the ladder you must use to ascend the rungs toward spiritual perfection, and remember in the exercise of his power I shall not exact from you beyond your capabilities."
"You are selected because of exceptional talents, and be careful always if success attends your efforts not to ascribe to personal superiority that to which you can lay claim only by virtue of my gift. If I wanted learned men to accomplish this mission then the power would have been entrusted to the physician and scientist. If I wanted eloquent men, there would be many anxious for the assignment, for talk is easiest used of all talents with which I have endowed mankind. If I wanted scholarly men, the world is filled with better qualified men than you who would be available. You were selected because you have been the outcast of the world and your long experience as drunkards has made, or should make you, humbly alert to the cries of distress that come from the lonely hearts of alcoholics everywhere".
From the Director's Chair by Kirk Kureska
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