"This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.' " —Matthew 6:9–15 (NIV)
Give us this day our daily bread:
This is the 24-Hour Plan of life in the Lord's Prayer, and as such it is far from being the simple petition for the gift of food that it seems. This petition is worthy of our particular consideration, since it has special meanings for us in AA.
"Bread" in the Lord's Prayer means all the things that man needs to sustain life. The petition is concerned wholly with material things. Every material thing, whether it is food, clothing, shelter, a convenience of life or a means of pleasure, is solely the product of the labor of man applied to the gifts of nature. We get nothing without labor, but our labor would not be fruitful were it not for the gifts of nature, which are the fruits of the labor of God. It is a fundamental law that man must work if he is to live. It is a fundamental truth that life depends on God's bounty.
"Give us this day our daily bread" is first of all an acknowledgment that we are dependent upon God's bounty. But those who will take the trouble to read the Sermon on the Mount, in which the Lord's Prayer
appears, will discover ample evidence that the word "daily" in this petition is of greatest importance.
"Give us today bread for today," the petition means tomorrow's bread we will seek tomorrow. Thus, this is a renunciation, one that grows out of the last of the Ten Commandments (covetousness). It is linked
spiritually with the declaration that "Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Granted that man must have bread, he must not make the pursuit of
material things the ruling passion of his life.
Now this is of particular interest to us. For most of us in AA became alcoholics largely because of our concern over material things. A few of our younger alcoholics are simply undisciplined children who have devoted themselves to the pursuit of pleasure and escape from the responsibilities of life. But most of our older alcoholics are men and women who have suffered frustration and disappointment, who have discovered that the aims they had in youth never are to be realized. We have had to cut our patterns to fit our opportunities, to walk when we had hoped to soar aloft. Moreover, the depression that preceded the present war made alcoholics of many men who ordinarily would have escaped.
Devotion to material things made tragedy out of disappointment.
No one would suggest that we turn away from the material entirely. We must care for our needs and our family's needs. And in our present economic order, a prudent man will save something if he can.
But if we are to have health, economic pursuits must not be our ruling passion. Ambition and pride and covetousness, the desire for wealth and the demand for power must be curbed, and with them, the
resentment and jealousy that come in the wake of frustration. We have to learn to be satisfied with what we can achieve, and in learning to be satisfied, it is well to renounce something of our aims. We may start by being practical. We may go on by finding interest in higher things. The man who has given up
greed is on the way to happiness.
[* Reprinted from a series of eight editorial articles written in 1944 and first published in the Cleveland Central Bulletin an Alcoholics Anonymous newsletter.]
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The Lord's Prayer...Week 4
"This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.' " —Matthew 6:9–15 (NIV)
Thy Will Be Done:
So few words that we can utter are as vital to us as these words in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done." In uttering these words we surrender to the will of a Power greater than our own. This is the essential act in the third of the Twelve Steps, the step that is the very heart of our program.
The instincts that rule our material selves are largely instincts of self-preservation. They make Self our first concern and they are the causes of most of the troubles that we can fall into. Self-concern leads to egotism, to self-assertion, to vanity, to lack of concern for the feelings of others: It leads to things that destroy us: lust, greed, and similar excesses of body passions.
A sane view of life is that all things are good in their right use. But we have devoted ourselves to the misuse of a number of things and have regarded ourselves accountable to no man. Now that the bill
for our misconduct has been presented, we find ourselves thoroughly rooted in misuse and thoroughly the victims of our impulses.
Now that we are in AA, most of us have recognized our chief errors. Most of us see the need for control, for responsible action, for curbs on selfish acts. We have seen how some of the results of our
habits of thought, in resentment, in self-pity, in jealousy, in other aspects of self-love, return again and again to harass us.
Our head strong tendencies demand surrender, demand a yielding of ourselves to the will of an external power. To place ourselves in the hands of that Power, we have to create new habits of action to
keep us out of old ruts.
We may continue to do all the things that nature intended us to do, but it is important that we do those things under control. We must control impulses, particularly those associated with our excesses.
Most difficult, perhaps, are those times when there is an urge that we cannot define, just a general tension under the skin and a hazy hut strong impulsive feeling in the mind. These are times when it is
particularly necessary to call on the aid of the Supreme Power.
We must develop the habit of turning to the Supreme Power at all times, at regular daily intervals, at times when we are under stress. Impulses should be discharged by addressing ourselves directly to the Supreme Power and asking for guidance. We must learn to see the signs of headstrong and self-willed action and remember the troubles that such action has brought in the past. Our watchword here is, "Easy does it."
It is the will of the Supreme Power that we love our neighbors, that we be merciful and just in all our action. Perhaps we should be especially mindful of the warning that we should not judge others. We have to learn to be tolerant and to improve our own ways of living.
These things are hard at first because they run so contrary to the habits we have developed. Our task is to develop new habits in which we place the direction of our lives in the hands of a Power greater than our own. We have to do it first by conscious effort. Eventually we find that when we turn to the Supreme Power and accept the guidance of that power, the painful shackles fall away and the driving impulses lose their force and we find a measure of peace.
[* Reprinted from a series of eight editorial articles written in 1944 and first published in the Cleveland Central Bulletin an Alcoholics Anonymous newsletter.]
Thy Will Be Done:
So few words that we can utter are as vital to us as these words in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done." In uttering these words we surrender to the will of a Power greater than our own. This is the essential act in the third of the Twelve Steps, the step that is the very heart of our program.
The instincts that rule our material selves are largely instincts of self-preservation. They make Self our first concern and they are the causes of most of the troubles that we can fall into. Self-concern leads to egotism, to self-assertion, to vanity, to lack of concern for the feelings of others: It leads to things that destroy us: lust, greed, and similar excesses of body passions.
A sane view of life is that all things are good in their right use. But we have devoted ourselves to the misuse of a number of things and have regarded ourselves accountable to no man. Now that the bill
for our misconduct has been presented, we find ourselves thoroughly rooted in misuse and thoroughly the victims of our impulses.
Now that we are in AA, most of us have recognized our chief errors. Most of us see the need for control, for responsible action, for curbs on selfish acts. We have seen how some of the results of our
habits of thought, in resentment, in self-pity, in jealousy, in other aspects of self-love, return again and again to harass us.
Our head strong tendencies demand surrender, demand a yielding of ourselves to the will of an external power. To place ourselves in the hands of that Power, we have to create new habits of action to
keep us out of old ruts.
We may continue to do all the things that nature intended us to do, but it is important that we do those things under control. We must control impulses, particularly those associated with our excesses.
Most difficult, perhaps, are those times when there is an urge that we cannot define, just a general tension under the skin and a hazy hut strong impulsive feeling in the mind. These are times when it is
particularly necessary to call on the aid of the Supreme Power.
We must develop the habit of turning to the Supreme Power at all times, at regular daily intervals, at times when we are under stress. Impulses should be discharged by addressing ourselves directly to the Supreme Power and asking for guidance. We must learn to see the signs of headstrong and self-willed action and remember the troubles that such action has brought in the past. Our watchword here is, "Easy does it."
It is the will of the Supreme Power that we love our neighbors, that we be merciful and just in all our action. Perhaps we should be especially mindful of the warning that we should not judge others. We have to learn to be tolerant and to improve our own ways of living.
These things are hard at first because they run so contrary to the habits we have developed. Our task is to develop new habits in which we place the direction of our lives in the hands of a Power greater than our own. We have to do it first by conscious effort. Eventually we find that when we turn to the Supreme Power and accept the guidance of that power, the painful shackles fall away and the driving impulses lose their force and we find a measure of peace.
[* Reprinted from a series of eight editorial articles written in 1944 and first published in the Cleveland Central Bulletin an Alcoholics Anonymous newsletter.]
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
The Lord's Prayer...Week 3
"This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.' " —Matthew 6:9–15 (NIV)
Thy Kingdom Come:
In our thoughts on the Lord's Prayer. we are inclined to pass over the words, Thy kingdom come. The words seem to us to refer either to life beyond the grave, or to the age-old hope of the prophets and the religious for the day when God's kingdom shall be set up on earth and swords shall be beaten into plowshares.
But the Lord's Prayer is essentially a prayer for our daily needs, one through which we strive to place ourselves within the sphere of God's works. While the world at large still does not conduct itself as the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom exists today for all those who will turn to it.
For those of us who have found our lives unmanageable, the Kingdom of God is our sure refuge. By acknowledging ourselves as the subjects of a Power greater than our own, as obedient to the laws of life that have grown out of the experience of mankind throughout the ages, we can restore ourselves. We place ourselves in the Kingdom of God within us.
What is the Kingdom of God? The Apostle Paul said it is not meat or drink.
That means it is not the material side of lift. Those whose interests lie alone in bread, in wealth , in the comforts of life, do not find the Kingdom of God. They are more likely to find themselves victims of lust and greet, to find themselves selfish and intolerant, to find themselves where we found ourselves as the result of our one-sided interest in material things.
The Kingdom of God, said Paul, is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Some of us shy away from words like "righteousness," which have a "goody-goodv" sound. But what is a righteous man but one who is upright and honest and fair and free from the will to do wrong.
The Kingdom of God. we might say, is the realm of honesty and unselfishness and purity and love, the four principles that guide our efforts to remake our lives. Some of our members call them the Four Absolutes.
The Kingdom of God is peace: the peace from the tortures of the mind and the flesh that we have suffered so many years. With honesty and unselfishness and purity and love, by being upright and fair and free from the will to do wrong, by casting from us the errors that have troubled us, we can relax and find peace in the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God is joy in the Holy Spirit. Perhaps Paul meant to suggest that it is the joy that comes to us through acceptance of the Holy Spirit. And so it is. But many of us, who have spent so many years in error and have been inclined to look with contempt upon those persons who followed the way of God, tend to keep the Holy Spirit at arm's length. Many are inclined to think that it is not quite "grown up" to find joy in the Holy Spirit. Thus we persist in error, and deprive ourselves of the opportunity to find peace. We have to let ourselves find joy in the Holy Spirit.
It is well to recall the first three of the Twelve Steps. We confessed that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable. We decided that a Power greater than our own could restore us to sanity. We undertook to place our lives and our wills in the hands of that Power.
So now we acknowledge the Supreme Power, "Our Father." We regard that Power reverently. And we ask that we live today in the realm of that Power, when we are upright, where we find peace, where we find joy in the Holy Spirit. Thy Kingdom come.
[* Reprinted from a series of eight editorial articles written in 1944 and first published in the Cleveland Central Bulletin an Alcoholics Anonymous newsletter.]
Thy Kingdom Come:
In our thoughts on the Lord's Prayer. we are inclined to pass over the words, Thy kingdom come. The words seem to us to refer either to life beyond the grave, or to the age-old hope of the prophets and the religious for the day when God's kingdom shall be set up on earth and swords shall be beaten into plowshares.
But the Lord's Prayer is essentially a prayer for our daily needs, one through which we strive to place ourselves within the sphere of God's works. While the world at large still does not conduct itself as the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom exists today for all those who will turn to it.
For those of us who have found our lives unmanageable, the Kingdom of God is our sure refuge. By acknowledging ourselves as the subjects of a Power greater than our own, as obedient to the laws of life that have grown out of the experience of mankind throughout the ages, we can restore ourselves. We place ourselves in the Kingdom of God within us.
What is the Kingdom of God? The Apostle Paul said it is not meat or drink.
That means it is not the material side of lift. Those whose interests lie alone in bread, in wealth , in the comforts of life, do not find the Kingdom of God. They are more likely to find themselves victims of lust and greet, to find themselves selfish and intolerant, to find themselves where we found ourselves as the result of our one-sided interest in material things.
The Kingdom of God, said Paul, is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Some of us shy away from words like "righteousness," which have a "goody-goodv" sound. But what is a righteous man but one who is upright and honest and fair and free from the will to do wrong.
The Kingdom of God. we might say, is the realm of honesty and unselfishness and purity and love, the four principles that guide our efforts to remake our lives. Some of our members call them the Four Absolutes.
The Kingdom of God is peace: the peace from the tortures of the mind and the flesh that we have suffered so many years. With honesty and unselfishness and purity and love, by being upright and fair and free from the will to do wrong, by casting from us the errors that have troubled us, we can relax and find peace in the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God is joy in the Holy Spirit. Perhaps Paul meant to suggest that it is the joy that comes to us through acceptance of the Holy Spirit. And so it is. But many of us, who have spent so many years in error and have been inclined to look with contempt upon those persons who followed the way of God, tend to keep the Holy Spirit at arm's length. Many are inclined to think that it is not quite "grown up" to find joy in the Holy Spirit. Thus we persist in error, and deprive ourselves of the opportunity to find peace. We have to let ourselves find joy in the Holy Spirit.
It is well to recall the first three of the Twelve Steps. We confessed that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable. We decided that a Power greater than our own could restore us to sanity. We undertook to place our lives and our wills in the hands of that Power.
So now we acknowledge the Supreme Power, "Our Father." We regard that Power reverently. And we ask that we live today in the realm of that Power, when we are upright, where we find peace, where we find joy in the Holy Spirit. Thy Kingdom come.
[* Reprinted from a series of eight editorial articles written in 1944 and first published in the Cleveland Central Bulletin an Alcoholics Anonymous newsletter.]
The Lord's Prayer...Week 2
"This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.' " —Matthew 6:9–15 (NIV)
Hallowed Be Thy Name
When we discovered ourselves powerless over alcohol and unable to manage our own lives, we turned to a Power greater than our own.
When we have denied that Power, or ignored it, or when we have turned to that Power only mechanically, we have failed in our efforts to meet our problems. When we have turned to that Power and have done so sincerely, we have succeeded in regaining control over our lives and have progressed in the solution of our problems.
So another test of the existence of that Power, or our dependence upon it, is necessary.
That Power we recognize as being the supreme power in the universe. It has, and has had throughout history, many names. To most of us today, the name of the Supreme Power is simply God.
In our prayer, we say, "hallowed be thy Name." That means that the name of God is to be set aside as being holy; it is consecrated for sacred uses. It is revered, held in profound respect and at the same time regarded with love.
However, these are attitudes that are not limited merely to the name of God, as if the name were magical (as the ancients believed). These are attitudes that we take in our approach to God. We regard God as being apart from the profane world even though concerned with it. And in our approach to God, we are to put off all that is profane. We approach God with reverence, with profound respect, with love, and perhaps with fear. We acknowledge God's power over the universe. We acknowledge that the realm of God is the realm of the good. And we recognize that if we are to receive the help of God, we must strive consciously to separate ourselves from those things that are antagonistic to the good.
It is good for us to use restraint in the use of the name of God (the name being. for most of us, God), simply be-cause the profanation of the name tends to weaken and then destroy the meaning of the word in our minds. The name of God should call God into our minds, and should cause us to think of God's power, God's goodness, God's help to us. Through it, we should be able to shift gears from the profane world.
But again, "Hallowed be Thy Name" must mean something more to us than respect for God's name. It must be the supreme acknowledgment of God himself, and of our entire dependence upon God.
[* Reprinted from a series of eight editorial articles written in 1944 and first published in the Cleveland Central Bulletin an Alcoholics Anonymous newsletter.]
Exodus 3:12-14
And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain."
Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"
God said to Moses, "I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' "
Daniel 2:19-21
During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven and said: "Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his.
He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
Leviticus 19:12
Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.
Deuteronomy 5:11
"You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
Romans 2:23
You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
1 Timothy 6:1-2
All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered. Those who have believing masters are not to show less respect for them because they are brothers. Instead, they are to serve them even better, because those who benefit from their service are believers, and dear to them. These are the things you are to teach and urge on them.
Hallowed Be Thy Name
When we discovered ourselves powerless over alcohol and unable to manage our own lives, we turned to a Power greater than our own.
When we have denied that Power, or ignored it, or when we have turned to that Power only mechanically, we have failed in our efforts to meet our problems. When we have turned to that Power and have done so sincerely, we have succeeded in regaining control over our lives and have progressed in the solution of our problems.
So another test of the existence of that Power, or our dependence upon it, is necessary.
That Power we recognize as being the supreme power in the universe. It has, and has had throughout history, many names. To most of us today, the name of the Supreme Power is simply God.
In our prayer, we say, "hallowed be thy Name." That means that the name of God is to be set aside as being holy; it is consecrated for sacred uses. It is revered, held in profound respect and at the same time regarded with love.
However, these are attitudes that are not limited merely to the name of God, as if the name were magical (as the ancients believed). These are attitudes that we take in our approach to God. We regard God as being apart from the profane world even though concerned with it. And in our approach to God, we are to put off all that is profane. We approach God with reverence, with profound respect, with love, and perhaps with fear. We acknowledge God's power over the universe. We acknowledge that the realm of God is the realm of the good. And we recognize that if we are to receive the help of God, we must strive consciously to separate ourselves from those things that are antagonistic to the good.
It is good for us to use restraint in the use of the name of God (the name being. for most of us, God), simply be-cause the profanation of the name tends to weaken and then destroy the meaning of the word in our minds. The name of God should call God into our minds, and should cause us to think of God's power, God's goodness, God's help to us. Through it, we should be able to shift gears from the profane world.
But again, "Hallowed be Thy Name" must mean something more to us than respect for God's name. It must be the supreme acknowledgment of God himself, and of our entire dependence upon God.
[* Reprinted from a series of eight editorial articles written in 1944 and first published in the Cleveland Central Bulletin an Alcoholics Anonymous newsletter.]
Exodus 3:12-14
And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain."
Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"
God said to Moses, "I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' "
Daniel 2:19-21
During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven and said: "Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his.
He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.
Leviticus 19:12
Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.
Deuteronomy 5:11
"You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
Romans 2:23
You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
1 Timothy 6:1-2
All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered. Those who have believing masters are not to show less respect for them because they are brothers. Instead, they are to serve them even better, because those who benefit from their service are believers, and dear to them. These are the things you are to teach and urge on them.
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