Mel B. writes about God too and as much as I'd like to repeat Mel's entire article, these three paragraphs ought to be sufficient for today. I'd suggest you click through and read his complete writing.
Service is God in action; when we seek to help others, we automatically serve God. If we cannot approach service spontaneously and lovingly, we should do the next best thing: we should serve because we need to serve for our own good.Notice - it doesn't say that doing service work guarantees another 24 hours sober...
Any AA member can begin to change his life by finding better ways to serve others. There are, of course, many opportunities to serve by working with newcomers and attending meetings, but there are also other forms of service that include everybody who enters our lives in any way. We can serve others by thinking well of them; our changed attitude toward them is bound to have an uplifting effect on their lives. We can put an end to gossip, jealousy, criticism, or any other disharmony among members of our family and friends. If there's any good that we can do for anybody, we can take the time to do it. And if there's something in us that balks at these suggestions, then we ought to find out what it is, for that's part of the barrier that lies between us and our ultimate realization of God's presence.
It never can be emphasized too strongly that, in the end, our thoughts and actions toward others color our own spiritual life. We become what we do. Acts of kindness, generosity, thoughtfulness and forgiveness must inevitably strengthen those qualities within us that heighten our consciousness of God's love.
Oh, and also notice that most of us know someone that the last paragraph could pertain to rather well - in a negative sense, sadly, Micky/David/Patrick.
Mickey has been hitting me hard this past ten days...more than ever before...I do get a sneak peek at his vitriolic cricism of my blog and the blogs of others whom I respect--you know who I mean...fortunately, his crapola never sees the inside of my computer--just the monitor, then off into cyberspace!
ReplyDeleteSteve E.
I understand Steve. I've had the "pleasure" of Micky/David/Patrick's company for quite some time, ya' see, he doesn't really know who he is among those three (or more...)
ReplyDeleteHe is sad, in a sense, because he has no idea how he contradicts what he attempts to push on us. Or how small he is in the grand scheme of things. Or even how wrong he is.... but, oh well.