“In God’s Time, Not Ours”

Someone once suggested to me that I try this simple experiment: each morning, when I first get up, make myself a to-do list. Write down everything I want to or need to get accomplished, everything I’d like to get done during the day, and then crumple it up and toss it in the garbage. Last night, I was supposed to meet with a sponsee. We were to go to a speaker meeting first, then spend time going over his latest step work. As it turned out, he wasn’t able to make our appointment, and I found myself faced with the prospect of a free evening instead.

The thought didn’t last very long, and I must admit that the idea of not going to the meeting only flittered briefly through my mind. In a way, part of me felt that, well, I had planned to go to a meeting, so I might as well still go. But even that thought wasn’t particularly strong. There wasn’t much thinking or reasoning behind it; I was going to go to the meeting, period. I walked in a couple minutes late and took a seat in the back.

No sooner had I sat down than the meeting secretary came over and told me that there was no speaker for that night and would I mind? I smiled, chuckled a little, and accepted the opportunity to be of service. When he introduced me, he said his Higher Power was looking out for him and the meeting. I started my chair off by saying that my Higher Power had also done me a favor by giving me the presence of mind to show up, even though I technically didn’t have to be there.

It felt like one of my better chairs. I did a quick prayer before I began, then did my best to talk about what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now. I talked also about how fortunate I was to have a power greater than myself that works so directly in my life… and immediately. On my way to the meeting, I had been wondering if the secretary would ask me to chair it at some point. Just a few minutes later, there I was sharing my experience, strength, and hope. I closed by saying that it was my privilege to speak to them, to carry the message that there is another way. For a discussion topic, I chose the subject of what brought each of us into the rooms.

A lot of folks have a hard time with the idea of a Higher Power working directly in their lives. It takes time—and practice, too. My experience has been that if you can learn to let go, and allow it to happen, amazing things will occur. As it says in the Promises, God does things for us we can’t do for ourselves. Life happens according to God’s plan, not ours. We can fight it and be reminded of our powerlessness, or we can accept it and align ourselves with God’s power. When we do, it flows through us.

Things aren’t always going to go the way we plan them. More often than not, what we plan and what ends up happening are entirely different. Before I started my Recovery, I had major issues with how life never went the way I thought it would. I spent countless hours and an unquantifiable amount of emotional energy being angry and frustrated with a world that outright refused to conform to the way I thought it should be. I railed against reality because I didn’t understand something very simple: reality does not have to go the way I think it should. Through working my program, because of my Recovery, I have come to understand that my job is to accept what is. In the program, we call it living life on life’s terms.