The Language of Letting Go: May 1st

Recovery Prayer

This prayer is based on a section of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous:

Thank you for keeping me straight yesterday. Please help me stay straight today.

For the next twenty-four hours, I pray for knowledge of Your will for me only, and the power to carry that through.

Please free my thinking of self-will, self-seeking, dishonesty, and wrong motives.

Send me the right thought, word, or action. Show me what my next step should be. In times of doubt and indecision, please send Your inspiration and guidance.

I ask that You might help me work through all my problems, to Your glory and honor.

This prayer is a recovery prayer. It can take us through any situation. In the days ahead, we'll explore the ideas in it. If we pray this prayer, we can trust it has been answered with a yes.

Today, I will trust that God will do for me what I cannot do for myself. I will do my part - working the Twelve Steps and letting God do the rest.

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie ©1990, Hazelden Foundation.
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I find that repeating prayers & meditations like these throughout the day helps me enormously! I always say the 5th Step prayer while I climb the stairs at work:

God, I offer myself to Thee to build with me & to do with me as Thou wilt;
Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Thy will.
Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help
Of Thy Power
Thy Love
And Thy way of life.
May I do Thy will always.

Prayers of this nature remind me that I am NOT in charge of the world and that I have to STOP living inside of my own head! They remind me how I need guidance from God at every turn.........and when I am in doubt, especially.

The self-reliant, rule the world attitude has GOT to GO if I am to remain in recovery status.

When I have God in my back pocket guiding me and loving me, there is NO situation I can't handle!

For today, I will trust that God will do for me what I cannot do for myself.  I agree to do the footwork by staying abstinent, and let Him do the rest.