God's will for another person

I surrender that I just don't know

“While praying sincerely, we still may fall into temptation. We form ideas as to what we think God’s will is for other people. We say to ourselves, ‘This one ought to be cured of his fatal malady’ or ‘That one ought to be relieved of his emotional pain,’ and we pray for these specific things. Such prayers, of course, are fundamentally good acts, but often they are based upon a supposition that we know God’s will for the person for whom we pray. This means that side by side with earnest prayer there can be a certain amount of presumption and conceit in us.”

-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p. 104

“First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn’t work.”

-Alcoholics Anonymous p. 62 (Step Four)

How can I know God’s will for another person? It occurred to me early in my recovery that of course God wanted sobriety for everyone. Certainly he didn’t want people to live in their destructive patterns of drinking, hurting themselves, yes—but hurting those around them even more. So I prayed for sobriety for my loved ones. I prayed for sobriety for those in AA who kept relapsing. I wanted God to answer this prayer in my time—that these people could get sober immediately.

And why did I want them to get sober? Was my primary motive for praying this prayer that these people get better? To have happy and healthy lives? I would have told you yes—but as Bill W. likes to say, I hid a bad motive underneath a good one. What I really wished was that the alcoholics in my life would get sober so that I felt better. It was really about me. I was very uncomfortable with how entangled I became with alcoholics and did not care for their symptoms. Self-centered fear was my motivator.

I had a wonderful program friend and spiritual advisor a couple of years ago who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Her prognosis was not good. She had chemotherapy in hope of shrinking the tumor enough so that surgery would be safe. She endured a very hard summer of isolation in 2020. She was in a lot of pain but would always share openly and honestly with me about her struggles. She had never-ending gratitude about the gifts she had been granted in recovery, though. We had a wonderful friendship where we both benefitted, even during this very difficult time in her life. Her battle did not last long. She never could get the surgery and died about 7 months after her diagnosis.

I prayed for her during that time. I knew she had a fatal illness. I did not ask for a miracle cure. I had learned enough about cancer to know that what my friend really needed was comfort, love, and peace. And I prayed for these things. I somehow just understood the reality of the situation. Cancer is terrible. And pancreatic cancer is almost always fatal.

Alcoholism is also terrible—and fatal. And yet somehow I think if the alcoholic would just stop having the disease that they could be cured. If I just pray enough for the alcoholic to get sober then that must be God’s will. Why did I instinctively understand this about cancer but not about alcoholism?

The truth is that I don’t know what God’s will is for alcoholics. Unwinding the mystery of alcoholism as a disease is just beyond me. I know that for me, I had to see the damage I was causing and really want to stop drinking and destroying my life before I could ever get sober. I have free will. God was there for me, yes, but he was waiting for me to want sobriety.

It is a truly wonderful gift to have this kind of freedom—the freedom to choose. God loves me through all of my choices—good and bad. He also loves the alcoholics we love in the exact same way and with the exact same fervor. God is patient. He will wait for us to want and need the help.

So today I will pray for the alcoholic in the same way I prayed for my friend with cancer. God, please show this person how much you love them. Please grant them peace and comfort that can only come from you. I don’t know the answers, God, but I trust that you do. And just for today I will leave them in your care. Amen.

And for myself:

God, I am really struggling to know what your will is with my alcoholic loved one. Please give me acceptance and help me have peace in this time of uncertainty. I know you always want what’s best for me and I thank you for that. Help me have compassion for myself during this struggle. Help me to love you and myself the same way I love the alcoholic. Amen.