I've got something better

The three answers to prayer

“…Sooner or later the pink cloud stage wears off and things go disappointingly dull. We begin to think that A.A. doesn’t pay off after all. We become puzzled and discouraged.

“Then perhaps life, as it has a way of doing, suddenly hands us a great big lump that we can’t begin to swallow, let alone digest. We fail to get a worked-for promotion. We lose that good job. Maybe there are romantic difficulties, or perhaps that boy we thought God was looking after becomes a military casualty.

What then? Have we alcoholics in A.A. got, or can we get, the resources to meet these calamities which come to so many?”

-Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions p. 113 (Step Twelve Essay)

We in Alcoholics Anonymous are truly the luckiest people on earth. Not only do we have sobriety, but we always have a place to go when life hits us at its hardest. There is magic in meetings. We hear the message of recovery through dozens of shares. We relate. We commiserate. We sense the flow of Power—the Power that can only come from God. In fact, for many of us who spend our entire day pretty much forgetting about God and his Power, the meeting reconnects us beautifully to the One who has all Power. We find God.

We also find God through a consistent effort at prayer. We ask for God’s will for us—for what we think we want and are pretty sure we need. We are expectant of that positive answer from God, for surely he wants for us what we want for ourselves. We have become so hopeful in A.A. that anything is now possible. So we pray expectantly. And then nothing happens. God does not give us the answer we needed. Things seemingly get worse. Where is God? What is he doing?

We then get frustrated and assume prayer doesn’t really work. We go back again and again to the God of our misunderstanding. The God of pre-Step Two and Three. Our conception of God reverts to the warped view of God as we used to see him in our drinking and controlling days. God is not really here for us. He doesn’t care. He could not possibly love a person like me. I just need to work harder so God sees I am really trying in my program.

We refuse to sit still and listen—to wait. Because we refuse to accept that God’s answers come in God’s time, and not ours, we return to self-sufficiency and insist on finding the answer for ourselves. In Al-Anon we call this “forcing a solution.” A therapist once called this “outrunning God”. Whatever we choose to call it, it is simply playing God at its finest.

But eventually we do grow in the program. We grow in understanding of our second and third steps and realize there is something at work here when our Higher Power isn’t immediately answering our prayers in the affirmative. We sense that God is listening and that something is going on with him. We know at some level that God really does want the best for us. So we persist in our prayers with a fervency previously avoided. This is the spiritual principle of perseverance in practice.

Perseverance in prayer is an important principle in the life of a recovering person. It means never giving up. Never giving up on the program, the goodness of life, on God. Never giving up on hope—on possibility. Never giving up on the heart of God, who only wants the very best of us. Never giving up on the relationship with God, a relationship we have worked so hard for.

So, what is actually going on when our prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling—when we get no clear answer? God is working behind the scenes quietly on our behalf. Our job is to practice sitting and waiting—being still. Our job is to trust. It’s really that simple. We trust God and get on with doing the next indicated thing. We live in this day alone and recognize that God is strong, he is mighty, and he is certainly in charge. God loves us. He is not going to leave us hanging on forever. But he knows just how undisciplined we are when it comes to him. He knows how selfish and self-centered we can be. His real wish is to grow in relationship with us, and this only happens when we learn our rightful place in this most important relationship.

As for the prayer itself, I have learned there are three answers from God, and not one of them is “No.” God either says “Yes,” or he says, “Wait”, or he answers, “I’ve got something better.” And if we are honest and have had persistence in prayer, we know that this is true. We have seen our prayers answered in recovery over and over again. God says “yes” all the time, but do we have eyes to see it? Do we have ears to hear it? Keeping that channel open with a daily time with God ensures that we will be awake and aware to sense his many “yes’s”.

God also wants us to wait—to keep practicing the Presence of God even when it’s hard. In this way we grow much faster than if he always immediately said “Yes.” Finally, God is gentle in letting us know that what we desire is not always the best for us. Bill Wilson said that sometimes the good is the enemy of the best. What if we don’t actually know what’s best? I know that for myself, I have seemingly lost hopes and dreams of creating a new family life because God knew the men I was dating were not the one to build this dream with. I don’t see his “No,”; instead, I see his “I’ve got something better for you.” There is so much hope in the latter perspective.

What is the one thing you really want in this sober life? Are you praying and listening? Has God already answered your prayer or is he making you wait? Are you okay with the “not yet” or are you resisting? When it becomes clear that God has something better in mind for you, are you accepting that? Can you now understand that he is the God who can see around corners to the things our present desires often do not see? These are important considerations. They are questions not to be answered, but to be pondered.

Be still and know that He is God.