God of My Understanding

Step 3:
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives our to the care of God as we understood Him.


It always amazes me how this step really offends Christians. My question to those offended: Do you really believe that anybody else on the planet has the same understanding that you do about your God?

The wonderful part of the journey is learning who God is to you. I read the story of the Prodigal Son and I gain an understanding of God that is completely different from the guy sitting next to me. Why? Because my life has been different. I have had different experiences than he has. Maybe he didn't have a Father. Maybe his Father abused him. Are either of us wrong? I don't think so. Are either of us correct? No.

If I were to look back at my life and chart out my understanding of God I would find some basic commonalities, but I'm guessing that I would see some major changes in the way that I understand my God.

A couple of months ago our pastor did a sermon on Noah's Ark. In great detail he explained, once it started raining, how he envisioned that people were fighting to get to the highest peak of the nearest mountain. Along the way people would have been pushing others out of the way; women, children, the elderly too. Those closest to the water would have seen the floating bodies of those women, children, and old folks. My God sent a flood to rid the earth of unrighteousness. In doing so, infants drowned. Answer me this: How can that not change your understanding of your God?

If you come to an AA meeting and you tell me that want to be sober, but you can't grasp the concept of God, I will encourage you to pick whatever 'Higher Power' that you want. We can work on figuring out who God is, to you, together.

Knowing God is partly about knowing Grace and patience. God is not like us, but we feel free to become very resentful when people don't have our 'Higher Power'. I wonder why. The God of my understanding doesn't feel that way, why do we?

I believe that you can love someone to Christ. I also believe that you can't resent someone to Him.

Come through the doors, choose your God as you understand Him right now, and we'll start the journey together.

Johnny