The Glorious Cop-Out of Step Three – Joe K.

Step three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Our will is what we think, our power to reason, learn, make decisions, experience. Our will ist our consciousness. Our lives are the ability to breathe, touch, taste, smell, and exist. Ourwill and ourlives together are all that we are. Without them, we're nothing. we don't exist. What is suggested in the third step is that we turn everything we are, our very existence, over to the care of a God we probably do not understand at all. We may not even be certain that God exists, yet this step suggests we turn our will and our lives over to that unknown and possibly non-existent power. Wow! That's something to chew on, isn't it? And we may be expected to chew upon it for a long time before we can bring ourselves to do it. In the first place, Most of us have been taught to pray to God, to petition him for help or guidance in managing our own lives. We've been taught to make a servant out of God and get him to help us attain goals and do things we've already decided upon before we turn to God for assistance. What we're used to doing is ringing for room service from that great bellhop in the sky and giving him a tip by performing admirably if he gives us what we ask him for. that's a lot different than turning our very fiber and essence over for him to do with whatever he wants without even consulting our own desires we've been taught to pray for people places and things not to surrender ourselves completely to an unknown power and gamble on what will become of us we're now being asked to give everything we are to a force that may not even exist without any preconditions on what that force may do with us we are supposed to surrender completely to a management total outside ourselves. We're advised to give up to a control definitely beyond our own manipulation, and to do so with no prior agreement about what is to become of us. That's quite an order for those of us taught from birth to get down on our knees and specify exactly what we want God to do for us. We are being asked to submit ourselves to white magic, but the only experience we have had in the past is with black magic. Black magic is making use of a supernatural power to help us accomplish what we have already determined to accomplish. White magic is just the opposite, to surrender to the supernatural and allow it to take over, manage, and direct our every activity. Black magic in making a servant out of God ceases to be supernatural and becomes superhuman. Superhuman power is black magic no matter how it's used. Practitioners of black magic usually believe they're practicing white magic. They rationalize this by saying, I only pray for positive purposes or I only pray for others, never for my own profit. Nevertheless, the unwitting black magician is still telling God what to do instead of letting God tell us what to do. White magic is letting God run the show. The third step suggests we turn our will and our lives over to the care of God whether we understand him or not and let him run our lives with no strings attached at first we're apt to only turn problems over to god and we may not be conditioned to even do that until we feel we have done everything we can to solve the problem first god expects us to do the footwork we will say to one another in support of the old ideas we were programmed with long before we ever heard of the 12 steps to serenity and happiness of alcoholics anonymous god gave us the brains talent muscle and willpower to solve our problems, and we must exhaust these God-given resources before we may turn our problems over to him. And it may seem to work that way for a while. Each problem then can be handled like a basketball in the hands of a player. After he's done everything he possibly can with a ball and is cornered by all the other players, then and only then may he pass the ball over their heads. Okay, buster, you take it, he may shout and fling the ball. Even if there's no buster somewhere down the court, the player would be rid of the ball. So we may for a while handle our problems. We may knuckle down and do everything we can possibly do to solve our problems, and then, and only then, may we pass them along to an ephemeral God. Even an atheist can do this. It doesn't matter whether Buster is somewhere down the floor or not. Once the ball player has passed the ball, he no longer has the problem. It becomes Buster's problem whether there's a buster or not, all the player has to do to get rid of that ball is take a chance that there may be a buster. But buster or no, the ball is no longer the player's problem. Those who handle their problems this way, one problem at a time, experience one of the smaller miracles of the 12 steps. When they finally turn their problems over to God, even if only because they have exhausted their own abilities, the problems do seem to go away until they are either solved or not solved. The miracle is that attempters at step three no longer have to worry about problems they have finally turned over to God. They let God worry over them. They began to sleep at night. They start to wake up more relaxed each morning and feel better all the time, but they're still very near to specifying what they want God to do for them. They've not turned their whole lives over to him, the good as well as the bad. They've only turned their problems over to god. Once god has taken over enough problems to prove even to skeptics that he exists, a peculiar thing happens. It stops working. It's almost as if the player's basketball gets more difficult to get rid of. Here, Buster, the player yells, you take it. He tries to throw the ball, but it doesn't want to leave his fingers. After a while, the player who thinks he's practicing the third step by turning only one problem at a time over to God discovers that God doesn't seem to be taking the problems anymore. It is almost as if God were saying, all right, now that you know I'm here, why don't you go ahead and take the third step? Turn your will in your life, everything you are over to me, and accept whatever happens as the will of God. This business of only giving me problems after you've done everything you can to louse them up has run its course. Get on with a third step. I want it all, baby. That's still quite an order. Obviously, God is not another basketball player unseen somewhere down the floor. Even if he were so easily identified, would it be any easier to turn our will and our lives over to him? What is God, we may ask if we are agnostic? How can I turn my entire being and future over to some power I don't understand and I'm not even sure exists? Well, nobody said it wouldn't require us to take a gamble on the unknown. Nobody knows what or whom God is. No one understands God. Whenever you meet someone else who claims to know what god is or what god wants you to do or not to do beware you're meeting a leader and a liar the 12 steps do not explain god or attempt to con you into behaving the way any other human believes god wants it to behave the twelve steps are not a religious program yet they may be followed by christians jews buddhists taoist confucianists moslems humanists agnostics or atheists providing they are willing to take a chance that all their old beliefs may not be true The 12 steps are a spiritual program. Step three is an opportunity to let a spirit greater than our own take charge of the rest of our lives. It's not necessary to understand the higher power to let it take over. It's only necessary to believe it might do so to our own well-being. If we don't believe that, we're trying to progress too fast in the program. Step two was coming to believe that a power greater than ours could restore us to sanity. If we don't believe that enough to take a chance on it, then we haven't done step two yet and must go back to it. It's impossible to take step three unless we believe a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity, which is step two. If we are still having trouble with step three, it's probably because we didn't really take step two, or is it because we are afraid God will change some of the things we enjoy about ourselves if we allow him to take over? Perhaps we are afraid some of the religious Puritans or bigots might be right in their concept of what God wants us to do and not to do. We don't want to be a Puritan or a bigot, and we are worried that God might turn us into some kind of righteous jerk if we leave it up to him. As much as we have been trained to worship saints, there is something about them we don't like that makes us not want to become saints. Confusion about sex could be keeping us from taking the third step. We could be afraid God, given our permission to do with us what he will, might change our attitudes about sex. We might fear that puritanical restrictions on sex we no longer believe in might be God's way after all. Maybe we like our individually acquired degrees of sexual freedom so much we're afraid God will louse up our sex lives if we let him. That could be a big barrier to taking the third step. Will God destroy our sexual appetites if we turn our wills and lives over to him? Well, now that's something we'll just have to take a chance on, isn't it? If we want the happiness and success three million people have found by taking the 12 steps, we must be willing to go to any lengths to get it. Look at it this way. If sex is keeping you from taking step three, think about the last time you had a cat or dog fixed. Did the animal not turn into a happy, contented pet? That's what happened to my St. Bernard. Even if God were to fix you once and for all, would you not simply lose interest in sex and be happy without it? But don't recoil in fear that God will castrate you. The 12 steps have not yet turned anyone into a saint. There are no saints in this program. There are reports of loss of sexual appetites from those who've taken step three. On the contrary, there are countless testimonials that sexual capacity and happiness are miraculously increased for those who have taken all 12 steps. right we must say i'll take a chance and it helps to do this aloud we may look in the direction we think god might be and call out take over my will and my life and do with me what you may i give them to your care with no strings attached even if you castrate me and we may substitute for castration whatever we fear most and leave it up to him to sort and direct our future forever any way he chooses from now on we may call out anything you say goes i'm all yours don't expect a flash of light or movement in the earth but you can't expect a strange calm to follow your commitment at last a load may seem to float away from your shoulders it can happen right away or gradually over a day or two as your consciousness begins to recognize that a higher power indeed seems to be taking over when you let it do so but we have been trained a long long time to do everything ourselves it'll be only too easy to take our wills and our lives back from the care of God unless we're resolved not to do so good way to guard against this is to repeat the commitment each morning one day at a time for perhaps a thousand good mornings I'm all yours God you may repeat in your own words I will accept anything you do with me today it'll difficult at first not to compare what is happening to you each day with what you would have planned if you were still in charge and from time to time you might not like the way things appear to be going but if you remember your promise to accept whatever happens to you in God's care you will begin to notice something wonderful there seems to be a plan things which appear to be unpleasant at first always seem to lead to something good this happens so often you begin to anticipate it after a while when something appears to be going wrong in a way you would never have planned, you start to wonder, what do you suppose this is leading to? Turning our wills and our lives over the care of God as we understand him does not lead to a permanent state of euphoria. But God now seems to give us everything we need. He gives us all the joy and sadness we need, the problems and solutions we need as well as the achievements and failures we need We still have depressions but they always seem to be followed by highs. We may hope for permanent serenity, which we have prayed for in the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, but we will never have permanent serentity until we are ready to be buried. You know how that machine operates in the intensive care unit in the hospital? If they take you in, they hook you up, put all your vital signs into electrodes that take it onto a machine that has a sort of a radar screen? Well, that line that shows across the radar screen goes up and down, up and down, up and down. The more alive you are, the more up and down it goes. Serenity is when that line levels off. So when you become fully serene, they pull the plug and bury you. There's no such thing as a lifetime of serenity if we accept the adventures, excitements, and ecstasies provided us by God. And if for a thousand days we continue to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God, it'll become a habit. And the habit will be just as strong as the one we once had of trying to run the entire show ourselves. You will discover beyond doubt that surrendering your will to God has not turned you into some kind of vegetable which waits around for something to happen. In fact, you will become more active than ever. You won't have to waste time planning goals anymore and will have more time and energy for achievement. When you give up managing your life, friends will compliment you on how well you appear to be managing it. When you stop trying to keep yourself on a narrow track of self-discipline, people will start admiring the discipline you seem to have. Yet if you confess to them that you do not manage your own life, no longer set goals nor practice self-disciplinary, they'll think you're joking. In fact, a better manager than you will have taken over and you'll be given credit for his management. Yet inside you will know that you are no longer responsible, need no longer blame yourself for apparent mistakes and cannot really accept credit for the successes God directs for you. To be a success is to do what you want to do. One day, having committed your will to the care of God, you will come to trust it and realize your wants are created by him in your will and nowhere else. This means you can trust your will, and do what it wants to. Either that or you didn't really turn your will over to him. It's the greatest cop-out of all time, and that's exactly what it is, a glorious cop-out. From now on, with your will and the care of God, you can trust it and do what you want to do one day at a time for the rest of your life. That's not a bad way to live. Now about a word. The word is decision. We find it in the first part of the third step. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the careof God as we understood him. There are those who will rationalize that this means we do not actually have to turn our wills and lives over to God at this point. All we have to do is make a decision to do so. Then we can put off executing the decision until some later date. This, of course, is rubbish. It's an instinct conditioned by our former way of life in which we set goals and tried to manage our lives to achieve them. If we think we're making a decision to do something, not now but later, what we're really doing is making a decision to postpone doing it. It becomes a decision not to do something. That's not the decision called for in the third step. The third step is to decide to do it. When you decide to do something, we do it, not postpone it. So when you decide to turn your will and your life over to the care of God, that's precisely what you will do. The only proof you've decided to do this rather than to procrastinate is that you do it." Decision leads to action. Are you ready for it? Go ahead if you are. Ask Ask God to take care of your will and your life. Ask whatever God you understand or don't understand. Take the big gamble. Have you turned your will in your life over to the care of God as you understand him? If you have, you're ready to start to work on step four. Step four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Here's a step which at first and last may appear to be fun. asked to examine our own lives. What, to the average person, could be more fascinating than that? Our first instinct, one which may persist for a long time, is to look back and try to experience total recall about all the naughty or dastardly things we did in our past. Most of these moments of recall will be very entertaining. Many things we didn't, despite our upbringing not to do them, were fun. But here and there, in recalling the past, we'll find things we're ashamed of, misdeeds that still make us feel guilty, and digging up skeletons we hid in our own closets can resurrect painful shame and remorse. There may be incidents in our past that make us disgusted with ourselves to the point of self-repulsion. Some of these unsavory episodes in our well-hidden histories might be awful enough to make us afraid to resurrect them. So it may be that digging through our hidden closets will not turn out to be as much fun as we at first thought. It's not entertaining to make ourselves feel guilty. We could start to procrastinate at bringing fresh light to dark episodes and making them return to haunt us. Fear of what else we will find in our secret recesses might make us afraid to go on with the fourth step. We could rationalize that it would be better to move on to step five and admit to God and to another person the exact nature of our wrongs. But how can we admit to god and to other person what we are afraid to admit to ourselves? Like it or not, we appear to be stuck with taking step four before we can go on with the twelve steps. Then why is it so difficult to make a searching and fearless moral inventory? Perhaps a dictionary can tell us why this step is so hard to complete. The American Heritage Dictionary, which does not have different meanings to words than any other dictionary, defines fearless as being without a feeling of alarm or disquiet caused by awareness or expectation of danger or without being afraid of something. Isn't that odd? We probably thought to take a fearless moral inventory of ourselves meant to bravely research our past and courageously recount the history of our misdeeds. I thought so. I'm a professional in the English language, and yet I didn't realize that fearless does not mean courageous. It simply doesn't mean courageous! I should have known that because I was a fighter pilot, and there were fighter pilots who had no fear, and they required no bravery to fly missions. They loved it. It doesn't take bravery unless there's fear to overcome. So a fearless inventory must be something else. Yet in no dictionary on earth does the word fearless mean to be brave. It means without fear. Without fear, there's no need to be grave. Then how can we dig through the past we're afraid of, resurrect guilt that frighten us and be without fear? The answer is we can't. As long as our inventory contains anything we are afraid of, we can take a fearless inventory, which means an inventory without fear in it. That definition bears repeating. Fearless means without fear. An inventory that makes us afraid is not fearless. It is an inventory with fear in it. We can bravely take all the frightening inventories we wish, but none of them will be a fearless moral inventory. What is there about our inventory that arouses fear? There may be something in our past which makes us feel guilty, probably because we are guilty and we are therefore afraid to face our guilt. What we are actually afraid of is that whatever made us commit what we were guilty of in the past may make us commit equally guilty acts in the future. There's a step ahead among the 12 steps that will enable us to eliminate the only valid guilt that may remain from past misdeeds. Step eight is the history step. This one is the inventory step, step number four. The important thing for us to learn in taking this fourth step is that the past no longer exists. Only the present exists, which means the future doesn't yet exist either. Perhaps we ought to turn to the dictionary again. Let us look up the word inventory and see if understanding the true meaning of that word can help us take an inventory without fear in it. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, an inventory is a detailed list of things, especially a periodic survey of goods and materials in stock. The same dictionary says a history is a narrative of events or a chronological record of events. In digging up unsavory misdeeds of our past, are we taking an inventory or a history? Nowhere in the definition of inventory is any mention made of a history, or in the meaning of history is the word inventory used. Obviously, an inventory is not a history. I should have known that, and it took me years to realize that a history is not an inventory or an inventory is not a history. When I was going to college, I used to work part of my way through the winter quarter by taking an inventory in a department store in Seattle, Washington. It was called the Bon Marche, and we always took the inventory right after the post-Christmas sale. And guess what? We never once counted any item that had been sold during the sale. In other words, there were no girdles or hosiery or shirts or washing machines in the inventory if they were no longer in the store. An inventory was only what still remained in stock at the present time. When a store takes an inventory it doesn't count what used to be sold there but only what's in stock. Perhaps if we take an inventory of ourselves instead of a history, we will find nothing to be afraid of. Then and only then can it be a fearless inventory. Obviously, instead of looking into our past for things no longer included in our inventory, we must instead look to see what is there right now. We must count what is in stock at this very instant, not what was there in the past. What do we find in our inventories? to look for are pride and false pride, generosity and selfishness, compassion and self-pity, hate and love, anger and peace, worry and sloth, kindness and meanness, and all other positives and negatives we can pinpoint in our own present lives. We must look at the good as well as the bad. Were we to count only the evil in ourselves, we would be taking an immoral inventory rather than a moral one. The fourth step gives us a chance to stand back and look at our pluses as well as our minuses. Each of us has different standards about what is good and bad. Some qualities one person may put on the minus side in his inventory may appear on the plus side in another's. To be thorough, the inventory should be written on paper. The mind is like the memory bank of a computer. The act of taking pen in hand and starting to write turns the computer on. What comes out on paper may amaze you, but if anything frightening remains there, you are taking an inventory with fear in it. and if there's fear in it, you cannot yet succeed in completing the fourth step. Then how do we get the fear out of our inventory? We're like the buyer in a store who is afraid he didn't stock his department properly. Therefore, he fears the inventory will show him up as incapable of fulfilling his responsibility to the store. But what if the buyer lets his boss select the goods to fill his department? Then what the inventory turns up is no longer the buyer's responsibility. It is the responsibility of the buyer's boss. The buyer cannot be blamed, nor can he blame himself for what the boss put in the inventory. The buyer then has nothing to fear. So if we're to take a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, we'd better let someone else stock the store. That someone is God. May you find him now. And if you haven't, it simply means you didn't really take the previous step. In the third step, you were supposed to turn your will and your life, which is everything you are, over to God. If you're still afraid, you didn't do so. Do it now. Turn your will over to the care of God, even if you don't understand him. Take a chance. Gamble that your will is in the complete care of a higher power, now responsible for everything, every thought and desire in your will. You can assume your will is in this way. If your will isn't in the care of God you should be able to trust it. At least you can gamble on it and take a chance that you're no longer responsible for your inventory. If you can't take that chance, you didn't really do the previous step. So go ahead, once and for all, turn your will along with your life over to God's care whether you understand him or not. Once you've done that, there'll be nothing to fear in your will and you can proceed to take a fearless inventory. You have a right to assume once you've turned your will over that whatever you find in it has been put there by God. You needn't take blame nor credit for anything God places there. We're back to the great cop-out. the great cop-out, and that's where we have to be in order to take an inventory with nothing to fear in it. The fourth step is actually the first of several tests by which you can determine whether you have completed the third step. If you complete steps three and four, no courage will be required to proceed. The simple directions in the steps ahead will tell you how to move ahead and take the five steps. No courage will be needed because your inventory no longer contains fear. Without fear, what need is there to be brave? You can tell by the way you feel that you're progressing nicely toward the serenity and happiness that comes slowly but surely with completion of all 12 steps. Step 5. Admit it to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Here's a unique opportunity, perhaps for the first time in our lives, to become honest. First we have to admit our wrongs to God. That shouldn't be difficult. After all, God isn't likely to tell anyone because God hasn't appeared to be gossiping lately with anyone we know. So admitting our wrongS to God appears to be the only way we can confide without fear that confidential disclosures will be betrayed to fellow men and women. But how do we go about admitting something to God? We simply confess to him. Catholics have been doing this for centuries by stepping into concealing booths and reciting sins to a priest who listens on behalf of God. This ought to be easy for Catholics to do. However, those of other religious persuasions or of no particular persuasion at all will have to enumerate the wrongs directly to their higher power as they understand him or even if they do not understand him. This direct talk to God can be done the same way that in the third step we turned our wills and our lives over to the care of God, both these contacts are direct. In the third step, we give ourselves to God. In the fifth step, we tell something to God, we tell him what our wrongs are, not what they were before we took a fearless inventory, but what wrongs we still find in our makeups today, even after we think we have turned our wills and our lives over to God's care. Perhaps we still worry. That's a wrong we must tell God about, for worrying means we do not trust the future God is about to give us. Perhaps we are still setting goals and struggling to achieve them. We must admit that to God because setting goals, even if we pray for God's help to achieve them, means we are still trying to manage our lives instead of letting him do so. Instead of letting God be our manager, we are praying for him to be our servant. Maybe we resent or hate someone or something. We've got to admit it to God, because hating or resenting means we do not accept the offending person or thing as part of God's plan for us. If we've listed self-pity in the previous steps inventory, we now can tell God our wrong is that we are dissatisfied with the position or condition God has placed us in today. It could be we find ourselves jealous or possessive. We must admit these wrongs to God because jealousy and possessiveness indicates a desire to control or dominate others. And how can we manage others when we can't manage ourselves? We cannot have truly turned our wills and our lives over to the care of God without accepting the behavior of others exactly as God presents them to us. In each case, we will address our higher power about traits in ourselves that give us discomfort, guilt, or unhappiness. By doing so, we Will discover that the nature of these wrongs is they are feelings or motivations we ourselves are responsible for when we should have turned all responsibility over to God. In no case will the nature of our wrong actually be the misdeed, although the nature may be what can cause us to perform a misdeeds. What we are looking for here are motives not actions. We are looking into our very natures to learn why we continue to try to alter God's intentions for us. We admit to him we are still trying to run the show instead of letting him run. Once we've admitted to God the exact nature of these wrongs, wrongs, we must find another human being we trust enough to confide these weaknesses to. At this point, though it is obvious a recitation of past sins is not called for, we may exert utmost caution in selecting a confidant. It's as if total confession of prior evil acts is about to lay us bare and vulnerable to another human. We may even decide to admit our wrongs piecemeal to various persons. This is so we can find others who are guilty of what we think might be certain infractions of God's laws. That way we will not have to confess particular offenses to anyone who is not as guilty of the same misdeeds as we are. Very often the difference between our feelings about sex and what we have been taught as proper may drive us to this extreme. Thieves will seek thieves to confide in. Murderers will confess only to other murderers. The point is that we are not admitting to God, to ourselves, and to another human being that we have lied, stolen, or murdered. What we are doing is admitting to God, to ourselves, and to somebody else what we are like now, and what about ourselves is currently wrong, not what used to be wrong. But why is there anything wrong now that we have turned our wills and our lives over to the care of God? Perhaps the nature of our wrong is that we did not let go of our will, and our will therefore has not let us go. We must ask ourselves, do we trust our will? If my will urges me to go ahead and do something that prior conditioning by society tells me not to do, which do I trust? The will I have turned over to the care of God or the will previously conditioned by society? If I turn my will over to God, I will trust it. Either that or I didn't turn it over. If I let society overrule my will, which is in God's care, I am exerting self-management and not allowing God management to occur. My creator must be permitted to create what society seeks to control, my desires. If my will, which is all the consciousness I possess, is in God's care, then God alone will create the desires he puts into my will. If I lack courage to go ahead and do the things God makes my will want to do, then the nature of my wrong is that I trust society more than I trust God. I lack the courage needed to gamble that my wants are now being created by God. I am afraid God may not actually be taking care of my will and creating my wants. This is understandable because many things I want to do are things society taught me were wrong before I ever heard of the Twelve Steps. This may make me doubt God actually has taken over my will, even though I ask him to. The nature of my wrong might be lack of faith. It could be lackof courage. It couldbe fear. Fear to go ahead and do what I want in the face of prior training by society. If there is fear, it means we have not taken the step before this one. We've not yet taken a fearless inventory, and we've not taken a third step. If we have nicht turned our wills and lives over to the care of God, now is the time to do so. Then we can fearlessly go ahead with step four, return to where we are now, and again admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. when we have shared our weaknesses three ways with someone else ourselves and with God we may move ahead to the next step and learn how God can guide us out of the dilemma all who have tackled step five found ourselves in