Step 2: Who is God? How can I come to believe in a Power greater than myself?

Currently I am taking someone through the steps 1:1, and I am learning so much from this experience. I wanted to share some of the insights that I gained on Step 2 with this person.

In Step 2, we are faced with the task of coming to believe in a Power greater than ourselves who can and will restore us to sanity. When we work a spiritual program of recovery, we consciously and actively attempt to become part of something bigger, greater and more powerful than we are on our own.

In order to have a relationship with God, we each need to know what qualities we need God to have in order to have faith in Him. What is our conception of who God is based on our own personal experiences?

When doing this step together, we did this wonderful exercise on what qualities we need God to have for us.

Below are the questions and each of our individual answers.

If you were to become paralyzed and had to hire someone to take care of you, what qualities would you want them to have? (Write these down)

Sponsor: dependable, reliable, loyal, trustworthy, caring, devoted and loving.

Sponsee: supportive, non-judgmental, caring, competent, empathetic.

You are about to be born and the stork turns to you and asks how would you like your mother to treat you (take care of me, teach me right from wrong, etc.) – what qualities would you want her to have? (loving, caring, kind, etc.) (Write these down)

Sponsor: take care of me, be reliable, kind, gentle and loving.

Sponsee: supportive, caring, good listener, good role model, trustworthy, loving, non-judgmental, encouraging.

Then the stork asks about your father. How would you like your father to treat you? What qualities would you want him to have? (i.e., protecting, strong, etc.) Write these down.

Sponsor: strong, powerful, protective, reliable, caring and giving.

Sponsee: warm, loving, strong, confident in me, dependable, supportive and encouraging.

Now, think about how this world was created. What qualities do you think this power, thing or person had in order to do this? (All powerful, capable of doing anything, etc. ) Write these down.

Sponsor: powerful, strong, intelligent, capable, and awesome.

Sponsee: generous, merciful, compassionate, powerful, loving, capable.

Use whatever qualities from above that you would like your Higher Power to have in order to define your concept of a Higher Power.

Sponsor: dependable, reliable, loyal, trustworthy, caring, devoted, loving, kind, gentle, strong, powerful, awesome, intelligent, capable.

Sponsee: supportive, non-judgmental, caring, competent, empathetic, good listener, good role model, trustworthy, loving, warm, strong, confident in me, dependable, encouraging, generous, merciful, compassionate, powerful, capable.

So, although some of the qualities overlap, each of us came up with our own personal description of our Higher Power.

In addition, the qualities are accessible and attainable, since we all can be caregivers, parents and creators of our own world.

As it says in the AA Big Book:

55:2 Actually we were fooling ourselves, for deep down in every man, woman, and child, is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves, and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives, are facts as old as man himself.

55:3 We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our make-up, just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but He was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the Great Reality deep down within us. In the last analysis it is only there that He may be found. It was so with us.

This is such a message of hope!