Promises
“12 Promises of AA
1. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. 2. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. 3. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. 4. We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace. 5. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. 6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. 7. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. 8. Self-seeking will slip away. 9. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. 10. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. 11. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. 12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”
Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous pp. 83-84
Keller Dining Hall, Camp Mitchell, Diocese of Arkansas
Do you see any similarity between the promises of a 12-step program and the nine fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5: 22-23)? Paul writes that we know and feel we are connected to the Spirit, the God within us if the consequence, the fruit, of what we are doing produces “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self-control.” The promises and the fruit of the Spirit are both guides, benchmarks telling us if we truly on the right track, if we are connected to the God, the Christ, the Spirit within us. When two disciplines tell me a similar truth, I begin to believe and pay attention to this truth.
Joanna joannaseibert.com