"All Powerful, Guiding, Creative Intelligence" (49:0, Alcoholics Anonymous)
"Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from Him who has all knowledge and power." (85:2)
If God is the source of all knowledge and power (= truth and love), my only problem is accessing that knowledge and power.
Most difficulty in my life has flowed from muddling the source, the channel, and the product. All goodness that has come to me—knowledge and power, truth and love—does indeed come from God, but I get attached to and fall for the channel (often an individual or situation temporarily granted 'channel status' in my life). I think I am infatuated with or dependent on the channel, when, in fact, my yearning relates chiefly to the product. Like a dog, I will wag my tail at anyone who will throw me a bone. Then, for whatever reason, that channel dries up, the individual or situation ceases to be a channel—for me—of knowledge and power, truth and love, and I blame the channel. This is like blaming the light switch for a power failure further up the line.
The truth is this: if God truly is big, strong, clever, resourceful, creative, and caring, I have to trust that God's Scoobie Snacks are indeed still available—I just need to look elsewhere for the channel and become ready to receive.
When I was newer in the programme, I was largely a recipient of knowledge and power, truth and love, indirectly through other people, rather than directly from God.
Pretty soon, however, the relationship with the power, the channel, and the source, had to start changing.
Today, the model is this:
God is an infinite reservoir of knowledge and power, truth and love.
I am (we are) the channel(s) between God-As-Source (the realm of the spirit) and the realm of the material (God-As-Manifestation). Like pipes connecting the reservoir with the world, knowledge and power, truth and love flow through us.
"trust in God and clean house" (98:2)
I came to AA like a clogged pipe. I was blocked with resentment, fear, and guilt & shame at past conduct. I tried turning on the outlet tap at the bottom of the pipe to let this out but could not, on my own power, release this poison. The first order of the day is to trust in God—opening the inlet tap at the top of the pipe to connect me to the infinite reservoir of knowledge and power, truth and love. That requires trust. Simple physics does the rest, though. Once the inlet tap was opened at the top, flow was possible, and all of the resentment, fear, and guilt & shame started to flow out of me. Steps Four through Nine start to ease loose the accumulated residues, but, essentially, the natural force of gravity—the weight of heaven that desires nothing more than to descend to earth ("Bow thy heavens, O Lord, and come down." (Psalm 144:5))—does the work.
So, I am now connected with the power at the top end; the channel is unclogged.
What next?
"work and self-sacrifice for others" (15:0)
"My wife and I abandoned ourselves with enthusiasm to the idea of helping other alcoholics to a solution of their problems." (15:1)
This, effectively, is keeping the tap at the bottom of the pipe open at all times, to let God's knowledge and power, truth and love flow through me.
Trouble is, selfishness gets in the way. I become scared that God is something less than the infinite reservoir of knowledge and power, truth and love, and decide I need to hold on to the water flowing through me, in case I run out ("he may try to hug the new treasure to himself." (129:0))
A second problem: spiritual pride. I decide who should be the recipient of what I have to offer; I discriminate; I become a 'respecter of persons'; I ration, hold back, try to direct the flow as I see fit. And the outlet tap at the bottom of the pipe gradually gets turned off.
I stop sensing the inflow of knowledge and power, truth and love at the top, and become still more selfish and still more discriminating, as fear of lack and limitation cause me to become defensive. Pretty soon, I am giving nothing and receiving nothing. Once I am in lack and limitation, the fallacy that I need to receive by grasping—by wresting happiness and satisfaction from this world (61:1)—takes hold once more.
What is worse, the small, residual quantity of knowledge and power, love and truth—the standing water in the pipe—becomes stagnant and sour. Then I am really in trouble.
The answer is counter-intuitive. In the realm of the material, anything hungry needs feeding. In the realm of the spirit, anything hungry may need, instead, to feed rather than to be fed, to be fed by feeding. The answer, if I am feeling no inflow at the top, is to turn back on the outflow at the bottom, to let out the small amount of knowledge and power, love and truth I have left.
I need to give up my last ounce, to give everything I have, not out of my abundance, but out of my poverty.
"And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had." (Luke 21:1–4)
I need to give everything I have to those around me. All of my time, all of my thought, all of my energy.
"He may not see at once that he has barely scratched a limitless lode which will pay dividends only if he mines if for the rest of his life and insists on giving away the entire product." (129:0)
This is the fate of the servant who does not invest the gifts of his master but tries to hold onto them out of fear that God will not provide:
"For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 25:29–30)
As soon as the flow out of me starts, as soon as the tap at the bottom of the pipe is turned on, gravity does its work, and heaven comes down to earth through me.
Finally, the last, great mistake is this: I believed that the "pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal" (Revelation 22:1) was the joy itself, the inheritance, that for which I was working, the purpose behind the Steps.
I have learned that the joy is not in the presence of the water of life in me but the flow of that water through me.
Moreover that flow works both ways: as I love, I am loved, not only through the flow of love into me directly from God but as reflected back at me when I work with others. That is what has healed me: the love I have received from others has chiefly been love reflected back at me that I have channelled to them, with God as the original source.
"Show him these things in yourself and they will be reflected back to you from him." (118:2)
As long as I remember that God is the source, I will always be secure, because the love I receive from the world starts with the love I give to the world, and no one can cut off my connection with the source of that love but me.