Prayer & Meditation in the Big Book

Never was I to pray for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others.

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

In meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter.

To sum up about sex: We earnestly pray for the right ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity, and for the strength to do the right thing.

I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.

Each might pray about it, having the other one’s happiness uppermost in mind.

So we clean house with the family, asking each morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness and love.

Step Eleven suggests prayer and meditation.

We shouldn’t be shy on this matter of prayer.

We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems.

We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends.

If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation.

If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing.

We have prayed, we have begged, we have been patient.

When this happens, they can be invited to join in morning meditation and then they can take part in the daily discussion without rancor or bias.

I’ve prayed to God on hangover mornings and sworn that I’d never touch another drop but by nine o’clock I’d be boiled as an owl.”

Ask Him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick.