Monday, September 17, 2012

"As Bill Sees It?" -- As Christ is, So Are We!

One book in the AA literature, "As Bill Sees It", outlines a series of phrases and quotes from the Big Book, from the Twelve and Twelve, and also from the founder's letters and articles in different periodicals.

The vast majority of meetings are run according to the program outlined by this failed stock-broker lawyer.

But a life of "As Bill Sees Is" -- is that the life that men and women are really looking for?

I do not want to live out the life that this man outlines for me. Is Bill W. going to come down from Heaven (or rise up from Hell?) to tell me how to live my life?

This element of the AA program is the most offensive and officious, that men and women gather around the ideas and the life of some drunk who set up a program so that he give himself the impression that his life matter. Yet more often than not, this program does not give life, does not give hope, does not even give answers. The whole thing is a "program", but not "a program for living".

I still cringe when I think about the portraits of Bill W. and "Doctor Bob" in the different meeting halls of AA. The hagiography of Bill W. is full of lies and distortions, teaching men and women to turn their will and lives over to a line of thinking and getting along which has nothing to do with real life.
Instead of "Seeing things" the Way Bill sees things, I choose to look on Him who has saved me in every way:

"If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God." (Colossians 3: 1)

Part of the reason that I focus on Him, is because He is my life (John 10: 10; John 14: 6), and I am seated up there with Him:

"But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,

"Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

"And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:" (Ephesians 2: 4-6)

This kind of love we do not find in a meeting, or greeting other alcoholics,  or reading over and listening over and over to the sob stories of men and women have lost their way, and have found their way into AA meetings, where the "Way" is still not made plain to them.

Forget "As Bill Sees It" -- I am most interested in how God sees me now:

"Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world." (1 John 4: 17)

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