One Man Awake!

One Man Awake
Dick B.
Copyright 2012 Anonymous. All rights reserved

What Do You Say When you hear . . .

“They won’t let us study the Bible in our A.A. group. They say the Bible is religious. They say that A.A. is spiritual, but not religious. And they say the Bible is not conference-approved literature!”

“Every time I mention God in my A.A. meetings, some oldtimer says: “If they had used the word God when I came into A.A., I’d have left the meeting and gotten drunk.”

“When I bring a Bible devotional into my A.A. meeting, place it on the table in front of me, and begin to read—reading from something like the Upper Room, I hear: ‘You can’t do that. It’s against the Traditions.”

Do you. . .

Leave the meeting. Leave the group. Leave A.A. Or start an argument?

Comment that you are not going to any more meetings because you are a Christian, because the others are wrong, and because A.A. is drifting more and more to unbelief and away from God?

Open Alcoholics Anonymous, 4th edition and try to find a quote that shows everyone how wrong the statements are and therefore why you have a right to go right ahead with the supposedly “forbidden” act?

Or, are you ready to LEARN and then act like the “One Man Awake?”

But: Maybe you could just settle for a compromise

And concede to yourself and others that the members, the meetings, and the objectors are just trouble?

And then open your Big Book, read from it, and straighten them all out?And then open your Bible and start quoting verses you think will show others what the “Master” would do?

And then clinch the deal by telling everybody that those troublesome remarks are not even what your sponsor told you was right?

We hope not! For there is a better way: Learn the truth and BECOME the “One man awake!”

The truth is available if you look for it, curb your tongue, learn the correct facts, and then BE the ”One Man Awake”

Maybe you’ll think one man just can’t do what’s needed

But here’s a poem that may help you stiffen your spine, patiently search, ask God’s help, find the facts, and then go and tell to the next one—the one who wants to know

AWAKE
One man awake, awakens another.
The second awakens
His next door brother.
The three awake can rouse a town,
By turning the whole place
Upside down.
The many awake
Can make such a fuss,
It finally awakens the rest of us.
One man up with dawn in his eyes,
Surely then
Multiplies!

Gloria Deo