December 12
When the Answer Is Silence
We ask for guidance and wait. No clear answer comes. The decision remains difficult, and the familiar feeling we associate with prayer is absent. We may wonder whether we are doing something wrong, or whether the help we once trusted has stopped being available. Uncertainty becomes harder when we add the belief that a spiritually fit person would already know what to do.
Our own wishes can be mistaken for definite directions from God, a risk Step Eleven cautions against. That caution allows a humbler kind of faith: we can seek guidance without claiming certainty. Conversation, facts, conscience, and time may all have a part in a decision. We can make the best judgment available and remain willing to learn. The absence of a special feeling does not settle the question of whether we have been heard. Prayer is still possible while we do not know what the answer will be.
How might I remain open to guidance without demanding a feeling of certainty?
The prayer is honest even without an immediate answer.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step Eleven, pp. 102–104.