Narcotics Anonymous

Just For Today - Daily Email Service

   November 9                                             The best-laid plans

     "It is our actions that are important.  We leave the results to our
                                Higher Power."

                                                            Basic Text, p. 88

                           ----=----

   There's an old saying we sometimes hear in our meetings:  "If you want
   to make God laugh, make plans."  When we hear this we usually laugh,
   too, but there's a nervous edge to our laughter.   We wonder if all of
   our carefully laid plans are doomed to fail.   If we're planning a big
   event-a wedding, a return to school, or perhaps a career change-we
   begin to wonder if our plans are the same as our Higher Power's plans.
   We are capable of working ourselves into such a frenzy of worry over this
   question that we refuse to make any plans at all.

   But the simple fact is that we really don't know whether our Higher
   Power's plans for our lives are carved in stone or not.  Most of us have
   opinions about fate and destiny but, whether we believe in such theories
   or not, we still have a responsibility to live our lives and make plans
   for the future.   If we refuse to accept responsibility for our lives,
   we're still making plans-plans for a shallow, boring existence.

   What we make in recovery are plans, not results.   We'll never know
   whether the marriage, the education, or the new job is going to work out
   until we try it.   We simply exercise our best judgment, check with our
   sponsor, pray, use all the information at hand, and make the most
   reasonable plans we can.  For the rest, we trust in the loving care of the
   God of our understanding, knowing that we've acted responsibly.

                           ----=----

   Just for today:  I will make plans, but I will not plan the results.   I
   will trust in my Higher Power's loving care.