Years ago I worked with a county probation department. When the managers wanted to give a negative job evaluation, they used the vaguely sinister phrase: "Employee does not work well under supervision." The implication was that, although the probation officer might be skilled, he or she was unreliable and might do something that everyone would regret.

Recently, a patient was complaining about prayers that God had not answered the way the patient wanted God to answer, and I blurted out, "God doesn't work well under supervision."

A common error we make in our relationship with a Higher Power is that we want the Higher Power to do our will, instead of seeking to do our Higher Power's will. Step Eleven states that we "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."

We want a Higher Power who will say yes to our prayers, and then we evaluate and judge God according to how well he fulfills our requests and even our demands. When God does not say yes to our prayers, we judge God harshly, or even refuse to believe in God at all, based on God's poor performance under our supervision.

This mistake can be seen in our prayers. Most prayers, even good and innocent prayers, are more magical than they are faithful. In magic, we try to say the magic words to get God to do our will. In faith, we try to align ourselves in prayer, so that we will know and do God's will. They are exactly opposite each other. Even the innocent child's prayer is usually magical: "God bless mommy and daddy, and the President of the United States, and bring peace around the world, and keep my dog off the freeway." There is nothing wrong with those requests, but the assumption is that God won't care about world peace until he is informed by an astute six year-old.

Instead of informing God of our will in prayer, the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous suggests a model for prayer (pages 85-88). We ask in prayer that our motives be divorced from self-pity, dishonesty, and self-seeking. We ask in prayer for inspiration, an intuitive thought, or a decision. We ask that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be. We ask especially for freedom from self-will.

For example, I led a grief group on a women's unit one day. A woman got off the phone right before grief group. She had just learned that her eight-year-old son had just been diagnosed with his fourth occurrence of cancer in his life. She was devastated. She cried out to the group: "Why is God doing this to me?" After providing her time to cry and grieve, I suggested that "why" questions rarely had answers, but that "what" questions often did have answers. She queried: "Like what?"

I replied, "I might look at it this way: 'My life's reality includes the fact that I am an alcoholic woman in treatment who has just learned that my son has his fourth occurrence of cancer in eight years. What am I meant to do about this?'" She thought a moment and answered: "I'm meant to go home sober and be the mom." I said that sounded like God's will, and it might be that more answers will come if she is open to God's leading.

My suggestion is that we let go of our desire to supervise God for how well God is running the world, and instead spend extra time discerning what God wants us to do, in love and service for each other.

John MacDougall, D Min, is manager of Spiritual Guidance at Hazelden in Center City. He can be reached at jmacdougall@hazelden.org.

--by John MacDougall

Published in The Voice, Winter 2007