February 11 — God Box
Almost everyone has problems. Anxiety. Depression. Frustration. Regret. Life shows up swinging — it happens. And nobody specializes in sitting with that stuff quite like a bunch of bottomed-out alcoholics.
Somewhere along the way, many of us heard about something called a God Box. Some people call it a surrender box. Leave it to alcoholics to make spirituality hands-on and painfully simple.
Here’s how it works. We make a box — any box. Then we write down our problems, worries, resentments, fears, and frustrations. One per piece of paper. This part’s private. Nobody else ever has to see it.
Then we put them in the box.
That’s the surrender part.
Here’s the hard part: once it’s in the box, we don’t get to work on it anymore. We don’t fix it, rehearse it, control it, or mentally reopen it at three in the morning. We let God do His thing.
Then comes the even harder part — paying attention.
Because answers tend to show up quietly. Sometimes the obvious solution is acceptance. Sometimes it’s a conversation we didn’t plan on. Sometimes it’s a person crossing our path at exactly the right time. Sometimes the problem doesn’t change — but we do.
The key is this: don’t touch what’s in the box. The temptation will come. The urge to take it back, rethink it, manage it, or “just check on it” will show up. We let that urge pass.
We trust that we’re doing the next right thing today and let go of the rest. That’s not quitting. That’s trusting. And for alcoholics like us, that can feel unfamiliar — but it works.
What’s something you’ve been tempted to take back after surrendering it — and what helps you let that urge pass?
